Tina from Travels and Trifles leads this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge with the theme of Walking the Neighborhood.

Reading other people’s posts this week, I feel like everyone’s neighborhood is much less boring than mine.

I know this isn’t exactly my neighborhood. It’s a somewhat bird’s eye view of the city I live in. I live in a city about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City in what’s call a “Bedroom community”. Basically, a majority of the population in about a 15-mile radius works in Salt Lake City. Essentially, they just sleep here, hence the term “Bedroom community”.

I happen to be one of those people until the pandemic, which caused my job to go from commuting to the office everyday to just commuting once a week. Before the pandemic, I used to had to get up very early in the morning to catch the express bus into Salt Lake City. These days, on the day I have to go into the office, I would set the alarm to go off an hour early at 6:30 AM so I can leave prior to 7 AM because that’s when the traffic sets in.

Truly, I feel there’s nothing special about my neighborhood. There’s an Air Force Base 2 miles away, but that’s more of a nuisance than anything else with fighter jets flying overhead during my work meetings. There’s also just about every popular fast food franchise here – McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Popeyes, and we just got a Raising Cane’s. The only one missing may be a Shake Shack but I have no doubt that’s coming soon.

I am just about a 15-minute drive from the mountains, which was where the first picture was taken. So I guess the mountain is part of my neighborhood.

Finally, the neighborhood park. I haven’t been there in a long time, probably since early this year, after I got sick because of my thyroid. I guess “sick” isn’t the term to describe how I’ve been feeling this year. It’s more like having my energy zapped away to oblivion more than anything. It’s what happens when the body misbehaves, I guess, you’re thrown for a loop.