What to do when someone gives you land in Utah.

Southwest Utah is a long ways from L.A. It's a long ways from traffic jams, and stress. A visit to Cedar City is like going back in time to a time in America where the crime rate was low and there was no internet or terrorists.

I've returned to this blog after a long hiatus. My friend in England often uses the word 'faffing' to describe wasting the day away, but my hiatus is not due to faffing. I have simply been busy creating promotions for two clients: American Happenings, and America's Mock Election.

You can view a fund drive video for AME, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9wjf54XlAc  America's Mock Election is owned by American Happenings, Inc., and has as it's mission to inspire and engage young people to vote. One of the projects (part of the release of a newly mastered film on Blu-ray - "The Giant of Thunder Mountain." View a trailer I created, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2BIKjb5lJE

Since agreeing to move to Orange County, California - to work for American Happenings - I have been using all my free time writing video scripts, and feature screenplays. The results of my efforts has been to have placed in four screenplay contests in 2015 and 2016.

I wasn't supposed to be here this long. My contract was only for three months, but it was extended several times by John Herklotz, the CEO of American Happenings. He even went so far as to give me land in Utah, as a show of his appreciation.

I have just returned from a trip to Cedar City, Utah, which is the closest city to the eighty acres I was given. The story behind the gift from Herklotz is that it had been in limbo for about twenty years, after the death of Herklotz's wife, Dale Melbourne - an Australian actress who was a member of many musicals from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Melbourne bought the land in 1972, while married to another man (who died in the early 1980s). Herklotz had never seen the land, and had only vague ideas about what was on the land. So I set off with grandiose ideas about what I would find.

Rather than describe my trip in detail, it would be much easier for readers to simply watch the video I made and uploaded a couple of days ago (to YouTube). http://denismortenson.blogspot.com/

To get to Cedar City, Utah - from Orange County, CA - follow Hwy. 5 north towards L.A. With little effort you'll be able to connect to Hwy. 15 north, which passes through Las Vegas. The traffic was horrendous when I arrived in Vegas. Thus I noticed the landmarks, including Caesar's Palace, and Trump Tower (Trump Tower is hard to miss because it has 'Trump' emblazoned on the top of it.) This is all on the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=TLe9vHEhHUo

Now, when you are gifted eighty acres in place you've never been, a natural thing is to research the area. I learned, for example, that Cedar City is known as 'Festival City.' Some of the accolade is due to its Shakespearean theaters, (Utah Shakespeare Festival) which are located on the campus of Southern Utah University.  http://www.bard.org

Cedar City is the ideal location for lovers of
Shakespeare, and also outdoor recreation, 
with several nearby national parks. While I was there I noticed a lot of people jogging, which is a good indicator of the lifestyle of citizens of this artsy, charming city. And to my mind it outshines nearby St. George for scenic views. https://utah.com/cedar-city  

To hiking, paddle boarding, kayaking, rock climbing, and winter sports enthusiasts - Cedar City is Heaven. The annual Outdoor Nation competition, which seeks to award universities across the nation who have the most students and community members involved in outdoor activities - chose Southern Utah University in 2015. http://www.ksl.com/?sid=37046884&nid=1288

But back to the land I was given. It was bone dry, but nearby farmswere green and lush with crops and sizable trees. Water is what is termed 'problematic' in Iron County, and Utah in general. Utah is the second most dry state, behind Nevada. In a good year, the area gets fifteen inches of rain, and most of that is in the form of snow. After all, the average elevation is 5,000 feet.

My land is at 5,163 feet. It had not been surveyed thoroughly since 1910. I found a surveyor via the Iron County Recorder's Office in Cedar City, who recommended Doug Grimshaw. He is a tall, lanky man - a few years away from retirement. He brought along a red haired teenager named Max, and we made good progress locating the original 'monuments' from the 1910 survey, which consists of metal pipe with a metal cap emblazoned with a date and other government survey information. Our efforts were delayed by forty minutes from having gotten stuck in a long, narrow sand dune that runs north and south on the property. I got a workout retrieving and breaking off limbs of dead sage to wedge behind the tires, (once the sand was cleared by shoveling).



I confess I have aspirations to be a part-time beekeeper. It's possible on my land, but first I will have to pay for a well, and obtain water rights. The total of these two things could be as high as $30,000 or as low as $20,000. In other words, it's not going to be cheap. But with water, my land can become as green as neighboring properties. My idea is to try removing twenty acres of sage and rabbitbrush and plant wildflowers for my bees. To help me visualize this dream, I used my Photoshop skills. It helps to visualize your dreams. Here is mine.


Scaling down my grand plan, I could possibly put up an artist's studio, run by a couple of solar panels. Then at least I'd have a place to use when I visited the land, and with the solar panels I would have electricity for lights and a small refrigerator. But for now, it's all up in the air. I have had two offers for the land. One real estate agent from Coldwell Banker sent a fax stating he could sell it and fetch $51,000. Anything over one dollar is profit, because I got the land for nothing.