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Barbie Styled by Design Doll 1. First doll in the Styled by Design Series, designer Suim Noh

Hello and welcome to another edition of "What one could expect to see while meandering around Bill's apartment" (Until Sales and Marketing comes up with a new title, we're going with that one for brand recognition.)

 

I figured that with the previous post of lobster, I'll keep the food thing going. After all, it does meet the criteria of "....what one could expect..."

 

As the title suggests, this is a new addition to my (already pretty decent) cooking repertoire. White pizza! This one is half plain and half spinach and mushrooms. I had the whole thing polished off in no short order....I was hungry and I'm oh so happy with the product.

 

Barring some outlandishly-fantastic-so truly-awesome food item, I hereby swear that this will be (at least for the time being) the end of the food-related posts. There's plenty more to shoot in the rest of my apartment.

 

One last note:

I will accept orders for delivery. Depending on location, prices start at $149.00.For a limited time, I am offering new customers a 10% off their total order. Hurry! Supplies are limited! (Batteries not included; some assembly required; actual product may differ in size and appearance; some exclusions apply; void where prohibited; see store for details)

8407 Rainier Ave S

Seattle, Washington

 

Realty listing said this addition of 400 square feet was added in 1969 and originally opened as a barber shop. I can't find the official name of the alterations shop, but next time I'm enjoying an Ethiopian dinner where the table is set with a place mat printed with the Ethiopian alphabet, I'll see what I can figure out. Walking this neighborhood, I really got a craving from the smells of kitchens cooking that wonderful food.

Recently ordered some pieces to expand my military and Indiana Jones collections

In addition to the Wrightbus Streetlite's (63256-76) at Midland Bluebird (Larbert), Scotland East (Livingston, Deans) have recieved five (63251-5) in the two tone blue livery. SN65 OKR (63251) is seen here in Whitburn whilst working service 22 (Harthill-Livingston). Despite the fleet numbering, this is October 2015 registered whilst Larbert's were September registered. Note that this carries First Midland Bluebird lettering above the doors.

Another addition to my collection of 1930's civilian vehicles!

I built this one because I felt like I needed a convertible in the collection and because I find the real deal to be great looking, even cute: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/images/car_spotters_guide/e...

 

Next up is the 1937 e83w Fordson pick-up :D

 

Hope you like!

C&C is more than welcome!

The new additions of this last year:

 

- leichter Schützenpanzerwagen SdKfz 250/1

- Panzerabwehrkanone PaK 43 L/71 88mm.

- Mittlerer Schützenpanzerwagen SdKfz 251/4

- Lkw Ford V3000S

- Sturmgeschütz III Ausf E SdKfz 142

- Panzer III Ausf J SdKfz 141/1

- Panzerabwehrkanone PaK 40 L/46 75mm.

- Sturmhaubitze 42 SdKfz 142/2

- Sturmgeschütz III Ausf G SdKfz 142/1

- Zugkraftwagen SdKfz 11/1 FlaK 38 20mm.

- Sturminfanteriegeschütz 33B

- Panzer III Ausf N SdKfz 141/2

- Panzer III Ausf M SdKfz 141/1

- Sturmgeschütz III Befehlswagen Ausf G SdKfz 142/1

- Panzer 38(t) Ausf F SdKfz 140

- Flakpanzer IV Wirbelwind SdKfz 161/4

- Sturmpanzer 38(t) Ausf H Grille SdKfz 138/1

- Lkw Opel Blitz 3600A 3t

- Lkw Büssing NAG 4500A Kranwagen Kfz 100

- Lkw MAN 8t F4

- Panzerbefehlswagen III Ausf K SdKfz 267

- Panzerabwehrkanone PaK 41 L/58 75mm.

- Zugkraftwagen SdKfz 6

- Zugkraftwagen SdKfz 6/1

- Zugkraftwagen SdKfz 6/2 FlaK 36 37mm.

- Lkw Opel Blitz 3t Typ Krankenwagen

- Panzer III Ausf H SdKfz 141

- Pkw Stoewer Typ 40 Kfz 1

While that addition of the Drive Up service was the main update I wanted to share with you from this store, the Olive Branch Target did have a few more goings-on recently that are pertinent enough for me to include in today's photoset. For instance, as we turn back the clock just a little bit in order to approach the store slightly earlier in the month of May 2018, we see this notice on the doors, saying that the in-store Starbucks closed after Cinco de Mayo so that some “renovations” could take place.

 

(c) 2018 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

After 2011-2014 modernization of the Fulcrum fleet, numerous system of the MiG-29 were updated, including navigational suite, mission computer, addition of the MIL-STD 1553 serial data bus, and introduction of the 5x4 inches MFCD display in the cockpit. The presented herewith cockpit is a rather detailed representation of its current look in the actual aircraft. Unfortunately, while the modernization was certainly an improvement, especially in terms of reducing the pilot’s workload, it must be considered just an interim solution, as the capabilities of the Fulcrums were increased only incrementally, without interfering with aircraft’s hardware e.g. radar, or expanding the weapons’ variety. Consequently, while still beloved by its pilots, polish MiGs with each passing year are becoming increasingly outdated, and are set for retirement around 2030.

VOS Passion

 

LENGTH 83.4m

BREADTH 18m

ORDER YEAR October 2013

COMPLETION August 2016

OWNER Vroon Offshore Services

BUILDER COSCO Guangdong Shipyard

DESIGNER Ulstein Group

DEADWEIGHT 3,650gwt

MAXIMUM SPEED 15kt

  

The ship is equipped with class-2 dynamic positioning system. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion platform supply vessel is one of six vessels based on PX121 design.

 

The naming ceremony for VOS Passion took place in July 2016. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion features X-BOW design concept that enables smoother navigation in harsh waters. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.

 

The ship is equipped with class-2 dynamic positioning system. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion platform supply vessel is one of six vessels based on PX121 design. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.

 

VOS Passion is a platform supply vessel operated by Vroon Offshore Services, an international shipping company. The vessel was built by COSCO Guangdong Shipyard in China and delivered to Vroon in August 2016.

 

The ship is the fourth of six vessels ordered by Vroon, of which VOS Pace (2015), VOS Paradise (2015) and VOS Partner (2016) have been delivered, while VOS Patience and VOS Patriot are under construction and scheduled for delivery in 2016.

 

Vroon’s PSV fleet is used for a range of operations, including cargo transportation, bulk transfers, fire-fighting, oil-spill recovery and safety standby. The vessels’ unique design enables them to support longer and deeper offshore drilling activities.

 

VOS Passion design

VOS Passion has an overall length of 83.4m, a moulded breadth of 18m and a clear deck area spanning 850m². The vessel’s maximum draft is 6.7m, maximum deadweight capacity is 4,200t and gross tonnage is 3,650gwt.

 

The ship design is based on the PX121 design developed by Norway-based Ulstein Group. All of the remaining five vessels ordered by Vroon are also based on the same design.

 

The PX121 design features Ulstein’s patented X-BOW concept, which enables smoother vessel navigation in harsh conditions.

 

Vessels with conventional bow designs rise on waves and drop violently onto the water, making navigation in adverse environments difficult. The X-BOW design, on the other hand, enables smoother navigation by minimising wave slamming and bow impact.

 

The X-BOW concept features a slender hull and a tapered fore, which provides more displacement volume. The vessel pierces smaller waves, and is therefore less affected by the vertical motions of the water.

 

It also uses less fuel to navigate through the waves, saving energy. In addition, the design reduces noise and vibration, improving crew comfort and safety levels.

 

Navigation and communication of the platform supply vessel

The ship’s navigation equipment includes an X-band radar, an S-band radar, two McMurdo S4 radio transponder units, a JRC eco sounder, a Navi-Sailor multi-function display, and a Yokogawa gyro compass.

 

The vessel is fitted with communication applications, including a JRC medium / high-frequency radio, a JRC portable VHF radio, McMurdo E5 Satellite EPIRB, two Inmarsat-C systems and two McMurdo S4 SART systems.

