Afternoon Jeep Ride

Well, the day that Michael has been waiting for finally came to pass a few weekends ago. Don't judge me for how long it has taken to complete this post. All I can say is...I'm a slacker. Anyway, the famous Black family "Red Jeep" is now in working order and Michael and I were able to take it for a nice ride up Butterfield Canyon the other weekend. 

The jeep did a great job for her first real ride in many years. Michael's dad drove this 1952 Willy Z Jeep when he was in high school. He and Michael have been working on restoring it for about a year now and after all the setbacks (losing parts, things breaking, having to take the engine out completely, etc.) it works!

Notice my excitement!

 What a proud stance by that handsome hubby of mine. We stopped to take a little break halfway up the canyon and walked around a bit.  People kept driving by in their newer jeeps and SUVs and stopped to compliment us on our "original" jeep.

 And what should appear but a happy little deer in the clearing not 20 feet from our jeep. It stopped to look at us, then scampered off up the mountain. From the way he was staring at us, you could tell he was thinking, "Who are you and what are you doing in my crib?"

As you can see, the top of Butterfield Canyon looks out over the Kennecott Copper Mine. I'd never seen it before and it is definitely HUGE like everyone describes. You can't see it in this picture, but they do have enormous sized trucks (like, their tires are 10 times as tall as a regular truck) that carry everything up the roads in there. We also had a nice lookout to all of Salt Lake Valley and had fun locating the temples while eating a simple sandwich lunch that I packed.

Also, when we got to the top, many different people came over to check out the jeep. They had lots of questions, which luckily, Michael could answer. You should see his face when he talks about all the work he put into it. He is so proud! I told Michael's dad that he's pretty much going to have to will the jeep to Michael someday after all the time, labor, and love Michael put into it alongside his dad. ;)