Dark Canyon

Here I am at the trailhead. Notice I am wearing my Hostinella shirt from Cathy. Always a dangerous/scary decision. :) Just kidding--sort of.

After 2-3 miles of flat desert, we came to a couple of areas where we down-climbed a bit. Then we came to the serious downhill! One vertical mile down. An ancient rock slide took away the sheer canyon wall and made it possible to pick your way down through the boulders. There's a trail of sorts. Cairns show the "easiest" way down. On the left here (above) is a pic looking down. And on the right is Jody down quite a ways towards the bottom.

This is one of my favorite pics. It is taken from the top and shows where we camped. If you look in the center of the pic you can see where a stream is flowing (you can't actually see the stream, but you can see the curve where the stream goes). That's Dark Canyon. Almost smack in the middle of the picture, in that river bed, you can see tiny, tiny trees. That's where we camped!

Pics of our camp. Definitely desert! Sheer canyon wall behind us. Stream in front of us. It was absolutely gorgeous!

OK, here's a couple of fun pictures. On the left you see me pumping water. Notice how hard I'm working. NOT! It's my new Platypus water purification system. You scoop up water into the "dirty" bag and using gravity it drains into the "clean" bag. You then use the clean bag as your bladder. Or you can just hold a Nalgene under the short hose attached to the "dirty" bag and let the water pour into your bottles that way. There's a little clamp to stop the flow when you don't want the water to come out. So whenever you want water you just have to pop the clamp and purified water pours out. No more pumping! On the right are sprouts. I took 2 sprouters with me and sprouted as I backpacked. It takes a lot of water, but with my new system that doesn't matter. It's easy--just a few minutes of care in the morning and in the evening. And then fresh greens for lunch every day! I mixed my sprouts with soy nuts, dried cherries and a few almonds and then tossed them with a little pouch of Italian dressing. Yum!

Just a couple of beautiful views taken of the area from our campsite. I love canyons, and I love desserts. The out- of-doors and camping and hiking recharge my aura!

Here are some photos of our day hike. Obviously me on the left. A pic of the stream we followed down to the Colorado River (we didn't go all the way) in the middle. Sometimes we were walking along the stream and other times we were way up above it. This is a way up photo, obviously. And then on the right is a fossil. Cool, huh? By the way--for those of you who aren't technological, you can click on these smaller pictures and a big one will pop up so you can see more details.

The left photo shows Jody and me heading out on our last day. The one on the right shows a scout troop coming down just as we were heading up. They look far away because they were way above us. If you can't see the boys, try clicking on the pic.

A sight for sore eyes. Way in the background you can see our car. Yeah! But then we still had the "treacherous" trip out that difficult dirt road! We were sure happy when we turned onto the asphalt highway!

Natural Bridges

This trip actually had 2 parts--camping and day hiking in Natural Bridges National Monument and then Backpacking down into Dark Canyon. Natural Bridges was first.



Here I am at our camp--just open BLM land. No "facilities." I'm wearing my new hiking skirt. I wasn't sure how practical it would end up being, but I loved it! It's a winner. I'm still loving my little Big Agnes tent and my Big Agnes integrated sleeping system. Equipment these days is unbelievable! I took this trip with my neighbor, Jody Barney. We were "alone together", meaning that we each had our own tents and food and pretty much took care of ourselves. We hiked together, but I also spent a fair amount of "alone" time reading and meditating and wandering. Camping and hiking simply infuses me with life!





















This was my first trip with my Kindle. It worked Great! No worries about reading too much and running out of what I brought. I finished "Outliers" which I had been half done with and then I started "The Magician" (and got 3/4 way through) .





















Here I am starting the descent into the canyon which has Sipapu Natural Bridge. My backpack is pretty cool in that I can take it apart and have a small backpack with a water bladder and also a fanny pack for 10 essentials and lunch.





















Here I am at Sipapu Natural Bridge. I love natural bridges. This was a neat hike because we got to walk under 3 of them. It was a 8 1/2 mile loop.
















Here I am at the second bridge, Kachina. All these bridges have Native American names, if you hadn't noticed. :) Originally "white men" named them President, Senator and Congressman, in order of height. then they were renamed Agusta, Caroline and Edwin by explorer groups. Finally the General Land Office assigned Hopi names (inspired by nearby Puebloan structures).


























Kacina has some cool petroglyphs. Here's an animal.






















And here's a human.





























Owachomo is the oldest of the three bridges. This view shows how narrow and thin it's getting. Remember last year one of the bridges at Arches collapsed? :( Owachomo is headed for that, but likely not in our lifetimes. You can see Jody in the corner of this pic--she's taking a picture.















