Recently, on the return home from a day-long outdoor recreation planning meeting held in Brigham City, the adventure bug bit. Turning off Highway 84 near the tiny town of Peterson, East Canyon Reservoir called. The two-lane road through Morgan County is narrow, and the surrounding landscape hear kens back to agrarian America. Creeping along behind a ranch truck, you know, the kind with cattle dogs on the flatbed, traffic was held up by a slow-moving Amazon van. Rolling patiently at a forced leisurely pace, there was opportunity to marvel at the Wasatch Back’s massive stony mountains rising toward a sky so blue it edged into purple and contrasted against the most lush, deep green alfalfa fields I’ve ever beheld.   The delivery van finally found its turnoff down a dirt road, and eventually so did the rancher, but as it is with rural life, the lazy pace resisted change. I coasted past farmhouses with real hay barns and pasturelands peppered with fat, black cattle. A man, a genuine cowboy, with gloves tucked in a back pocket, hat tipped low to keep the sun off his face, and dusty, well-worn chaps, leaned on a corral fence post. He watched a little brown foal frolic in the red dirt with what was easily anthropomorphized into pure joy for having been born in such a place. A realization then came into sharp focus and plucked at my core: This is America. Regardless of political leaning or world views, anyone consuming an American-sized serving of today’s media could easily be convinced that humanity is doomed, especially Americans. But today, on the eve of America’s birthday and with reverence for our country — and our people — I’d like to put a hard twist on the brainwashing that is modernday media. That twist is to say this: The good in humanity prevails and, if you’re looking for it, there is abundant proof. On a quiet country road, at a farm stand that runs on the honor system in Morgan County, I found a declaration that we the people are thriving. We are good.  Just below the East Canyon Dam, in a large cooler are small brown jars of homemade tallow and neat stacks of clean cardboard cartons containing duck and chicken eggs. Pick what you like and for a dozen eggs that are most certainly produced by birds that were not only truly free range but also well loved, deposit $6. It was not the entrepreneurial spirit, the neatly handwritten price tags, or my curiosity about the tallow making process that moved me that day. It was the element of trust, a gift freely and anonymously exchanged between strangers, that rearranged me internally. You see, the purveyor of this roadside farm stand placed trust in passersby — total strangers. Laying out valued, hand-made, home-raised products in a tidy stand on a dirt lot beside a quiet road, he or she expected the very best of humanity — that is to say, honesty. It is in places like this where universally favorable social agreements are written into American culture. And upon examination, you’ll see the lines in these agreements trace back to cooperation between neighbors that created strong communities, which in turn created an entire country worth fighting for. These unwritten social agreements transcend laws, politics and even religion. Collectively, agreements such as these are the foundation of a prosperous, honorable society where a person’s good word and a handshake are gold. Where trust is offered and earned. On the route home, there is an enormous American flag standing as a sentinel high above its community. As it waved with glorious intent in the warm afternoon wind, it made me know what it stood for: an America where neighbors trust and take care of one another and strangers passing by. Happy birthday America! Here’s to another 250 years of innovation, prosperity, benevolence and neighborliness.   I look forward to meeting you on the trails! Lora Anthony is the executive director of the Mountain Trails Foundation. The post A turn into free range America appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less