Two of the eight moonlight canoe nights all year land tonight and tomorrow, Marty Stuart plays the Sundance amphitheater Saturday, and the ramps to 2100 North and Center Street close until Monday morning
Plus algae warnings at five Utah Lake spots and Salem Pond, Vineyard's newest 5K charges $55 for the whole household, and Payson's cherry crop never made it out of spring.
Good morning, Happy Valley.
The heat warning holds through Sunday night, so the good version of this weekend happens either before nine in the morning or after eight at night, and it turns out both ends are unusually full. Santaquin opens Orchard Days with a 5K at seven and a flag raising at eight. Vineyard runs its own race at 8:30. Then the sun goes down and there's a canoe on the Provo River, a Country Music Hall of Famer up the canyon, and a musical under the lights in Orem. Two I-15 off-ramps close in between, which matters if you're driving any of it.
📍 30 seconds in the valley⏱️ 7 min read
- 🛶Eight canoe nights a year, and two of them are now
- 🎻Marty Stuart at the Sundance amphitheater Saturday
- 🚧The Lehi and Orem ramps that close until Monday
⭐ The Big One
Book now The lower Provo River gets canoes after dark tonight and tomorrow, and then not again until the end of August
CLAS Ropes Course runs moonlight canoeing on the lower Provo River on eight nights a year, and two of them are tonight and Saturday. Boats launch anytime between 8:30 and 9:30pm and everyone is back off the water by 10:30, with s'mores at the fire afterward. Canoes, life jackets, paddles and snacks all come with it.
The price is $39 a person, and it drops to $29 a person once you book eight or more on the same reservation. Kids 11 and under have to be with an adult in the boat. Reservations close 24 hours ahead, which is the part that decides your weekend: tonight's booking window shut yesterday, so the night you can still get is Saturday, and only if you book today.
The rest of the 2026 calendar is May 29 and 30, June 26 and 27, this pair, and then August 28 and 29. That's the whole year. It sits at 3606 West Center Street on the west side of Provo, about ten minutes from downtown, and the water at nine at night is the coldest thing you'll touch all week.
Our take
Most of what's cheap and outdoors in this valley in August involves standing in the sun waiting for something to start. This is the opposite of that, and the scarcity is real rather than manufactured: eight nights, two left after this weekend, then the river goes back to being something you drive over. Pack a light layer even though that sounds ridiculous today, because the canyon air comes down the river once the sun is gone.⚠️ Heads up: The 24-hour reservation cutoff is enforced, so showing up at 8:45 hoping for a spare boat is a wasted drive.
$$ date nightfamiliesafter dark
📰 Around the Valley
Two I-15 off-ramps close this weekend, one in Lehi and one in Orem
UDOT is shutting the southbound I-15 off-ramp to 2100 North in Lehi, Exit 282, from 10pm tonight until 5am Monday for utility work, and the stretch of Thanksgiving Way that runs parallel to the exit goes down with it. Then Saturday at 9pm the off-ramps from I-15 to Center Street in Orem, Exit 271, close for paving through 5am Monday, along with Center Street between Geneva Road and 800 West. Both are pieces of a much larger build: crews are putting in 2.8 miles of new freeway at 2100 North to tie I-15 directly into the Mountain View Corridor, the east-west connection meant to pull traffic off the surface roads in north county.
Algae warnings are posted at five Utah Lake spots and at both ends of Salem Pond
The Utah County Health Department has harmful algal bloom warning advisories up at Lincoln Marina Beach, the Saratoga Springs Marina picnic area, American Fork Marina, Lindon Beach Marina and Lindon Marina, plus Salem Pond South Arm and Salem Pond Knoll Beach. A warning means no contact with the water: no swimming, no wading, no skiing, and nothing to drink. Dogs stay out too, since they'll lap the water and then lick their coats. Motorized boating and sailing are unaffected, and fishing is still fine as long as you throw away the skin and the guts. Paddlers and kayakers sit low enough to the surface that the guidance is to use real caution.
📅 This Week
Music
Pick of the week 🎻 Marty Stuart brings the Fabulous Superlatives to the Sundance amphitheater Saturday
Marty Stuart plays Sundance Mountain Resort's outdoor amphitheater Saturday night with his band the Fabulous Superlatives. He has five Grammys, a Country Music Hall of Fame induction and a career that runs past fifty years. Doors open at 7 and the show starts at 8. Tickets go through the resort.