Here I am at Owachomo

























And finally back at the parking lot. Then we headed off 2 hours to the Dark Canyon trailhead.

Thomas Family Reunion

So here's the very long story of our Thomas Reunion trip to Spokane. I know I should make it shorter, but it's so easy to just cut and paste from my letter! The pics don't really match the paragraphs. They're just pics of the kids with their grandparents--and one pic of the family at dinner.

Wendy, Jack and Rob flew up early. Wendy has been wanting to spend more time in Spokane and our trips are always pretty rushed affairs, jammed in over just a weekend. Oh, I need to back up a bit. You know usually we drive, and actually we enjoy the drive. We eat. We visit. We actually bond and have a good time! I know that sounds sappy, but it’s true. But this year our crowd was getting just a bit too big for a car. With Stephanie and Jack both joining our family this year we had a long debate over how to get up there. We could have rented a big van, like a 15 passenger monstrosity or something. But those are certainly not comfortable—more like just practical. Plus Wendy was worried about traveling with Jack. Even though there would be lots of adults to help, poor Jacko would be cooped up in that car seat for an awfully long time. So after much debate we decided to fly this year. That’s why we could work it where some went earlier than others. They stayed (and then we did too, later) at the Marriott Courtyard downtown right by the river. It was really nice. They ate at Dicks, as well as other “new” places and they rode the Carousel and did lots of walks along the river, including to Gonzaga and the falls. They went to the new, really beautiful mall. They went to Spokandy. All in all they had a really nice and restful time. Jack’s Pack and Play barely fit into the bathroom and so that worked quite well. Poor Rob, who isn’t a good sleeper and who has to go to the bathroom at night, had to go down to the lobby each time he needed to go. J So then the rest of us (Rachel, McKay, Stephanie and I) flew in on Saturday morning. Karen was an angel and got up at the crack of dawn to come pick us up and take us to the airport for an 8:00 flight. We had a nice time together.

The flight to Spokane sure isn’t very long! There were only about 20 people or less on the flight. While boarding we had a “Meet the Parents” moment. I don’t know if any of you have seen that movie, but there’s a super funny part about when the main character is trying to board a plane and the airline workers won’t let him till it’s his turn, even though no one else is there. We had a young girl in front of us who was obviously very nervous and was boarding at the wrong time. They wouldn’t let her on yet. There was all of maybe 5 more people to board. Stupid! Anyway, we had a short stopover in Boise and everyone but us and one other person got off. The cockpit was open and Rachel was peeking in and pointed it out to McKay who was brave enough to go stick his head in and start talking to the pilot (or co-pilot?). I was nervous because since 9-11 the airlines are sticklers about the cockpit. But the pilot was super nice and let McKay come in and then Rachel went up and the pilot talked to both of them for like 15 minutes. It turns out the pilot and co-pilot were friends who served together in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s flown refueling planes, and he says it’s just like in the movie “Air force One.” McKay and Rach really enjoyed that little experience.

In Spokane we rented a car and drove straight out to Rob’s folks’ house. We had a little car-renting glitch. National would only take a credit card, and I guess all my cards are technically debit cards. So instead of renting the one Rob had reserved, we moved next door and rented from a different company who takes debit cards. I didn’t know our rate, so they got the paperwork from our original place and rented us a car at the same price. It all went very smoothly. The only glitch was that I didn’t know Rob’s rate, and when all was said and done we paid a ton more than we would have at our original place. Oh well . . . It’s only money. (ha ha) Our family was the first to arrive at Rob’s folks’. We had a nice visit for a bit and then everyone started arriving. It was really a wonderful reunion because more people came than usual. The adults (meaning siblings) always come, but usually not too many of the grandkids come—usually at least a couple of ours and a couple of Bruce’s and that’s it. This time everyone was there except Cecelia’s two boys and their wives and Aaron’s daughter (great-grandchild). It was really wonderful. We had a super nice visit and ate lunch while visiting. Here’s who was there: Cecelia and Terry and their daughter Halley, together with Halley’s husband Danny (who went with us to the inauguration) and their children Gus (6), Oscar (2) and Ira (11 months). Bruce and his wife Patti were there and all, yes all, of their children. Elizabeth brought her two children, Meredith (10) and Adriann (3?). Marla brought her husband Brian and her 20 month old, Ginger. Aaron’s little one lives with her mom in Mississippi so she wasn’t able to come. L And William was there. Very nice. And then our whole family. My gosh, we had a good time. Rob’s parents, as always, are so, so gracious. Both looked good, though Rob’s mom has been not feeling well and has lost some strength. She tired easily. But they were both so thrilled to see everyone, and we them. After lunch we visited for a long time, then each family left for errands or rest time.

