So when Silverado Hospice workers asked him if he had any unfulfilled dreams, he could think of only one.

"I wanted to fly over the Uintas with my sweetheart one more time."

Tuesday morning Hedin, 85, had his dream come true when he took a two-hour flight over the Uinta Mountains with his wife, Joy, 80, re-creating their second date. It was the day before the South Jordan pair's 58th anniversary.

The flight took them across Salt Lake City, over Emigration Canyon and Jeremy Ranch, up above Mirror Lake and the more rugged peaks to the north.

For Hedin, this was not new territory.

"You mention Uintas and I just about go into perfect orbit," Hedin said. As a Salt Lake City native, Hedin has spent much of his life around the nearby mountains.

"He knows them [the Uintas] very, very well. It was a good tour for me," joked O.C. Hope, the pilot who volunteered to fly the Hedins in his four-seat Cessna, Roy's favorite type of plane.

Hope said he was honored to fly an experienced pilot such as Hedin, whose love of flying began at age 15, when he earned a free plane ride by winning a model glider contest sponsored by The Salt Lake Tribune. After serving in the Air Corps during World War II, he taught flying lessons for several years.

But the flight wasn't Hedin's only brush with the past on Tuesday. Firefighters from the Salt Lake City International Airport were on hand to help Hedin, who can stand but not walk, on and off the plane. Before his retirement from the Salt Lake City Fire Department in 1983, Hedin worked as an airport paramedic as well.

After the flight, Hedin was full of the memories evoked by the familiar places he'd seen. But he was more amazed by things he'd never noticed before.

"When you let someone else do the flying, you sure see a lot more," he said.

Hedin also praised the Silverado Hospice staff who arranged the flight.

"You made it worthwhile to not be well."

lgoecker@sltrib.com