Our take
Stuart is the rare player who is both a museum-grade country historian and still genuinely loud on stage, and the Superlatives have been the same four guys long enough that they play like one instrument. An outdoor amphitheater in a canyon is close to the ideal room for it. If you have ever thought you should see one of these players before there aren't any left, this is the weekend one of them is up your own canyon.⚠️ Heads up: The amphitheater seating is outdoors and the canyon drops fast once the sun clears the ridge, so the jacket you laughed at in the driveway is the one you want at 10pm.
$$$ musicdate nightcanyon
Sports
Worth it
🏃 Vineyard's Splash Dash runs the lake trail Saturday, and the price is by household
Vineyard's newest city race goes off at 8:30am Saturday from Vineyard Grove Park, with a chip-timed 5K and a kids' 1K. The course runs the trail along Utah Lake and the whole thing is built around getting wet, during the race and after. Entry is priced by household rather than by runner: $55 covers three to eight people living at the same address, with shirts an extra $12 each. Every finisher in both distances gets a medal, and the top overall man and woman in the 5K each take a $50 gift card to Runner's Corner.
Our take
Vineyard has quietly built a four-race calendar in a city most of the county still pictures as a steel mill site, and pricing a 5K by household instead of by body is the kind of thing a small town does and a big one never would. An 8:30 start in the first week of August is late enough to hurt a little, which is presumably why they made cooling off part of the course.⚠️ Heads up: The splash is at the park, and the algae warnings on the lake itself mean the trail is for looking at the water rather than getting in it.
$ familiesrunningVineyard
Arts
Skip tonight, go later
🎭 Guys and Dolls takes the SCERA Shell through mid-August
The Shell's third and final musical of the summer opens tonight at 8 and plays Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through August 18. Kurt Elison directs, Robbie Cromwell choreographs and Kyle Harper handles music direction, and the score carries Luck Be a Lady, Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat and A Bushel and a Peck. General admission runs $15 for adults and $10 for kids and seniors, reserved seating climbs to $20 and $25, and nonprofit or church groups of twenty or more who buy in advance pay $7.50 a seat.
Our take
The show is good and the Shell is one of the better places in Utah to watch anything, but tonight is the wrong night for it. Bench seating that has been sitting in triple digits since noon does not give that back by curtain, and thirteen more performances follow this one before the run ends August 18, by which point the forecast should have come down. Go the week after next and sit closer for the same money.⚠️ Heads up: Reserved A and Reserved B are separate price tiers from general admission, so the $15 ticket is a bench, not a chair with a back on it.
$ theaterfamiliesOrem
Festival
Worth it 🤠 Santaquin opens Orchard Days Saturday, and the free half of it is over by nine
Orchard Days runs August 1 through 8, and opening Saturday front-loads everything. The 5K and fun run leave Hidden Orchards at 315 North Orchard Lane at 7am, the opening ceremony and flag raising happen at City Hall at 8, and the Little Buck-A-Roo Rodeo starts at the arena on 190 South 400 West at 9. A free dinner for the 55-and-over crowd lands back at the community center at 5pm. The rest of the week carries Chieftain Museum tours, DUP cabin tours, a family night with bounce houses and train rides, and a scavenger hunt on the Prospector View trails.
Our take
Santaquin sits at the far south end of the county and throws an eight-day party anyway, and the schedule reads like it was written by people who have actually stood outside there in August. Nothing important is scheduled between ten and five on opening day. If you have never made the drive down, the Monday family night with the train rides is the one to bring small kids to, and the museum and cabin tours that week are free.⚠️ Heads up: The events are scattered across four different addresses rather than one fairground, so pick your two and plan the parking between them.
Free familiesfreesouth county
Community
Worth it
🎼 Pleasant Grove's Sunday concert closes the weekend for free
Pleasant Grove runs free concerts on Sunday evenings all summer at the Downtown Park behind the new city buildings, and this week's is Andrea Sharp with Timeless Country at 7:30pm. Bring a blanket, the lawn does the rest.
Our take
PG runs this every Sunday from June into August and never makes a thing of it, so the crowd stays mostly people who walked over from the surrounding streets. Sunday evening is also the one slot this weekend with nothing else competing for it.⚠️ Heads up: The park sits behind the newer municipal buildings rather than on Main, so the first-timers all end up parking a street too far east.
Free freefamiliesPleasant Grove
🏟️ The Scoreboard
The Royals got their run stopped by the league leaders, and Portland comes Sunday
Utah lost 1-0 at home to Washington on Wednesday in a match that got held up by weather, with Trinity Rodman scoring the only goal in the 28th minute in front of an announced 9,538. It ended a two-game winning run and left the Royals third. Portland visits Sunday afternoon.
Three without a win, and a Saturday trip to the hottest team in the league
RSL went down 2-1 at Portland on July 25 after Morgan Guilavogui was sent off in the 34th for violent conduct, having already set up Juan Manuel Sanabria's first MLS goal in the 18th. A late Olatunji equalizer came off the board for offside by inches. Now they travel to a St. Louis side on a four-match winning run.