During our errand time we did our two traditional errands—the Rack and Spokandy. We were in a bit of a rush, so we just did the North Town Spokandy instead of the original one. We caught them on their last day of business! Spokandy isn’t going out of business, but they’re closing all their satellite stores and just keeping the downtown one and focusing more on wholesale. So we practically bought out the store. Not really, but it seemed like it. We sure pig out there (refer to previous paragraph about gaining weight). And the Rack seemed like a pretty successful visit for everyone but me. Nothing really jumped out at me and I didn’t want to spend money just to spend money. So all I got was a pair of running tights which I had hoped they’d have. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what people got other than Rach. She was looking for a summer dress and searched and searched. She tried on like 20 items. She ended up with two blouses, and then as we were walking to the cash register all of a sudden we saw the perfect dress! She grabbed it and ran to the dressing rooms. It was perfect! So I ran it back to Rob at the counter and we got it! We were running a bit late by then and rushed to the restaurant were we were meeting. It was called something like Chickeria. It’s near Rob’s folks’ and it has a banquet room which had been reserved for us. It was perfect because the little kids could wander around and we could all visit. We again had a glorious time visiting and re-acquainting ourselves with each other. I think it was about 7 or 7:30 when we started heading off on our separate ways.

Our family went back to Rob’s folks’ for just a few minutes and then Wendy, Jack, Rachel and I went to our hotel. It was Jack’s bedtime! You know how babies and little kids let you know when they’ve had it! Rob and Kimball wanted to visit more with Grandma and Grandpa. The love birds (McKay and Steph) were enjoying sitting on the front lawn and mooning over each other, so they stayed. Us girl folk had a super good time lying around the hotel room visiting and eating Spokandy. Way later the boy folk and the love-birds showed up and we continued eating and visiting into the night. We love this Spokane trip. Although this year was quite different because we flew instead of driving, it was just a fantastic trip. Lots of bonding and visiting. A good time was had by all.

Jack's Quilt

This may be a bit ambitious, but I'm going to try to actually have a blog--not just a summer-time blog! My goal is to make an entry once a week. Part of the trick is figuring out something in my life to blog about. :) So I'm going to start putting pieces of my family letter in the blog. How's that? And I think I'll get better with practice. Anyone who gets an email with a link from me is someone I think might possibly be interested. So I'll just email a link when I make a post. OK? Since I really don't have anything new this week, I'm going to go back in time and . . .

OK, so I actually finished this quilt last winter. But I'm pretty proud of it, so I thought I'd post a couple of pics of it. It gives me something to blog about! This was made for my grandbaby, Jack. As soon as Wendy knew it was a boy, she and I went shopping and chose the fabric and the pattern. We altered the pattern a fair amount. I got started right away, but it took close to a year before it was done. No, I'm not like Carol who churns out at least a couple a month. I wish!
















Here's one with the corner folded up so you can see the tag.














And then here's the tag.





















Finally, the most important part of the quilt. JACK! Here's a recent picture of me holding him. You can see I've been running. :)










BTW--the quilt behind me is my sunflower quilt. Paper-pieced and hand quilted (all mine, up to this point, are hand quilted). It took 12--yep, 12--years. Now you can see why Carol amazes me so!

Ogden Marathon

This was a fabulous race!!!! I debated "how" to run this race and talked it over a bit with McKay. He encouraged me to push myself for all I was worth. I knew I wanted to try something different. My last marathon was absolutely wonderful in every way, but did I want to run every marathon exactly the same? No. On my last one (Logan--Top of Utah) I held myself back so I wouldn't wear out before the end. On this one I tried not to push myself to a crazy degree, but I ran faster--let the crowd and adrenaline help push me. I pushed like that the whole way--lengthening my stride whenever I noticed I was slowing. I pushed super hard and was exhausted by mile 23 but kept going. By mile 24 I was having to do self-talk to keep going. I was so happy to see the finish line up ahead!!!! I thought I was at about 4:11 or so, so imagine my surprise when the clock read 4:06:34. I honestly thought something had gone wrong with the clock! When I crossed the finish line I got the "special treatment" for people who look like they're going to collapse. :) A volunteer came up to me and put a very strong arm around me for support and talked to me about how I felt. I really was exhausted, and Rob confirmed with me later that I looked "terrible." But who cares? I did it!!!!!!!! When final chip time posted on Sunday, I had 4:04:32. Guess what? That qualifies old ladies like me for Boston! Oh yeah, baby. Boston. . . here I come.