 

Deck machinery and fire-fighting equipment

Deck machinery aboard the VOS Passion includes two 10t tuggers, two 10t capstans and one 3t crane with a safe working load of 18m.

 

The ship is equipped with ABS FiFi class-I fire-fighting systems with a monitor capacity of 1,200m³/h and a throw of more than 120m.

 

VOS Passion propulsion system

The ship is fitted with four diesel generator engines, including two 1,639kW engines and two 990kW engines, as well as a 130ekW emergency generator.

 

The vessel is propelled by two diesel-electric Azimuth thrusters with a capacity of 3,800kW. It also features two 1,600kW Schottel stern thrusters and two bow thrusters.

 

"Deck machinery aboard the VOS Passion includes two 10t tuggers, two 10t capstans and one 3t crane with a safe working load of 18m."

The maximum speed of the vessel is 15kt.

 

Tank capacities and cargo handling systems

The ship is capable of storing 1,035m³ of fresh water, 1,674m³ of drill water, 1,464m³ of fuel, 1,293m³ of liquid mud, 150m³ of methanol, 260m³ of dry bulk and 127m³ of base oil. The ship is also fitted with heeling tanks with a capacity of 391.4m³.

 

Accommodation and life-saving facilities onboard VOS Passion

VOS Passion can accommodate 26 crew members in 14 single and six double cabins featuring hotel-type comfort beds. It is fitted with two anti-rolling tanks to increase crew comfort.

 

The ship is equipped with two 20-man life rafts and one six-man raft on each side. A man overboard boat (MOB) capable of accommodating six persons is also available.

 

Contractors

Ulstein was contracted by COSCO Guangdong Shipyard to supply power and control systems and to provide on-site services for the Vroon vessels.

Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire.

Grade l listed.

 

South or Garden Front.

 

Asymmetrical, with eleven bays to the main ranges, and a five bay centre incorporating the remnants of the C17 gabled house.

 

The house was originally built in 1625 by George Sitwell (1601–1667), The Sitwell fortune was made as colliery owners and ironmasters from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Substantial alterations and the addition of the west and east ranges were made to the building for Sir Sitwell Sitwell, 1st Baronet (1769-1811) by Joseph Badger of Sheffield between 1793 and 1808.

 

The formal garden was laid out from 1879 by Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943).

 

The-principal flight of steps lies on the central axis to the garden, with the steps linking the first and second levels, and becoming wider as they descend. The piers support full size statues of Neptune and Diana, each with accompanying dog.

 

The steps, walls & statues are Grade ll listed.

 

--------------------------------------

 

Renishaw Hall

 

Renishaw Hall is a country house in Renishaw in the parish of Eckington in Derbyshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building and has been the home of the Sitwell family for over 350 years. The hall is located south-east of Sheffield, and north of Renishaw village, which is north-east of Chesterfield.

 

History

 

The house was built in 1625 by George Sitwell (1601–67) who, in 1653, was High Sheriff of Derbyshire. The Sitwell fortune was made as colliery owners and ironmasters from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

 

Substantial alterations and the addition of the west and east ranges were made to the building for Sir Sitwell Sitwell by Joseph Badger of Sheffield between 1793 and 1808 and further alterations were made in 1908 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Renishaw had two owners between 1862 (when Sir George Sitwell succeeded in his infancy) and 1965, when Sir Osbert Sitwell gave the house to his nephew, Sir Reresby Sitwell, 7th Baronet. He was the eldest son of Sir Sacheverell Sitwell brother of Edith and Osbert and owned the hall from 1965 until 2009 when he bequeathed it to his daughter, Alexandra Hayward. The house and estate are separated from the Renishaw baronetcy for the first time in the family's history. Sir George Sitwell lives at Weston Hall.

 

Architecture

 

The house was built in stages and has an irregular plan. It is constructed in ashlar and coursed rubble coal measures sandstone with crenellated parapets with pinnacles. It has pitched slate roofs.

 

Gardens

 

The gardens, including an Italianate garden laid out by Sir George Sitwell (1860–1943), are open to the public. The hall is open for groups by private arrangement. The park is listed in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England as Grade II*.

 

The 1980 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice used footage shot at Renishaw Hall. D. H. Lawrence is said to have used the local village of Eckington and Renishaw Hall as inspiration for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.

   

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renishaw_Hall

 

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1054857

 

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000683

 

www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/renishaw_hall_garden

 

www.visitchesterfield.info/things-to-do/renishaw-hall-and...

 

www.kevinwgelder.com/renishaw-hall/

 

www.thegardeningwebsite.co.uk/renishaw-hall-and-gardens-c...

 

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/GardenDetails/RENISHAW-HALL

 

www.renishaw-hall.co.uk

 

--------------------------------------

 

Renishaw Hall

 

Heritage Category: Park and Garden

 

Grade: II*

 

List Entry Number: 1000683

  

Location

 

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

 

County: Derbyshire

 

District: North East Derbyshire (District Authority)

 

Parish: Eckington

 

National Grid Reference: SK4345978378

  

Details

 

Gardens and a park of the late C19 and early C20 with C17 origins which were laid out by Sir George Sitwell.

 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

 

The Sitwell family appear in records of 1301 when they were resident at Ridgeway, c 2km from Renishaw. The family settled in Stavely Netherthorpe in the earlier C16 and the site at Renishaw was acquired by Robert Sytwell in the mid C16 when he bought fields and common land. By 1600 it had become the family seat. The family acquired wealth through their ironworks which by the end of the C17 were the largest producers of iron nails in the world. The estate passed through marriage to the Hurt family who changed their name to Sitwell in 1777. Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943), fourth baronet, was responsible for the layout of the formal gardens and wrote On the Making of Gardens in 1909. The estate has remained in the Sitwell family since that time and is in private ownership (1998).

 

DESCRIPTION

 

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

 

Renishaw Hall lies to the west of the village of Renishaw from which it is divided by a railway line. The village of Eckington lies to the north-west, there are open fields to the north-east and west, and an opencast mine to the south. To the north and west the boundary is formed by Staveley Lane, the B6053, and to the east by the A616. Fencing divides the south side of the park from an opencast mine. The c 100ha site is on land which falls to the east.

 

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

 

The main entrance is on the north-east side of the site where gates lead to a drive running south-west from the A616. Some 100m south-west of the entrance there is an early C19 lodge and entrance archway (listed grade II) which was designed by Sir Sitwell Sitwell and moved to this position in the mid C19. The drive turns north-west up a hill and continues westwards to the Hall and stables. An entrance with gates on the north side of the site runs south from the B6053. On the south-west side of the site there is an entrance from Staveley Lane from which a track leads north through Chesterfield Approach Plantation. The track continues north-east from the edge of the Plantation and from this point trees alongside it are the remains of an avenue shown on the large-scale OS map of 1875 which was probably part of a system of avenues shown on an C18 estate map.

 

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

 

Renishaw Hall (listed grade I) was built in c 1625 by George Sitwell as an H-plan house. The building was altered and extended 1793-1808 by Joseph Badger for Sitwell Sitwell, first baronet. Edwin Lutyens (1866-1944) was responsible for interior alterations in 1909. The Hall is in use as a private residence (1998).

 

Stables (listed grade II*) by Badger are ranged around a courtyard c 100m north-west of the Hall.

 

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

 

On the north side of the Hall there are lawns in an area shown on the C18 estate map as an enclosure. There are views north over parkland and agricultural land beyond. Formal gardens lie on the south side of the Hall axially aligned with its south front. They consist of rectangular compartments divided from one another by clipped hedges which are terraced down to the south in three stages, as well as occupying different levels as the land falls to the east. A terrace running along the front of the Hall overlooks a square lawn lined with topiary on the east and west sides which divides it from two smaller lawns called the First Candle on the west side and the Second Candle to the east. Each of these areas has a fountain, the appearance of which gave rise to the name. A bank divides the First Candle from an area of higher ground called Top Lawn where a lime avenue runs north/south along the length of the gardens. This is one of several avenues shown on the C18 estate map and probably represents one of the only surviving features of a layout instituted in c 1698 by George Sitwell which included walled orchards and yew hedges. To the west of the avenue, c 60m south-west of the Hall, there is a gothick temple (listed grade II) which was designed by Joseph Badger in the early C19 as an aviary and is now used as a pet cemetery (1998).

