Dime Project

For this project we each had to flip a dime on a map of Utah County. The size of the dime is roughly one square mile. Wherever our dime landed was where we had to go and find a story to shoot. My dime ended up on the other side of the shore of Utah lake just outside of Saratoga Springs. 

I drove out there with my husband and brother in law, hoping that the empty field I saw on google maps was just an old photo that had yet to be updated. Upon arriving to my spot, I found that there was what appeared to be nothing. We found a road that led down to the lake and followed it. At the end of the road we came across the skeletons of some soon to be houses. Thinking this is what I would have to do my story on, we looked for a place to pull over. To our [pleasant] surprise we found a little park that had docks leading out onto the frozen lake. That was when I first met Scott Wilkins. He was sitting in an old lawn chair right in the middle of the miniature bay ice fishing. I quickly gathered my gear and walked down the frozen landscape to talk to him.

Scott has been ice fishing for years, but this was his first try on Utah Lake. He recently moved to Saratoga Springs and thought he'd give it a go. [Although he didn't catch anything while I was there - despite baiting a second hook to attach to his line] The ice was about 3 feet deep, Scott's ice drill lay to the side of him while he chilled his Orange pop in the snow. Scott reckons that the area we were standing was only 7 or 8 feet deep to begin with. We got to talking and I found out that he is also a UVU student. He takes evening classes in the welding department. Fishing and welding are his favorite things, besides the Broncos, [which he is very excited to see them win in the Superbowl] 

"I just love being outside fishing. It's very relaxing, all you gotta do is drop your line and wait. While you're waiting it's a nice, quiet place to think about things that have been on your mind." 

9/11

Due to business reasons, this last weekend I was to be traveling to and from LA. It was on my flight back to Salt Lake that I met Cheri Hill, a flight attendant who has been doing her job for 15 years. I had the amazing opportunity to talk to her about where she was when 9/11 happened.

"On 9/11, I was on a morning flight in Cleveland, Ohio. We were at the gate and we started to push back, and that's when we discovered what happened. We were stuck in Cleveland for four days. We couldn't go anywhere. We were away from family and friends and it was very impacting. It changed everything as a flight attendant for us, and for all of aviation."

I asked Cheri if she was scared to go back to work, her response; "No. Because then they had won. If I was scared then they would have accomplished their goal, and I wasn't going to let that happen."

Cheri also told me of how difficult and hard it was for everyone to go back to work after the four days.

"After the four days, I had a passenger who was trying to board with a frying pan, and security made him take it out of the box, so you could imagine our fear, it was a frying pan, that's when I kinda knew it was going to take awhile before things got worked out. I asked him 'Are you a Culinary Chef?' and he said, 'Yes.' and the captain and I looked at each other, like, he's got a frying pan... it was weird, things just took awhile. But I am not scared and I am happy to be here."