The pics: The first, obviously, is me. It's after the race about 30 minutes. I've walked and stretched and found my "stuff" and hooked up with Rob. You can see I'm holding my famous purple robe. :) I love that thing! The next two just show the race in general--I'm not in them. I don't have a pic of me running because I was so dang fast that I took Rob by surprise and was past him before he could snap a picture. But you can see the finish chute and also the camaraderie and excitement at the post-race gathering.

For those of you who have nothing else to do and want to read the long version of the marathon--all 26.2 miles of it--it follows:

It was the Ogden Marathon on Saturday (the 16th). And I’ll tell you what; I did great! Yep. Even if I must say so myself. So here’s the long story from the beginning. Originally I was just going to drive up there super early Saturday morning. Then I got the “final” runners email with the instructions. I had to pick up my packet by 8:00 Friday night. Absolutely no Saturday pickup. What the heck? Whoever heard of that? So then it was like drive up to Ogden Friday after work and then drive back and then leave at 3:15 Saturday morning and drive back to Ogden. So with Rob’s encouragement I decided to just have us spend the night in Ogden. I found space at Motel 6. The reviews weren’t too bad—especially compared to some other places I read about! Motel 6 was cheap—my main requirement. So Rob and I got a sub for our temple sealings, made angel hair and myzithra at home right after work, and then headed off to Ogden. I ate my dinner enroute so I could eat just at the time I wanted—not too early and not too late. And I tried to eat the perfect amount—enough for carbs to burn, not too much for my innards to process appropriately. :) (If you know what I mean.) We had a nice drive to Ogden—took Legacy Highway for the first time. Picked up the packet and wandered the expo. Motel 6 was very, very clean. Nice! I tried to go to sleep early. What a joke! I didn’t actually get to sleep until almost midnight, and then I woke up 3 times before my alarm went off at 4:00. Oh well. I got up at 3:45 and got all ready and then drove the mile and a half to where I caught the shuttle bus up the canyon. I found parking easily (I scoped it out the night before) and wasn’t rushed or anything. I sat in the car for a few minutes and then headed over to the Ben Lomond Hotel (meeting spot) at about 4:30. Within 10 minutes the buses were loading and we headed out. A nice lady about my age sat next to me. It was her first marathon and she loved the fact that I was “experienced.” (It was my second.) Nice trip up, in spite of the fact that the buses missed a turn and we all had to turn around up a mountain road! It worked fine. So we got to the start and there were tons of fires in cans set around. Five-thirty in the morning at 5500 feet elevation. Cold! But the fires were warm and I was in my luscious purple Victoria's Secret marathon robe which, by the way, was a big hit up there! Thanks, Alicia, for the idea. We met another lady our age who was also a virgin (first time running a marathon). So she picked my brain too. It turns out my two new friends were in the same stake but they didn’t know each other! We stood around, then hit the porta-potties. I put on my knee braces, took my ibuprofen, put on sunscreen, packed up my long pants and robe and tossed my stuff into the truck. The ladies and I said our goodbyes and headed to the start line. They were both starting towards the back and I was starting towards the middle of the pack (it depends on how fast you run). The gun goes off, and the race is on! It takes awhile til the crowd thins out enough to run your pace. But pretty soon there I am, choosing my pace and running with the pack. My last marathon I held myself back so I didn’t get caught up in the hype and wear myself out too fast. This one I decided to run differently. I obviously didn’t want to run flat out, but I ran faster than usual—let the excitement of the crowd pull me along. I kept going at a faster pace than usual and focused on lengthening my stride. I just kept pushing. I wondered if I’d wear myself out and do the 2nd half slower than usual and end up with a slower time than my last marathon. I pushed and pushed and mile after mile I kept pushing. Once in awhile I noticed myself slowing down and I’d push forward again, lengthening my stride. I pushed hard up the hills. I never walked (I didn’t last time either). Push, push, push. Run, run, run. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Go, go, go. I was watching my watch and figuring times as I passed mile markers. It seemed as if I might be on track for my practical goal of 4:13 to 4:15. It seemed I kept staying on that track, which I was feeling good about. My last marathon was 4:20, so shaving 5 to 7 minutes off would be great! It would give me hope that in a few more marathons I could meet my dream goal of 4:04. At 20 miles I was pretty tired, but OK. At 23 I wasn’t sure how much I could keep pushing. I was really having to push myself hard to keep up the speed. At 24 I had really had it! I started actually having to self-talk, “You can do it, baby. Keep going. Keep going. You can do it. Go, baby, go.” At 25 ½ I could see the finish line way up ahead, thank goodness. I could hardly keep moving, but I did. I saw Rob just before the finish line, and I could tell I surprised him! He immediately broke out of line and tried to move ahead so he could get a pic of me. I looked up at the clock and honestly couldn’t believe what I saw. 6:06:34. What the heck? It was at least 5 minutes slow! There’s no way that could have been the time. I crossed the line! Yay!!!!! I stopped running. Immediately a support volunteer stepped up to me and put a strong arm around me and walked with me and talked with me about whether I was OK or not. I was, but that was my first clue that I must have looked terrible! I didn’t get that “special” treatment at my last marathon! But then I didn’t feel as wasted after that one either! So I wander around a bit and drink and stretch and finally about a half hour later I go over and find my “stuff” (robe, phone, etc) and call Rob. We meet up and he confirms my suspicion when, talking about my unexpected finish, he says, “You looked terrible!” He confirms my amazing time, had already texted the kids, and I was starting to get congratulatory texts. No kidding I was really confused about the time and just couldn’t believe it. It took quite awhile to sink in and I didn’t start announcing it from housetops until the final chip time posted Sunday afternoon. Absolutely unbelievably I had met my dream time—4:04:32. This was my dream time for 2 reasons. One, a few years ago Kimball ran a marathon in 3:03. A few years after that Rob ran one in 5:05. I just plain thought 4:04 would be really fun! 3:03, 4:04 and 5:05 in one family. Now McKay needs to do 2:02 or 6:06. D:) The other reason 4:04 was my dream time is because 4:05 is the qualifying time for my gender and age for the Boston Marathon. So Boston . . . here I come! I was bone tired, almost too sore to move, and intestinally sick for the rest of the day. Sunday I was just agonizingly sore, but once I got the posting of final results none of that mattered! Monday I was just sore. And today (Tuesday) there’s hardly any soreness left. Marathons are the greatest!

