Bring on the Winter!

I found myself consumed in a mass group of cousins, Aunts, Uncles, small children with no names, Moms with big hugs and Dads who take a backseat to their sons who are running the show. A mass family who are obsessed with the winter season, skiing, but mostly snowmobiling. And they gather together about an hour into the desert along the salt lake with their trucks to create a bonfire to celebrate the winter season that is finally here, and pray for snow.

Some odd form of a Mormon rain-dance.

A beautiful thing to witness.

Everyone roasting hot dogs, and laughing it up. The fire department showed up, being able to see it from the freeway.

And when the flames start to die, the parents take the little ones home to bed the old people need to get to bed and what is left is the cousins, the young marrieds with no kids, the ones with no bed-times, and they all pull out camping chairs and sit under the sea of stars while they babysit the mas pile of burning embers. And they talk of nothing, nothing but snowmobiles. It sounds like Spanish to any outsider, yet even when you can't understand a word, you feel included as you are huddled together in the middle of no where.

Every year they do this. So glad I could be a part of it this year.