Then, as we began our trip west on the Interstate about 11:30 a.m., it began to sprinkle a bit. By lunchtime it was raining much harder and continued to rain briskly as we pulled into the truck stop at Belle, Utah for lunch.
Off and on for the next couple of hours, it took turns raining and not raining. When we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats rest area, we were fortunate that it wasn't raining that particular moment, and I managed to grab a couple of photos.
We were also lucky that it wasn't raining when we pulled into the Wendover KOA for the night. At that time, the sun happened to be shining, and I was able to do the complete setup without seeing as much as a drop.
Incredibly, when I came in and got ready to take a shower, the rain came back. By the time I was out of the shower, it was hailing like crazy. I even shot a photo of a picnic table nearby that was entirely blanketed with hail.
As I sit here typing on a day where there's been not much to type about, I can't help reflecting on things that occurred to me while I was driving. For instance, I first saw Salt Lake City way back in 1962 when it was a fairly quiet city of about 189,000 people, I imagine mostly Mormons. Since I have many Mormon ancestors myself, I know that the Mormons came west to escape persecution from states like Missouri and Illinos.
For instance, in 1838 the Governor of Missouri told the Mormons that they had to be out of the his state by a certain date or they would all be killed. Basically, the same thing happened in Illinois when the Mormons were driven out of their city of Nauvoo during the dead of winter in 1847. The bottom line here is that ignorant Americans back then thought Mormons were a danger to society and would never be productive and valuable citizens in America.
Today it occurred to me as we traveled north toward the booming metropolis of Salt Lake City, and passed mile after mile of bustling economic activity, that the Mormons had been better citizens than anyone gave them credit for. Salt Lake City WAS the perfect place for an industrious, hard-working people to found a city that now out shines many of America's best known cities.
In 1852, he returned east to locate his oldest son who was still living in Missouri. The son, John S. Daley, returned with his dad to Springville in 1853. It's my belief that John S. Daley remained behind in Missouri with his younger brother in 1848 to work as teamsters for the American Army during the Mexican War. By the time the father arrived in Missouri, the younger son had died, though I have no idea where, when, or how.
By 1861, John S. Daley was a farmer, had a new wife and three kids, and had gotten through a rather major scrape with the law. But in May of that year, John mysteriously disappeared, some say at the hands of Indians. Still, there is no official proof that I have found that authentically documents what happened to him
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