 

A second terraced walk lined with clipped hedges runs east/west across the garden, c 50m south of the Hall. At the east end the walk leads through a gateway into woodland called Broxhill Wood which is marked 'Little Old Orchard' on the C18 estate map. A classical temple of late C20 date lies c 120m south-east of the Hall in the woodland. The walk overlooks a central lawn with a circular swimming pool. In a compartment to the east called Lower Lawn there is a water garden which consists of a central sub-rectangular island with clipped hedges within a rectangular water-filled enclosure. On the west side of the swimming pool an enclosure with lawns is called the Buttress Garden for the buttressed wall which divides it from Top Lawn to the west. Clipped hedges divide these areas from a grass walk running along the top of a ha-ha, c 100m south of the Hall, which runs east/west across the bottom of the garden. This overlooks a central semicircular lawn divided from the park by railings. There are views to the south of the lakes and parkland.

 

The C18 map shows the Hall surrounded by gardens laid out in geometrical patterns with quartering paths, and the area south of these is marked 'Great Old Orchard'. The layout shown probably represents that instituted by George Sitwell in c 1698. The 1875 OS map shows that apart from a small area on the south-east side of the Hall, the formal gardens had been swept away, and a lawn, divided from the park by a ha-ha and flanked by the lime avenue, is shown on the south side of the Hall.

 

PARK

 

There is parkland on all sides of the Hall. To the north the land falls and the north-east part of the park is laid out as a golf course which was created in the early C20. Old Waterworks Plantation shelters part of the north-east boundary, and North Wood, which is to the west of the drive from Eckington, separates the golf course from parkland to the west. Some 350m west of the Hall is a set of walled paddocks, shown on the 1875 OS map, which probably originated as a stud farm and are now (1998) vineyards. Chesterfield Approach Plantation lies immediately south of the paddocks and in the area between this and the gardens there are the remains of at least one lime avenue, shown on the 1875 OS map, which survives from the formal layout shown on the C18 estate map and runs parallel to the avenue within the garden.

 

East and south of the Hall the land falls and in the valley there are two lakes. The northernmost is the smaller of the two, and the southern lake, which has an island near its south-east shore, is c 500m in length. Sir George Sitwell was MP for Scarborough and conceived of the scheme to construct the lakes as relief for the unemployed in his constituency and they were duly created by unemployed fishermen in the closing years of the C19. To the north of the lake is Renishaw Wood and Broxhill Wood, and along the east boundary Willowbed Plantation, designed to screen the railway and ironworks. The planting in this and possibly in other areas of the park was directed by William Milner who was employed by Sir George in 1890. The land rises up to the south and west from the lake with Halfmoon Plantation sheltering the south-east boundary. A patch of woodland on the sloping land c 800m south-west of the house is called Milner Plantation.

 

KITCHEN GARDEN

 

Some 200m south-west of the Hall are the remains of a kitchen garden. An orangery entered from the north side from a door with a pedimented doorcase is in ruinous condition (1998), as are the attached walls which have arched entrances. A tennis court lies south of the orangery. The 1875 OS map shows the garden with two compartments, the southern of which occupied the tennis court area. Another kitchen garden, also shown on the 1875 OS map, lies immediately west of the stable block. It is walled and has a number of free-standing glasshouses, some of which are probably of late C19 or early C20 date.

 

Legacy

 

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

 

Legacy System number: 1674

 

Legacy System: Parks and Gardens

  

Sources

 

Books and journals

 

Jellicoe, G, Jellicoe, S (at al), The Oxford Companion to Gardens, (1986), 519-20

Sitwell, R, The Garden at Renishaw Hall, (c1995)

Sitwell, R, Renishaw Hall, (c1995)

 

Other

 

Country Life (14 May 1948), pp 506-11

Country Life, 162 (1 September 1977), pp 522-5

Country Life, 83 (7 May 1948), pp 476-80

Estate Map, probably early C18 (private collection)

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1875

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874-5

 

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000683

Mounts Bay Coaches 2006 BMC Condor, YK55 AUN, "Trevithick".

The Muses have definitely taken over at my house..............I bought very few dolls from other lines this year, as my focus has definitely shifted to the Muses.

The Château de La Ferté-Imbault (Loir-et-Cher) is a stately home in the Loire Valley, France. A fortress of the Middle Ages rebuilt during the Renaissance, it is the largest brick château in Sologne, and one of the oldest. It was the family seat of the House of d'Estampes for four centuries.

 

The seigneurie (lordship) of La Ferté-Imbault was the largest in the south of Sologne, whose lands included the parishes of Salbris, Saint-Genou (now Selles-Saint-Denis), Marcilly, Loreux and Souesmes. It comprised more than one hundred farms spread over tens of thousands of hectares, stretching from Loreux to Souesmes and from Saint-Viâtre to Theillay.

 

The château is a large "rectangular building, with large and fine windows, and flanked by four towers ; shrubberies and alleys of mature trees lend an air of grandeur and poetry that strikes both the heart and the imagination". Its position "is quite pleasant and joyful, in a place where the Sauldre divides into several channels ... The red turrets of the château rise amid these waters and this greenery, and crown marvellously the rich picture".

 

Traces of Roman occupation were found on the site of the present château.

 

The first medieval fortress was built around 980 by Humbold (or Humbault) Le Tortu, Seigneur de Vierzon and son-in-law of Thibault, comte de Blois. The foundations of the two main towers remain to this day, as does the old armoury. The nearby Sauldre feeds the moat. Hervé I, lord at Vierzon, a descendant of Humbold, on his return from the Crusades, had a collegiate church built in honor of Saint Taurinus. This church and the need to supply the fortress favored the emergence of the village of La Ferté-Imbault around it. In 1280 Jeanne de Vierzon, heiress to the lands of La Ferté-Imbault, married Godfrey of Brabant, comte d'Aerschot, son of Henry III, Duke of Brabant and Adelaide of Burgundy, Duchess of Brabant.

 

Godfrey of Brabant was the brother-in-law of the King of France, Philip III the Bold. His daughter, Alix de Brabant, married Jean III d'Harcourt in 1302. His marriage to the rich heiress Alix de Brabant, which brought him the seigneurie of La Ferté-Imbault, made him a close relative of Henry III, Duke of Brabant and the kings of France, as Alix was also the niece of the queen of France, Marie de Brabant.

 

The son of Jean III d'Harcourt and Alix de Brabant, Jean IV, first comte d'Harcourt, married Isabeau de Parthenay. Their son Guillaume d'Harcourt was the seigneur of La Ferté-Imbault. From his marriage to Blanche de Bray, Dame de Cernon, he had one daughter, Jeanne d'Harcourt, Dame de La Ferté-Imbault, who married Hugues de Montmorency. Their sons, Louis and Antoine, died at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) and the Battle of Verneuil (1424) respectively. Their sister, Catherine de Montmorency, inherited the vast estate of La Ferté-Imbault after the deaths of her two brothers.

 

During the Hundred Years' War, the castle and village were taken and destroyed by the troops of Edward the Black Prince. After belonging for several uninterrupted centuries to the dynasty of Humbold Le Tortu, Seigneur of Vierzon, by the alliance of the families of Brabant, Harcourt and Montmorency, the estate was sold by Catherine de Montmorency to Robert II d'Estampes, Seigneur de Valençay, in 1424. Joan of Arc stayed at La Ferté-Imbault on March 4, 1429.

 

The castle was rebuilt during the Renaissance. Royal power was present nearby in Blois, and Francis I of France came from neighboring Romorantin.

