Jack-o-Man the Snow-o-Lantern Saturday afternoon, before hordes of trick-or-treaters came through the neighborhood where my parents reside in Hurricane, my father and I, on a whim, hopped into his truck and drove up the road heading toward Kolob. It was a brisk, cool, clear day.

North of the town of Virgin, we slowed to gawk at the crowd of mountain bikers gathered for some event, crowding the still-wet-from-recent-rains mesa hillside along a muddy path. There were two helicopters in attendance too! Interesting!

The road climbs in altitude quickly, and soon we were driving past gorgeous amber fields (trampled by recent rains and snow), with scattered white remnants of snow all around, framed by stunning red standstone cliffs. Wow!

Before long, we were among huge Ponderosa pine trees, the landscape around us blanketed in snow several inches deep. We continued past the limits of the snow plow, since traffic and sunny weather had exposed enough pavement that the two-wheel-drive truck would have no trouble (nor any car). Up Maloney hill, past the area where my Grandmother Alice was born in 1910 (now a part of Zion National Park), and on, winding ever upwards through stands of aspen. What a beautiful drive!

At one point where the road was straight, we decided to turn around, and did so. There we also paused, and shoveled the back of my dad's truck full of snow, rolling a large ball of snow up onto the tailgate, then heaving it on top (then packing snow around it so it would not roll out of the truck as we drove down).

As we passed the crowd north of Virgin, the biking event apparently finished, some of the participants were overheard to wonder where we'd obtained the snow, since all they could see was desert mesas all around them, not a hint that only a few miles up the road was a snowy aspen and pine forested mountain. We grinned and headed home.

Once at my folks' house, we rolled the chunk of snow onto the lawn, then began packing more snow around it, building a pillar, then slowly shaping it into a very fat and odd-shaped body for our Halloween creation, Jack-o-Man, the Snow-o-Lantern. While I finished sculpting Jack-O's awkward anatomy, my dad carved Jack-O's head.

By the time we were finished, it was dark, so we lit a candle and Jack-O was alive!

What a conversation piece Jack-O became! Kids and parents (and grandparents) stopped by not just to trick-or-treat, but to check out Jack-O and chat a bit. It was a blast!