Picto Diary - 1 to 10 May 2026 - Motorcycle Musings of an Addled Mind
Above: Wasatch Bagel. Park City, UT. 01 May 2026.
LSDM Friday AM Colloquium.
Above: Park City, UT. 01 May 2026.
LSDM Walkers. Moose sculpture.
Above: Black Desert Resort. Ivins, UT. 06 May 2026.
Post breakfast at Latitude.
Above: Mint Restaurant. Washington, UT. 06 May 2026.
On our way to In N Out, we saw this place for the first time... and, decided to try it.
Excellent! We'll go back. We shared a masala dosa.
Above: Current reading pile. Ivins, UT. 06 May 2026.
I'm into each of these books at least fifty pages and hope to finish them all.
Above: Ivins, UT. 07 May 2026.
TIMDT and Freddie. AM Walk.
Above: Steve's Steakhouse. Richfield, UT. 07 May 2026.
Out and about on the 'Wing.
The Tushar Mountains are about 60 miles distant, looking to the SW.
To get to Richfield, after riding I-15 NB from St. George and making a pit stop in Parawan, I left I-15 to take UT SR 20 EB to connect, after twenty-five miles riding with US 89 NB. Riding US 89 NB there is a remote, sixty-mile-long, curvy ride following the Sevier River before arriving in Richfield.
Above: Terrible's Chevron. Fillmore, UT. 09 May 2026
Out and About on the 'Wing.
I covered the 330-mile-long ride from Park City to Ivins in less than five hours. I made one stop, here, at Terribles, in Filmore. The gas prices are ten cents a gallon higher at Terribles than at the Maverick at the south end of town. But the Maverick is always packed. Terrible's is a new station, clean, well lit, and well stocked. Also, it has an easily accessible restroom if you are in a hurry to use it... something more important to me as I age. A small price to pay for the extra forty cents on a four-gallon fill-up.
I'm not wired to music, phone or podcasts as I ride. What goes through my mind on a 330-mile-long solitary slab ride with only one stop? Who knew that a motorcycle is also a tool to stimulate reflection!?
Herewith I present, "Motorcycle Musings of an Addled Mind."
Stimulated by the purr of the 'Wing, I thought that if there was a providential impact on things happening in the world, certainly DJT and my father's memoirs project must be beneficiaries.
Notwithstanding Trump's opponents throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him, including three assassination attempts, he seems to be moving forward with his agenda, much of which I agree with. Providence?
I procrastinated getting my dad's (Weldon J. Taylor) memoirs edited and published for twenty-five years, only to be called out of the blue three years ago by a former Citibank hire of mine, Mark Gasser, who after thirty years of silence, wanted to reconnect. He and his family had settled in Salt Lake City a few years back, unbeknownst to me. Mark set up a luncheon in Park City with some former Citibankers, including Robert E. Wells (who after leaving Citibank became a general authority of the LDS Church). I learned at that luncheon that Well's daughter, Elayne Wells Harmer, was a professional editor. Wells made an intro of me to Elayne and three years later we are past the point of editing and on the point of publication. Providence? Did Dad do something to lever me out of my twenty-five-year long torpor to get the memoirs project moving? Providence?
More reflections. On my social media I see a lot of influencers seeking to buttress LDS belief and influencers seeking to run down LDS belief. I muse, the hum of the 80 mph 'Wing producing the most pleasant white noise, "How do the LDS general authorities deal with all this free speech back and forth, pro church and con church, made possible only in the last couple of decades by the internet and social media?
Notwithstanding all the braying nay sayers, there comes to my mind as I ride, three things about the Mormons that are difficult to explain away:
1. The Book of Mormon is a unique work that seems beyond the capacity of even a genius teenager to create. So, if Joseph Smith didn't produce it as he said he did, who wrote it? Mormon haters have never come up with a satisfactory explanation.
2. The upper-end estimate of the LDS Church is $300 billion. The Harvard University endowment is a paltry $50 billion. The LDS Church teaches its members to minimize indebtedness and to save. Executing on these principles at the macro level seems to have paid off for the institutional LDS Church.
3. US Mormon demographics show higher marriage rates, lower divorce rates, higher birth rates, and better education results than most other US demographics. I remember Mom saying frequently that Mormonism offered a good way to raise families. Mormons believe that the nuclear family is the bedrock for future success. More than most, Mormons have walked their talk on nuclear family integrity.
Setting seeming doctrinal inconsistencies, accused historical inaccuracies, yada, aside, if proof is in eating the pudding, the Mormons seem to have made a very tasty desert.
Finally, I wondered, as I rode, how ecclesiasts, LDS and otherwise, were confronting the rise of AI and its future impact on human consciousness. Larry Page of Google is willing to accept the fact that a hybrid or AI evolved human intelligence is something to be welcomed. Elon Musk says no. Human intelligence must be preserved, he says.
We are nearing the point when attributes formerly attributed to God can be realized, with the help of artificial intelligence, by mankind. For example. Much of what goes on in the world today is captured by cameras. Ring doorbell cameras. Images taken by everyday people with their phones. Security cameras everywhere. Most of those images are stored in the cloud. It is no longer farfetched to suggest that with the use of AI all of the world's images could be stitched together, AI filling in blanks, to produce a real time record of all of the world's occurrences. I thought of this scripture:
Luke 12:6-7
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
With advancing technology as aforementioned, AI enhanced mankind will have the capacity to "track where every sparrow falls." How, I wondered, over the purr of the fast moving 'Wing, are Churches going to explain a seeming convergence of the powers of mankind with what heretofore have been considered the powers of God?
Above: Ivins, UT. 09 May 2026.
Happy's birthday party.
Actually, the big newfie at right is Happy, not Freddie. Freddie is some place around the corner of the house! Freddie took a walk around the shallow end of the pool, but he's not ready to dive and romp like some of the other dogs.
Above: Ivins, UT.
Flowering cactus in our back yard.
Happy Mother's Day!
Above: Denton, TX. 10 May 2026.
Image source. Instagram. Drums doing a gig with Coral Johnson group. He'll be back in Park City tomorrow for summer break. Coming: Drums' and my report on our June adventure cruise in the Kimberly.
Addendum:
No mention by Dan Wang of China's manufacturing vulnerability to trade restrictions and tariffs??? They better behave themselves or their economy and manufacturing prowess will soon be in the crapper.
Nathans,
Orlando, FL
Fascinating, Steve! I remember your dad from Oak Hills 4th Ward. What a wonderful project you’re directing.
Apple Store,
Salt Lake City, UT