 

Partially destroyed by a fire in 1562 during the Wars of Religion, the castle was rebuilt and enlarged by the addition of two residential wings and a large outbuilding in the early seventeenth century by Jacques d'Estampes, marquis de Mauny, the richest landlord of the region, and the grandson of Guillaume de Hautemer, the duc de Grancey, better known as the Maréchal de Fervaques. (Stendhal used this name for one of the characters in The Red and the Black). Jacques d'Estampes, head of the House of d'Estampes, was also the first marquis of La Ferté-Imbault. His eldest son was the Seigneur de Salbris.

 

Born in the reign of Henry IV, the marquis de La Ferté-Imbault died in the reign of Louis XIV, after fighting alongside Louis XIII, whose bust still adorns the former guardhouse of the château. He was ambassador to England from 1641 to 1643, lieutenant-general of Orléanais, Vendômois and Dunois in 1645, and marshal of France in 1651. Louis XIV made him a knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit in 1661. His friendship with Gaston, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIII (Monsieur, the King's brother), was flawless throughout his life; as a lieutenant of the company of gendarmes of the Duc d'Orléans, in 1620 he had a huge outbuilding constructed at the Château de La Ferté-Imbault to accommodate his company. His wife, Catherine-Blanche of Choiseul (whose godfathers were Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully and the Prince of Rohan and whose father was Charles de Choiseul, marquis de Praslin, advisor to Marie de' Medici, one of the most remarkable men of the end of the sixteenth century), was first lady-in-waiting to la Duchesse d'Orléans.

 

The château had its apogee in the Grand Siècle. The hearts of the Maréchal d'Estampes and his wife, Madame la Marquise d'Estampes de la Ferté-Imbault, remain at La Ferté-Imbault in the chapel of Saint-Taurinus, under an epitaph. A full-length portrait of the Maréchal d'Estampes de La Ferté-Imbault was painted in 1835 by Jean-Léonard Lugardon for King Louis-Philippe. It hangs in the sixth hall of the marshals, in the Musée de l'Histoire de France at the Palace of Versailles.

 

In the eighteenth century, the Prince Regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans renamed the regiment of Chartres-Infantry the La Ferté-Imbault regiment.

 

In 1743, King Louis XV acquired the marquisate of La Ferte-Imbault for his mistress, Madame de La Tournelle, on whom he wanted to confer a prestigious title in order to present her to the court. Madame de La Tournelle eventually became Duchesse de Châteauroux.

 

The last marquise de La Ferté-Imbault was Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin d'Estampes, daughter of the illustrious Madame Geoffrin, whose literary salon in the rue Saint-Honoré was famed throughout Europe and as far away as Russia, where the Empress Catherine II wrote to her as a friend. The marquise, whose magnificent portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier is exhibited at the Fuji Art Museum in Tokyo, enjoyed La Ferté for "the freshness of large chestnut trees that extend their shade". Her presence was requested in Versailles; Louis XV asked her to teach philosophy to his granddaughters, the princesses Elisabeth and Clotilde de France (sisters of the Duc de Berry, future Louis XVI), on the recommendation of the governess of the Enfants de France, Marie Louise de Rohan, comtesse de Marsan. She also gave Madame de Marsan scripts for skits performed by the princesses for the Dauphin and the Dauphine Marie Antoinette. Madame de La Ferté-Imbault was invited to the coronation of Louis XVI in Reims on June 11, 1775.

 

Madame de La Ferté-Imbault was clever, recognized for her culture and moral qualities. A woman of letters, she regularly attended her mother's salon along with most of the great minds of the Enlightenment: Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Montesquieu her tutor, and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. She never remarried despite her early widowhood and several marriage proposals, including one from Stanisław Leszczyński, King of Poland, father of the Queen of France Marie Leszczyńska, who called the marquise "my Imbault".

 

Queen of the "Sublime Order of Lanturelus", she resisted the intrigues of the court and won the friendship of the royal family (including Madame Elizabeth, who wrote to her, "You must love, said a princess. I go further, for I love you, Imbault, and I defy my critics and my rivals to find anything to say against my tenderness", and Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, who invited her to Chantilly and always sought her advice, help and consolation) courtiers and favorites like the Marquise de Pompadour, who was her friend.

 

In the French Revolution the House of d'Estampes fell, and the Château de La Ferté-Imbault lost influence. The surrounding village was annexed to the neighboring town of Selles-Saint-Denis. The two wings of the château were torn down. The marquis de Pierrecourt, son of Sophie d'Estampes, owner of the château, was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror but later released. He sold the estate in 1807 to the Comte de Belmont, whose widow sold it in 1819 to the comtesse de Grandeffe, Marie-Louise de Poix.

 

In May 1824, a rich English family, the Lee-Kirbys from Leeds, acquired the estate of La Ferté-Imbault and moved into the château. They modernized local agriculture by adopting English innovations (forage plants and improving crops, such as clover and alfalfa) in their many farms, spread over 5,000 hectares. This foreign family was unappreciated in the village. In the Revolution of 1830, the people of La Ferté-Imbault invaded the château armed with pitchforks and spades, and sought to lynch the fleeing owner. The Protestant family's forceful proselytism led to serious opposition in the village community throughout the nineteenth century, as in 1868 during the construction of the new parish church of Saint-Taurinus, built in front of the main entrance to the château.[5] When William Lee died in 1853, his nephew and niece inherited the estate of La Ferté-Imbault and the estate was divided into two parts, the Sauldre forming the boundary. Mary-Ann Kirby received the château and part of the farms on 3,500 hectares, while Edward Howarth, her brother, received other farms and the area of La Place on the right bank of the river (on which a new château was built between 1880 and 1883), for a total surface of 1,500 hectares.

 

The village regained its administrative independence in 1860 but faced financial problems. The former collegiate church near the château was destroyed.

 

The château, whose land was significantly reduced after 1872 to a little over 1,100 hectares, was bought by the Comte Fresson. His niece, Marie Say, one of the richest heiresses of France and owner of the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, married Prince Amédée de Broglie, then Louis-Ferdinand d'Orléans-Bourbon, Infante of Spain. Many trips were undertaken between the two châteaux. The park, of about 50 hectares, was surrounded at that time by a brick wall.

 

The Château de la Ferté-Imbault, sold in 1900 to Dr. Georges Bouilly, then to Henry-René Bertrand, was seized by the Kommandantur on June 17, 1940, and saw four years of German occupation. The building suffered extensive damage in a bombing raid on May 8, 1944.

 

In August 1960, a "sound and light" show tracing its millennial history was organized in the castle with the voices of actors Madeleine Sologne and André Le Gall.[7] It has since been sold to new private owners but is open to visitors during the summer.

Supermonduntergang unter dem neusten Anbau der ISS, dem letzten Europaischen ATV Raumschiff

 

A supermoon setting behind our newest addition to ISS: the last European ATV spaceship

 

Credit: ESA/NASA

My newest addition - Laser Leatherette. I can't wait to debox her and photograph her with her Lara sisters. That may take some time, as I have a Asha project that I'd like to start, and a spring dio that I want to do, and some other things that I'd like to work on first. Sigh.....

Pictured is a trooper from the Blues and Royals at Horse Guards...The Blues and Royals were formed in 1969 from an amalgamation of the Royal Horse Guards, which was known as "the Blues" or "the Oxford Blues", and the Royal Dragoons, which was known as "the Royals"...As a result of the Options for Change Review in 1991, the Blues and Royals formed a union for operational purposes with the Life Guards as the Household Cavalry Regiment.

 

However, they each maintain their regimental identity, with distinct uniforms and traditions, and their own colonel. The Blues and Royals currently has two reconnaissance squadrons in Windsor, which are part of the Household Cavalry Regiment, and a mounted squadron in London as part of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment...Instead of being known as the Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons, the regiment is known as the Blues and Royals and is therefore the only regiment in the British Army to be officially known by their nickname as opposed to their full name...On ceremonial occasions, the Blues and Royals wear a blue tunic (inherited from the Royal Horse Guards, also known as "the Blues"), a metal cuirass, and a matching helmet with a red plume worn unbound, and against popular belief the regiment's farriers wear a red plume like the rest of the regiment but do not wear the metal cuirass. In addition, the Blues and Royals wear their chin strap under their chin, as opposed to the Life Guards, who wear it below their lower lip.