Inauguration . . . January 20, 2009

We arrived at the Springfield/Franconia Metro Station at 3:58 am. Metro opened at 4:00. We were shocked at the crowds already there! We hopped out of the car and left Carol to park it, and we ran across the street into the parking structure. The line already came out of Metro, across the sky bridge, around the second level and down and around the first level, where we were. At first we were just walking fast, but Rach realized that every minute hundreds more people were getting in line, so we started running! The line was a bummer, but exciting, too. Part of the excitement of Inauguration day! It turns out that it only took us 50 minutes to reach the front of the line and get on a train. Not bad.

Here's my picture that "proves" I was there. Ha ha. Carol is on my left, then me, Rachel, Wade (neighbor) and Danny (nephew). It was a great day to be an American, that's for sure!



Here is Senator/President Obama taking the Oath of Office. During the oath is he President or Senator? You can see how close we were. We didn't realize it at the time, but Senator Bennett had given us VIP tickets. We were front and center, as front as "regular" people could get. It was so exciting! We could see with our own eyes! We didn't even need binoculars. Unbelievable!

The crowds were amazing! It was a big part of the excitement. Supposedly there were about 2 million people there. Remember it is a mile from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, and then another mile from the Washington to the Lincoln. Probably 70% were black. They were so, so excited! They brought their children and their babies so they could always be told that they were there at this pivotal point in US history. Lots of women were dressed up in full-length fur coats and matching hats. They were crying and sharing stories about how they thought this would never happen in their life-times. It was a thrill!

We watched "Executive One" as it
rose up over the Capitol Building. It was pretty cool seeing it rise up over the top. I'll have to admit it was also awfully exciting to wave goodbye to President Bush, who you all probably already know wasn't a favorite of mine. It was also interesting to think about the fact that just an hour earlier the same helicopter would have been "Marine One," but now Bush was no longer president and so the name of the helicopter was "Executive One." Most of you know this, but "Marine One" helicopters always come in sets of 2--one "for real" that the president is in, and one that's a decoy.

Twilight

I wouldn't say I was a gigantic "Twilight" fan, but I do enjoy it!  I read all four books (super quick, easy, fun reads) and then I got a chance to go to a sneak preview of the movie.  Kimball and Davis are advertising at "The District" and so they get 6-8 tickets to shows every few weeks (McKay set this up, so he's on the "know", too).  Anyway, they got these tickets to Twilight 7 hours before the actual opening--our tickets were for 5:00 and it opened at midnight (on Thursday, November 20th).  McKay invited me and Kimball and Davis invited Rob and my mom.  We all had a super good time.  We got free popcorn and drinks.  And, get this, free t-shirts!  So my first two pics are just from the internet about Twilight, and the third pic is my free t-shirts.  Fun!  


Here's my free t-shirts.  I have them hanging on my wall in my classroom.  My girl students think that's cool!  :)