🍴 Eat & Drink
Worth it The Center of the Universe, Payson
Garrett and Brittany opened this one on Payson's Main Street in 2024 and built it around a simple rule: as much as possible comes from other people in town. It runs coffee, a long loose-leaf tea list, ice cream and a case of treats, with local art on the walls that's for sale and a rack of secondhand clothes in the back. Order the honey whipped latte and a chai shortbread cookie with it. Doors are open until 9 Tuesday through Saturday, and Friday nights at 6 the room turns over to live local music.
Our take
A room in Payson that stays open until nine, hangs local painters on the wall and books live music on a Friday is doing something the size of the town doesn't require of it. Go on a night when something is happening rather than on a Tuesday afternoon, because the point of the place is the room full of people rather than the drink.⚠️ Heads up: Closed all day Monday and the Sunday hours stop at 3, which catches people who assume a cafe keeps cafe hours seven days.
$ coffeelive musicPayson
💡 Hidden Gem
Worth it Butch Cassidy's rifle is sitting in a small museum on Lehi's Main Street
The Hutchings Museum has been on Center Street in Lehi for decades, built out of one man's collecting habit, and the range of what ended up inside is genuinely strange. Fossils and minerals in one room, a pioneer cabin in another, stuffed birds and eggs, Native American artifacts, a veterans' hall, and a wild west room whose holdings include a rifle that belonged to Butch Cassidy. Admission is $8 for anyone 13 and up and $6 for kids 3 to 12 and for veterans.
Our take
Lehi has a full natural history museum with an outlaw's rifle in it, and the reason nobody talks about that is the address. It sits on Center Street rather than out by an I-15 exit, so the version of Lehi most of the county drives through never touches it. Kids who have aged out of splash pads will give you two solid hours in here for eight dollars.⚠️ Heads up: It closes for maintenance September 5 through 7, so a Labor Day plan built around it falls apart.
$ familiesindoorsLehi
🎟️ Also Happening
🎡 Lindon kicks off eight nights of parade, rodeo and fireworks
The Exit Strategy concert starts it at 7 Saturday in Lindon City Center Park, and the run goes through next weekend.
🥕 Spanish Fork's Saturday market
Produce and local vendors fill the Thurber Building lot from 8am to 1pm Saturday in Spanish Fork.
🪄 A Wizard's Birthday Bash
The Provo Library throws Harry Potter a birthday party tonight from 7 to 9, and it costs nothing.
📰 Valley News
Payson's tart cherry crop never made it out of spring
Utah usually grows the second-largest tart cherry crop in the country, somewhere between 20 and 40 million pounds in a normal year, and most of it moves through the Payson Fruit Growers co-op. This year the co-op expects to process 10 to 15 percent of its usual volume. An unusually warm winter pushed the trees into bloom more than a month early, and the frosts that followed killed the blossoms outright. The plant that normally staffs up to about 500 seasonal workers hired 60. The co-op is buying cherries from Washington State, and possibly from Europe, to keep its customers supplied while the growers work out what a year with no crop does to their debt.
A UVU research barge that scrubs harmful algae is about to lose its funding
Since 2022, UVU has run a 34-foot barge across Utah Lake that filters about 100,000 gallons of water a day and cuts algae concentration by roughly 60 percent per pass, working the marinas and beaches where people actually get in. Kevin Shurtleff, an associate professor there, built the project, and two students run the boat as a summer job. It has been paid for by the state, UVU and the Utah Lake Authority together, and the Authority says it cannot cover the $40,000 the vessel needs for next season. It finishes out August and then sits on a trailer in a UVU parking lot unless the project can make its case to lawmakers.
Utah's reservoirs sit at 57 percent, and the Provo River bump won't last
The state's water conditions update this week puts reservoir storage at 57 percent full, which is 17 points below normal for the end of July and 22 points below where it stood a year ago. The drop from May to July came in at 13 percent against a typical 1 percent, which is the number that tells you how hard this summer has pulled on storage. Monsoon storms gave the Upper Provo River a short bump in flow, and the state expects that to fade as runoff keeps declining. The same update carries a reminder that burn scars stay unstable for years, so canyon storms turn into flash floods and debris flows on ground that already burned.
The Debate
💙 Good Neighbor
Nominate the Valley's quiet MVPs
Every issue we spotlight one neighbor, teacher, coach, or cause quietly making the Valley better, plus an easy way to pitch in. Know someone who deserves it? Send them our way.
Nominate a neighbor →That's the weekend. Book the Saturday canoe today if you want it, put the Santaquin flag raising at eight in the morning, and route around 2100 North and Center Street after dark.
Tell us what we missed. Reply with the openings, events, and good-neighbor stories your corner of the Valley should know about.
Forward this to whoever keeps saying there's nothing to do down south.
— The Provo FOMO crew
Got a tip, a new opening, or an event? Just reply — we read everything.
Read past issues · Refer a neighbor · Advertise with us
Read past issues · Refer a neighbor · Advertise with us