 

On service dress, the Blues and Royals wear a blue lanyard on the left shoulder, as well as a Sam Browne belt containing a whistle. In most dress orders, the Waterloo Eagle is worn on the left arm as part of dress traditions.

 

The Blues and Royals, as part of the Household Division, does not use the Order of the Bath Star for its officer rank 'pips,' but rather the Order of the Garter Star.

-------------------------------------------------------

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Photographer: PO Phot Owen Cooban

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No, she's not ours. ;)

 

But this is my first niece and it was very cool to take my girls to meet their baby cousin. You can tell by the smiles on their faces that they were pretty excited.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The Cessna Model 336 and 337 “Skymaster” were American twin-engine civil utility aircraft built in a unique push-pull configuration. Their engines were mounted in the nose and rear of its pod-style fuselage. Twin booms extended aft of the wings to the vertical stabilizers, with the rear engine between them. The horizontal stabilizer was aft of the pusher propeller, mounted between and connecting the two booms.

 

The first Skymaster, Model 336, had fixed landing gear and initially flew on February 28, 1961. It went into production in May 1963 with 195 being produced through mid-1964. In February 1965, Cessna introduced the larger Model 337 Super Skymaster with more powerful engines, retractable landing gear, and a dorsal air scoop for the rear engine (the "Super" prefix was subsequently dropped from the name). In 1966, the turbocharged T337 was introduced, and in 1973, the pressurized P337G entered production.

The type was very prolific and Cessna built 2.993 Skymasters of all variants, including 513 military O-2 (nicknamed "Oscar Deuce") versions from 1967 onwards. The latter featured underwing ordnance hard points to hold unguided rockets, gun pods or flares, and served in the forward air control (FAC) role and psychological operations (PSYOPS) by the US military between 1967 and 2010. Production in America ended in 1982, but was continued by Reims in France, with the FTB337 STOL and the military FTMA “Milirole”.

 

Both civil and military Cessna 336/337 version had long service careers, and some were considerably modified for new operators and uses. Among the most drastic conversions was the Spectrum SA-550, built by Spectrum Aircraft Corporation of Van Nuys, California, in the mid-1980s: Spectrum took the 336/337 airframe and removed the front engine, lengthened the nose to maintain the center of gravity, and replaced the rear piston engine with a pusher turboprop which offered more power than the combined pair of original petrol engines. The Spectrum SA-550 conversion also came together with an optional modernization package that prolonged the airframes’ service life, so that modified machines could well serve on for 20 years or more.

 

This drastic conversion was executed for both military and civil operators. The best-known military SA-550s were six former USAF O-2A airframes, which had been transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1983 for use as range controllers with VA-122 at NAS Lemoore, California. These aircraft were operationally nicknamed “Pelican”, due to the characteristic new nose shape, and the name unofficially caught on.

However, the SA-550 package was only adopted sporadically by private operators, but it became quite popular among several major police and fire departments. Typical duties for these machines included border/drug patrol, surveillance/observation duties (e.g. traffic, forest fire) and special tasks, including drug interdiction as well for SAR missions and undercover operations like narcotics and serialized criminal investigations. Some SA-550s were accordingly modified and individually outfitted with suitable sensors, including IR/low light cameras, searchlights, and internal auxiliary tanks. None were armed, even though some aircraft featured underwing hardpoints for external extra tanks, flare dispensers for nocturnal operations or smoke charge dispensers for ground target marking to guide water bombers to hidden forest fires.

 

The type’s versatility, low noise level, high travel speed and good loitering time in the operational area at low speed proved to be vital assets for these public service operators and justified its relatively high maintenance costs. A handful of the modernized Spectrum SA-550 machines were still in active service after the Millennium, primarily in the USA.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1 + 3 passengers (up to 5 passengers possible in special seat configuration)

Length: 32 ft 6½ in (9.94 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft ¾ in (11.62 m)

Height: 9 ft 2 in (2.79 m)

Wing area: 201 sq ft (18.81 m²)

Aspect ratio: 7.18:1

Airfoil: NACA 2412 at root, NACA 2409 at tip

Empty weight: 2,655 lb (1,204 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 4,400 lb (1,996 kg)

Fuel capacity: 92 US gal (77 imp gal; 350 l) normal,

128 US gal (107 imp gal; 480 l) with auxiliary tank

in the cabin instead of two passenger seats

 

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney PT6A-27 turboprop engine, delivering 550 shp (410 kW) and

driving a four-blade McCauley fully-feathering, constant-speed propeller, 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) diameter

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 199 mph (320 km/h, 173 kn) at sea level

Cruise speed: 144 mph (232 km/h, 125 kn) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) (econ cruise)

Stall speed: 69 mph (111 km/h, 60 kn)

Range: 1421 mi (2.288 km, 1.243 nmi) at 10.000 ft (3.050 m) altitude and economy cruise

Service ceiling: 19,500 ft (5,900 m)

Rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min (6.1 m/s)

Takeoff distance to 50 ft (15m): 1,545 ft (471 m)

Landing distance from 50 ft (15m): 1,650 ft (500 m)

  

The kit and its assembly:

This build is the combination of ingredients that had already been stashed away for a long time, and the “Red Lights” Group Build at whatifmodellers.com in early 2021 was a good motivator and occasion to finally put everything together.

 

The basis is an ARII 1:72 Cessna T337 model kit – I had purchased it long ago with the expectation to create a military Skymaster from it, but I was confused by a fixed landing gear which would make it a 336? Well, without a further concrete plan the kit preliminarily landed in The Stash™…

However, the ARII model features the optional observation windows in the doors on the starboard side, in the form of a complete(!) fuselage half, so that it lends itself to a police or firefighter aircraft of some sort. This idea was furthermore fueled by a decal sheet that I had been given from a friend, left over from a 1:72 Italeri JetRanger, with three optional police helicopter markings.

The final creative element was the real-world “Pelican” conversion of six O-2As for the US Navy, as mentioned in the background above: the front engine was replaced with a longer nose and the engine configuration changed to a pusher-only aircraft with a single powerful turboprop engine. This looked so odd that I wanted to modify the ARII Cessna in a similar fashion, too, and all these factors came together in this model.

 

My Arii Cessna 337 kit is a re-boxing from 2009, but its origins date back to Eidai in 1972 and that’s just what you get: a vintage thing with some flash and sinkholes, raised (but fine) surface details and pretty crude seams with bulges and gaps. Some PSR is direly necessary, esp. the fit of the fuselage halves is cringeworthy. The clear parts were no source of joy, either; especially the windscreen turned out to be thick, very streaky (to a degree that I’d almost call it opaque!) and even not fully molded! The side glazing was also not very clear. I tried to improve the situation through polishing, but if the basis is already poor, there’s little you can do about it. Hrmpf.

 

However, the kit was built mostly OOB, including the extra O-2 glazing in the lower doors, but with some mods. One is a (barely visible) extra tank in the cabin’s rear, plus a pilot and an observer figure placed into the tight front seats. The extended “Pelican” nose was a lucky find – I was afraid that I had had to sculpt a nose from scratch with 2C putty. But I found a radome from a Hasegawa RA-5C, left over from a model I built in the Eighties and that has since long fallen apart. However, this nose fitted almost perfectly in size and shape, I just “blunted” the tip a little. Additionally, both the hull in front of the dashboard and the Vigilante radome were filled with as many lead beads as possible to keep the nose down.

 

The kit’s OOB spatted, fixed landing gear was retained – even though it is dubious for a Cessna 337, because this type had a fully retractable landing gear, and the model has the landing gear covers actually molded into the lower fuselage. On the other side, the Cessna 336’s fixed landing gear looks quite different, too! However, this is a what-if model, and a fixed landing gear might have been a measure to reduce maintenance costs?

 

The propeller was replaced with a resin four-blade aftermarket piece (from CMK, probably the best-fitting thing on this build!) on my standard metal axis/styrene tube adapter arrangement. The propeller belongs to a Shorts Tucano, but I think that it works well on the converted Cessna and its powerful pusher engine, even though in the real world, the SA-550 is AFAIK driven by a three-blade prop. For the different engine I also enlarged the dorsal air intake with a 1.5 mm piece of styrene sheet added on top of the molded original air scoop and added a pair of ventral exhaust stubs (scratched from sprue material).

Another addition is a pair of winglets, made from 0.5 mm styrene sheet – an upgrade which I found on several late Cessna 337s in various versions. They just add to the modernized look of the aircraft. For the intended observation role, a hemispherical fairing under the nose hides a 180° camera, and I added some antennae around the hull.

 

However, a final word concerning the model kit itself: nothing fits, be warned! While the kit is a simple affair and looks quite good in the box, assembling it turned out to be a nightmare, with flash, sinkholes, a brittle styrene and gaps everywhere. This includes the clear parts, which are pretty thick and blurry. The worst thing is the windscreen, which is not only EXTRA thick and EXTRA blurry, it was also not completely molded, with gaps on both sides. I tried to get it clearer through manual polishing, but the streaky blurs are integral – no hope for improvement unless you completely replace the parts! If I ever build a Cessna 337/O-2 again, I will give the Airfix kit a try, it can only be better…

  

Painting and markings:

The choice between the operator options from the JetRanger sheet was hard, it included Sweden and Italy, but I eventually settled for the LAPD because the livery looks cool and this police department not only operates helicopters, but also some fixed-wing aircraft.

 

I adapted the LAPD’s classic black-and-white police helicopter livery (Gloss White and Black, Humbrol 22 and 21, respectively) to the Cessna and extended it to the wings. At this point – already upset because of the poor fit of the hardware – disaster struck in the form of Humbrol’s 22 turning into a pinkish ivory upon curing! In the tin, the paint and its pigments looked pretty white and “clean”, and I assume that it’s the thinner that caused this change. What a crap! It’s probably the third tin with 22 that causes trouble, even though in different peculiarities!

The result was total rubbish, though, and I tried to rub the paint off as good as possible on the small model with its many windows, the fixed, delicate landing gear and the wing support struts. Then I overpainted the areas with Revell 301 (Semi-matt White). While this enamel yielded the intended pure white tone, the paint itself is rather gooey and not easy to work with, so that the overall finish turned out worse than desired. At least the black paint worked properly. The demarcations were created with black decal stripes (TL Modellbau), because the tiny model left little room for complex masking measures – and I did not risk any more painting accidents.

 

Since the aircraft would be kept shiny and clean, I just did a light black ink washing to emphasize surface details and did a light panel post-shading on the black areas, not for weathering but rather to accent surface structures. No further weathering was done (and necessary).

 

The markings/decals come – as mentioned above – from an Italeri 1:72 JetRanger, but they were augmented with some additional markings, e. g. grey walkways on the wings and “L-A-P-D” in large black letters under the wings, to distract from the poor finish of the white paint around them…

Finally, the kit was sealed overall with Italeri semi-gloss acrylic varnish, just with a matt anti-glare shield in front of the windscreen, which received thin white trim lines (generic decal stripes).

  

A challenging build due to the Arii kit’s rather poor basis, the massive rhinoplasty and the crisp paint scheme. However, I like the result – what-if models do not always have to be armed military vehicles, there’s potential in other genres, too. And this mono-engine “Pelican” Skymaster plays its role as a “flying eye” in police service credibly and well. However, this was my first and last Eidai kit…

post processed by Photoshop

My wife and I welcomed the addition of a new baby girl. We are thrilled! My landscape shots might be a little spread out for awhile :)

Here is a new pic of my personal altar. I have updated my statues and temple decor.

A recent addition to the fleet of Cambridge Bus & Coach is this Scania N94UD Omnidekka, latterly in the fleet of Xelabus and thus requiring no repaint! New to Metrobus as YV03 PZF.

I felt like I needed some more rolling stock to start off the new year.

 

Boxcars from BMR and Tankers from BTD

 

Decals by OKBrickworks

A recent addition to the McCulloch fleet is this Mercedes OC500RF with Caetano Winner CT650 bodywork.

It was new to Centaur of Sidcup as FN62 CYT and is seen at Ibrox at the new year derby.

Canyonlands National Park is an American national park located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into numerous canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries. Legislation creating the park was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 12, 1964.

 

The park is divided into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, and the combined rivers—the Green and Colorado—which carved two large canyons into the Colorado Plateau. While these areas share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor, described the Canyonlands as "the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth—there is nothing else like it anywhere."

 

In the early 1950s, Bates Wilson, then superintendent of Arches National Monument, began exploring the area to the south and west of Moab, Utah. After seeing what is now known as the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, Wilson began advocating for the establishment of a new national park that would include the Needles. Additional explorations by Wilson and others expanded the areas proposed for inclusion into the new national park to include the confluence of Green and Colorado rivers, the Maze District, and Horseshoe Canyon.

 

In 1961, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall was scheduled to address a conference at Grand Canyon National Park. On his flight to the conference, he flew over the Confluence (where the Colorado and Green rivers meet). The view apparently sparked Udall's interest in Wilson's proposal for a new national park in that area and Udall began promoting the establishment of Canyonlands National Park.

 

Utah Senator Frank Moss first introduced legislation into Congress to create Canyonlands National Park. His legislation attempted to satisfy both nature preservationists' and commercial developers' interests. Over the next four years, his proposal was struck down, debated, revised, and reintroduced to Congress many times before being passed and signed into creation.

 

In September, 1964, after several years of debate, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Pub.L. 88–590, which established Canyonlands National Park as a new national park. Bates Wilson became the first superintendent of the new park and is often referred to as the "Father of Canyonlands."

 

The Colorado River and Green River combine within the park, dividing it into three districts called the Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze. The Colorado River flows through Cataract Canyon below its confluence with the Green River.

 

The Island in the Sky district is a broad and level mesa in the northern section of the park, between the Colorado and Green rivers. The district has many viewpoints overlooking the White Rim, a sandstone bench 1,200 feet (370 m) below the Island, and the rivers, which are another 1,000 feet (300 m) below the White Rim.

 

The Needles district is located south of the Island in the Sky, on the east side of the Colorado River. The district is named for the red and white banded rock pinnacles which are a major feature of the area. Various other naturally sculpted rock formations are also within this district, including grabens, potholes, and arches. Unlike Arches National Park, where many arches are accessible by short to moderate hikes, most of the arches in the Needles district lie in backcountry canyons, requiring long hikes or four-wheel drive trips to reach them.

 

The Ancestral Puebloans inhabited this area and some of their stone and mud dwellings are well-preserved, although the items and tools they used were mostly removed by looters. The Ancestral Puebloans also created rock art in the form of petroglyphs, most notably on Newspaper Rock along the Needles access road.

 

The Maze district is located west of the Colorado and Green rivers. The Maze is the least accessible section of the park, and one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the United States.

 

A geographically detached section of the park located north of the Maze district, Horseshoe Canyon contains panels of rock art made by hunter-gatherers from the Late Archaic Period (2000-1000 BC) pre-dating the Ancestral Puebloans. Originally called Barrier Canyon, Horseshoe's artifacts, dwellings, pictographs, and murals are some of the oldest in America. The images depicting horses date from after 1540 AD, when the Spanish reintroduced horses to America.

 

Since the 1950s, scientists have been studying an area of 200 acres (81 ha) completely surrounded by cliffs. The cliffs have prevented cattle from ever grazing on the area's 62 acres (25 ha) of grassland. According to the scientists, the site may contain the largest undisturbed grassland in the Four Corners region. Studies have continued biannually since the mid-1990s. The area has been closed to the public since 1993 to maintain the nearly pristine environment.

 

Mammals that roam this park include black bears, coyotes, skunks, bats, elk, foxes, bobcats, badgers, ring-tailed cats, pronghorns, desert bighorn sheep, and cougars. Desert cottontails, kangaroo rats and mule deer are commonly seen by visitors.

 

At least 273 species of birds inhabit the park. A variety of hawks and eagles are found, including the Cooper's hawk, the northern goshawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, the red-tailed hawk, the golden and bald eagles, the rough-legged hawk, the Swainson's hawk, and the northern harrier. Several species of owls are found, including the great horned owl, the northern saw-whet owl, the western screech owl, and the Mexican spotted owl. Grebes, woodpeckers, ravens, herons, flycatchers, crows, bluebirds, wrens, warblers, blackbirds, orioles, goldfinches, swallows, sparrows, ducks, quail, grouse, pheasants, hummingbirds, falcons, gulls, and ospreys are some of the other birds that can be found.

 

Several reptiles can be found, including eleven species of lizards and eight species of snake (including the midget faded rattlesnake). The common kingsnake and prairie rattlesnake have been reported in the park, but not confirmed by the National Park Service.

 

The park is home to six confirmed amphibian species, including the red-spotted toad, Woodhouse's toad, American bullfrog, northern leopard frog, Great Basin spadefoot toad, and tiger salamander. The canyon tree frog was reported to be in the park in 2000, but was not confirmed during a study in 2004.

 

Canyonlands National Park contains a wide variety of plant life, including 11 cactus species,[34] 20 moss species, liverworts, grasses and wildflowers. Varieties of trees include netleaf hackberry, Russian olive, Utah juniper, pinyon pine, tamarisk, and Fremont's cottonwood. Shrubs include Mormon tea, blackbrush, four-wing saltbush, cliffrose, littleleaf mountain mahogany, and snakeweed

 

Cryptobiotic soil is the foundation of life in Canyonlands, providing nitrogen fixation and moisture for plant seeds. One footprint can destroy decades of growth.

 

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Canyonlands National Park has a cold semi-arid climate ("BSk"). The plant hardiness zones at the Island in the Sky and Needles District Visitor Centers are 7a with an average annual extreme minimum air temperature of 4.0 °F (-15.6 °C) and 2.9 °F (-16.2 °C), respectively.

 

The National Weather Service has maintained two cooperative weather stations in the park since June 1965. Official data documents the desert climate with less than 10 inches (250 millimetres) of annual rainfall, as well as hot, mostly dry summers and cold, occasionally wet winters. Snowfall is generally light during the winter.

 

The station in The Neck region reports an average January temperature of 29.6 °F and an average July temperature of 79.3 °F. Average July temperatures range from a high of 90.8 °F (32.7 °C) to a low of 67.9 °F (19.9 °C). There are an average of 45.7 days with highs of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher and an average of 117.3 days with lows of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower. The highest recorded temperature was 105 °F (41 °C) on July 15, 2005, and the lowest recorded temperature was −13 °F (−25 °C) on February 6, 1989. Average annual precipitation is 9.33 inches (237 mm). There are an average of 59 days with measurable precipitation. The wettest year was 1984, with 13.66 in (347 mm), and the driest year was 1989, with 4.63 in (118 mm). The most precipitation in one month was 5.19 in (132 mm) in October 2006. The most precipitation in 24 hours was 1.76 in (45 mm) on April 9, 1978. Average annual snowfall is 22.8 in (58 cm). The most snowfall in one year was 47.4 in (120 cm) in 1975, and the most snowfall in one month was 27.0 in (69 cm) in January 1978.

 

The station in The Needles region reports an average January temperature of 29.7 °F and an average July temperature of 79.1 °F.[44] Average July temperatures range from a high of 95.4 °F (35.2 °C) to a low of 62.4 °F (16.9 °C). There are an average of 75.4 days with highs of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher and an average of 143.6 days with lows of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower. The highest recorded temperature was 107 °F (42 °C) on July 13, 1971, and the lowest recorded temperature was −16 °F (−27 °C) on January 16, 1971. Average annual precipitation is 8.49 in (216 mm). There are an average of 56 days with measurable precipitation. The wettest year was 1969, with 11.19 in (284 mm), and the driest year was 1989, with 4.25 in (108 mm). The most precipitation in one month was 4.43 in (113 mm) in October 1972. The most precipitation in 24 hours was 1.56 in (40 mm) on September 17, 1999. Average annual snowfall is 14.4 in (37 cm). The most snowfall in one year was 39.3 in (100 cm) in 1975, and the most snowfall in one month was 24.0 in (61 cm) in March 1985.

 

National parks in the Western US are more affected by climate change than the country as a whole, and the National Park Service has begun research into how exactly this will effect the ecosystem of Canyonlands National Park and the surrounding areas and ways to protect the park for the future. The mean annual temperature of Canyonlands National Park increased by 2.6 °F (1.4 °C) from 1916 to 2018. It is predicted that if current warming trends continue, the average highs in the park during the summer will be over 100 °F (40 °C) by 2100. In addition to warming, the region has begun to see more severe and frequent droughts which causes native grass cover to decrease and a lower flow of the Colorado River. The flows of the Upper Colorado Basin have decreased by 300,000 acre⋅ft (370,000,000 m3) per year, which has led to a decreased amount of sediment carried by the river and rockier rapids which are more frequently impassable to rafters. The area has also begun to see an earlier spring, which will lead to changes in the timing of leaves and flowers blooming and migrational patterns of wildlife that could lead to food shortages for the wildlife, as well as a longer fire season.

 

The National Park Service is currently closely monitoring the impacts of climate change in Canyonlands National Park in order to create management strategies that will best help conserve the park's landscapes and ecosystems for the long term. Although the National Park Service's original goal was to preserve landscapes as they were before European colonization, they have now switched to a more adaptive management strategy with the ultimate goal of conserving the biodiversity of the park. The NPS is collaborating with other organizations including the US Geological Survey, local indigenous tribes, and nearby universities in order to create a management plan for the national park. Right now, there is a focus on research into which native plants will be most resistant to climate change so that the park can decide on what to prioritize in conservation efforts. The Canyonlands Natural History Association has been giving money to the US Geological Survey to fund this and other climate related research. They gave $30,000 in 2019 and $61,000 in 2020.

 

A subsiding basin and nearby uplifting mountain range (the Uncompahgre) existed in the area in Pennsylvanian time. Seawater trapped in the subsiding basin created thick evaporite deposits by Mid Pennsylvanian. This, along with eroded material from the nearby mountain range, became the Paradox Formation, itself a part of the Hermosa Group. Paradox salt beds started to flow later in the Pennsylvanian and probably continued to move until the end of the Jurassic. Some scientists believe Upheaval Dome was created from Paradox salt bed movement, creating a salt dome, but more modern studies show that the meteorite theory is more likely to be correct.

 

A warm shallow sea again flooded the region near the end of the Pennsylvanian. Fossil-rich limestones, sandstones, and shales of the gray-colored Honaker Trail Formation resulted. A period of erosion then ensued, creating a break in the geologic record called an unconformity. Early in the Permian an advancing sea laid down the Halgaito Shale. Coastal lowlands later returned to the area, forming the Elephant Canyon Formation.

 

Large alluvial fans filled the basin where it met the Uncompahgre Mountains, creating the Cutler red beds of iron-rich arkose sandstone. Underwater sand bars and sand dunes on the coast inter-fingered with the red beds and later became the white-colored cliff-forming Cedar Mesa Sandstone. Brightly colored oxidized muds were then deposited, forming the Organ Rock Shale. Coastal sand dunes and marine sand bars once again became dominant, creating the White Rim Sandstone.

 

A second unconformity was created after the Permian sea retreated. Flood plains on an expansive lowland covered the eroded surface and mud built up in tidal flats, creating the Moenkopi Formation. Erosion returned, forming a third unconformity. The Chinle Formation was then laid down on top of this eroded surface.

 

Increasingly dry climates dominated the Triassic. Therefore, sand in the form of sand dunes invaded and became the Wingate Sandstone. For a time climatic conditions became wetter and streams cut channels through the sand dunes, forming the Kayenta Formation. Arid conditions returned to the region with a vengeance; a large desert spread over much of western North America and later became the Navajo Sandstone. A fourth unconformity was created by a period of erosion.

 

Mud flats returned, forming the Carmel Formation, and the Entrada Sandstone was laid down next. A long period of erosion stripped away most of the San Rafael Group in the area, along with any formations that may have been laid down in the Cretaceous period.

 

The Laramide orogeny started to uplift the Rocky Mountains 70 million years ago and with it, the Canyonlands region. Erosion intensified and when the Colorado River Canyon reached the salt beds of the Paradox Formation the overlying strata extended toward the river canyon, forming features such as The Grabens. Increased precipitation during the ice ages of the Pleistocene quickened the rate of canyon excavation along with other erosion. Similar types of erosion are ongoing, but occur at a slower rate.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

I introduce you to one of my newest paper garbage trucks! This is a 2023 Refurb Scorpion ASL. I have shown my small fleet of trucks on YT but not here!

Target have recently added this Volvo B10M Plaxton Excalibur coach to their fleet, it still carries the livery of previous operator Taw & Torridge of Devon.

It is pictured here at a very wet Crownhill this afternoon on the return leg of its service from Duchy College.

A recent addition to my camera collection, a Russian copy of a Zeiss Ikonta camera.

Type: 6×9 medium format folding rangefinder camera

Manufacturer: KMZ Plant

Production period: from 1955 to 1958

Format: 6×9 and 6×6 cm on 120 film

Lens mount: fixed lens

Lens: Industar-23 110mm f/4.5

Shutter: leaf shutter with speeds from 1 sec to 1/250 sec

Viewfinder: optical viewfinder not combined with the rangefinder

Light meter: none

Flash synchronization: X sync

Self-timer: mechanical

Weight: approx. 860 grams

Here are some of my new addtions: A Lounge Kitties Barbie who will serve as Wonder Woman's archenemy, Cheetah, A Flavas Liam doll, and a Generation Girl Dance Party Mar doll to add to my Generation Girls Collection.

Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais

Bonhams

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2019

 

Estimated : € 95.000 - 130.000

Sold for € 86.250

 

'In these cars we see the fruits of all the development effort to produce an unmatched high performance sports car. The classic mainstream production 911 is a 2.4.' - Peter Morgan, 'Original Porsche 911'.

 

For 1972, all Porsche 911 variants received the 2.4-litre (actually 2,341cc) engine, by which time the range-topping 911S featured the stronger Type 915 five-speed gearbox and 6"x15" Fuchs alloy wheels as standard. The most obvious external change from the outgoing 2.2-litre models was the addition of a small chin spoiler, adopted to improve high-speed stability. For 1974, Porsche switched to the 2.7-litre model. The latter was the first 911 to incorporate the large impact-absorbing bumpers, disliked by many purists for whom the '2.4' is the last 'old school' 911 and therefor all the more collectible.

 

This Porsche 911T Targa has the external filler ('Ölklappe') for the engine's dry-sump oil tank, which was fitted to cars built during 1972 only. Hitherto, the tank had been positioned behind the right rear wheel, but for '72 it was moved forwards in order to improve weight distribution. The tank's hasty return to its original position and the filler's relocation to within the engine bay was prompted by the fact that service station attendants often mistook it for the fuel filler! It is estimated that only 989 examples were made, making the 'Ölklappe' particularly sought after by purists as 'the one to have'.

 

The current vendor purchased this car in the USA in 2007; it came without an engine but has since been fitted with a 2.4-litre engine to 911S specification producing some 180bhp, around 30 horsepower more than a standard 911T. The engine is freshly built and tuned by the reputable Porsche 911 engine specialist, Boxer-Motoren of Manching, Germany, while the completely overhauled and newly built 915/02 gearbox has been individually adapted to suit the engine's additional power. In addition, a complete restoration of the rest of the car has been undertaken over the last few years (2013-2018). These works included a bare-metal re-spray to original specification; a complete interior re-trim, likewise to original specification; the entire overhaul/renewal of the suspension and brakes; refurbishment of the original Fuchs wheels; and fitting new tyres. We are advised by the private vendor that the car runs and drives like new with plenty of power. The Porsche has been registered as a classic car (H-Kennzeichen) in Germany recently, and comes with a German Kfz.-Brief (title) and the invoices relating to its restoration.

This crater is about 64 kilometers in diameter, where in addition to the dunes on the floor, along its walls are evidence of old glaciers. It was named after after Gabrielle Renaudot Flammarion (31 May 1877 – 28 October 1962) a French astronomer.

 

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

www.uahirise.org/ESP_027665_2225

Finally it's here, the Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G.

Latest additions to the wall, the tiny things in the print drawers, took all day yesterday to arrange, and I'm sure I'll rearrange them several times more before I'm happy. Now it's time to add some small framed pictures around and between the large pieces.

Dungeness Open Studios *Open*

 

'til dusk

 

New additions studio 1 - 'North, East, South or west'

 

Oil on canvas X 4

Late addition (Oct30/16) : can someone please tell me how this photo has had over 24,000 views when it didn't make Explore, and was only in 13 groups? I'd really like to know.

 

Original commentary:

 

I 've been looking at this photo on my dining room wall, where I have a tapestry with dozens of photos ~ a tradition started by my Mom years ago. I used various techniques to get all the pinholes out of this, because I have no idea where the negative is. My friend Gerry & I had camped on a nearby island for 3 years, wishing we could camp on this group of 7 islands surrounding a sheltered lagoon. We finally got it, and I have to say camping here was like being in Eden. Except the water is cold. After this shot was taken, I took off all my clothes and hid them behind a rock, hoping for a true Garden of Eden shot. Joni MItchell has an album cover where she stands naked at the seashore. (Altho she's facing away form the camera) However, since I had 7 rolls of film (this was before I had a digital), I decided to get them developed at Costco, which was less expensive. I was looking forward to seeing how they turned out . But....when I picked the photos up ~shock ~ the nude ones had been removed. Staff said they took them out because of the way photos are in bins on the floor for people to pick out their own. But they're in packages with the photographers' name on them, so I didn't think other people would take mine. I made the store clerk take me to their lunchroom to make sure there were no photos of me in my BD suit on their bulletin board! I've never seen any of the nude shots from this trip....I think there were 4 or 5. Bet that would never happen in Europe!

Anyway, in this one, I like the texture of the rocks contrasted with the smoothness of the ocean, and the vastness of the scene, with only one person ~me~ to be seen. We named the wonderful tree The Joshua Tree, even tho it doesn't look like one, and hiked across a couple of small islands and up some rocks to have our morning coffee in this powerful place.

PS......altho this pic was taken with my camera, I didn't take it.....thanks Gerry! I did doctor it with various Picnik techniques, tho, so it's partly my work.

© Copyright notice: this photo belongs solely to me, and may not be used by any person, organization or entity without my full written permission

A recent addition to the fleet, Go-Coach S518 TCF is seen on Oakfield Lane, Leyton Cross whilst working route 429. Easter Monday 21st April 2014.

 

Dennis Dart SLF 10.7m - Plaxton Pointer 2 (Ex-Tellings-Golden Miller 518, Travel London DP718 & Abellio Surrey 8718)

 

IMG_14040

 

here's one from the archives.

 

I post it for illustrative purposes, in addition to it being a fairly cool shot, even though it's from a sequence that I've already posted a few shots from, and is therefore kind of redundant.

 

mainly, I like it because it shows, as the title suggests, what a difference a few seconds can make. This image was taken after a few seconds of composing and getting the shot right, versus the other shots in the sequence that were taken right away, to catch the moment, despite the fact that the camera wasn't really set optimally.

 

here, the photographic quality is substantially better, but the rainbow has faded, almost away. And the foreground has slipped by, producing a more boring foreground and overall picture (I think). and it is really a matter of seconds. I don't know if it's actually five seconds, but certainly no more than 30.

 

so: this reinforces my own belief that it's more important what you take a picture of than how you take it, or what you take it with. And so: the secret to good photography is not equipment, or technique, but rather what you see, what you find, what you record.

an interesting fungi emerges from a woodlands oak tree

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