How The West Was Spun

Labor Day Weekend

D and I decided I/we needed a little break from the house.  I find if I stay home and "relax", I generally have a long list of things I could be doing, and not being at home forces me to actually not do anything.  Both of us had to work the Labor Day holiday, so we decided to take only a quick 24-hour trip up to the mountains to camp overnight on Friday night into Saturday.

We went back up to the general area of our Blackhawk Trail ride, and camped at the northern end of the Nebo Loop Scenic Byway.  Even though it was stinkin' hot in the valley, it was a lovely 78 degrees up at 8000 feet with bright blue skies. This is the view across the meadow from our campsite.

We spent a nice evening sitting with our feet up around a small fire pit, cooked out on the grill, and I read and did some knitting.  Very nice and relaxing, and considering it was a holiday weekend, pretty darn quiet and peaceful.........

Until 9:00 p.m. when a group of BYU students rolled in and set up camp about 4 sites away from us.  It is a sad, sad state of affairs when today's youth feel the need to blast Christian rock music - and then, after their next-door camper neighbor (who had little kids with him) told them to shut it off, decide to serenade us with a LIVE concert on his guitar.  He obviously was INTO his music, man.  I was sorely tempted to drive my truck over there and let them listen to my entire Zeppelin CD collection so they could learn what REAL music was, but eventually they shut up and we all went to sleep.

The next day, D and I took a driving tour along the entire Nebo loop, which we hadn't done before.  We climbed up to about 10,000 feet, and took some gorgeous scenic views of Payson Lake:

Mt. Nebo (elevation 11,923):

and Utah Lake (slightly hazy because of a small wildfire the night before, but it's in the upper portion of the photo - click to make bigger).

As we trundled south along the Loop, we began to enter the fire zone.  You can take a look at my previous entry for the news story on the fire, if you haven't already.  Amazingly enough, even though there are sections where the fire burned so hot, the ground is black as coal, small shoots are starting to regrow from the bases of the sagebrush bushes already. Not a lot of vegetation, and it'll be slow to come back, but it will eventually.

 

It was a very nice way to spend a quick day away, and our friend, Dan, was kind enough to watch the critters for us.  Sunday, we took a quick ride, and then it was back to the dye pots!

All for now.....

The Visit

First, let me go ahead and dispel any MIL stereotypes. I coulda had one of those MILs.  The guy I dated in college - woooboy! - his mother was a battle-axe.  She was awful to me and I am extremely grateful that D's mother is not.  She has never been anything but lovely and gracious to me from day 1.  She always says nice things about my cooking and the house (things not my strong suits), and always asks if she can help out rather than being waited on while she visits.

Normally this time of year, we'd have a lot of lovely mountains covered with snow to show off, but alas, we have very low snow this year, even in the mountains.  Saturday, we did decide that we'd better get our touring done since a storm was moving in on Sunday, so we drove up through Provo Canyon and stopped at Bridal Veil Falls.  It's been cold enough that the falls are mostly frozen over, although there is still some running water.  It's pretty either way.

You can just barely see two small dark dots on the large white sheet of ice in the center of this picture.  Believe it or not, there was a group of 3 ice-climbers out on the sheer face of the waterfall.   

We then continued the drive up through the canyon, stopping to take some pictures of the snow-capped mountains.  You can see the incoming clouds out in front of the storm front against the blue sky.

We also took a few pictures at the reservoir, which is still iced over, but I don't think will last very long if the temperatures continue as they have been above freezing. (In fact, it has warmed up so much that one of the local winter elk-feeding areas is empty.  The elk have all moved back up to higher elevations because there is so little snow up there, they can forage.)

We ate lunch up at the Lodge at Daniel's Summit (where we went snow-mobiling last weekend) and then meandered home, to enjoy dinner with the Farrells.

Sunday was a dismal day here.  It was an east coast kind of rainy day, where it rained virtually all day long.  We "treated" D's mom to lunch (at a gas station, nonetheless, it being Utah and not much being open early - if at all - on a Sunday morning) and then took her to Cabela's, where I think she was somewhat stunned at the size of the store and the vast selection of products they carry.  (If you haven't been to a Cabela's, they are an outdoor/sporting goods store, but they also sell clothing and cookware, and housewares, and stuffed fish pillows, camping gear - you name it.)  Do we know how to show a lady a good time or what?

Yesterday (Monday) saw her winging her way back to spring in South Carolina.  A great visit - too short, as usual - but always wonderful to see her.

All for now......

Weekend Fun

Busy weekend!  Whew!

Saturday I met up with several of the Utah gals for a late-afternoon get-together at Three Wishes, the fiber shop.  We had a very fun time, knitting and chatting, and generally enjoying the ambience at the shop.  I worked a little on my socks (both pairs on the needles currently), but got a call from D and had to zip off to go pick up a set of snowmobiles, as we were going snowmobiling with Pam and John and Daniel (for his birthday) on Sunday.

In honor of Daniel, we drove up to Daniel's Summit, which is east of Provo (which sits south of Salt Lake City).  They have a large set of loops that have groomed snowmobile trails, so we were able to enjoy the great weather and spend the day outside.  The other great news tidbit we found out is that this area has a large number of horse trails in the summer months and you can park at the lodge's parking lot, and ride right up into the aspens and pines for the day.  We've earmarked that as a mid-summer ride when the valley temps are toasty; it will be much cooler up at this altitude.

We were worried that there might be a storm moving in, as one half of the mountain was covered with gloomy-looking gray clouds, while the other half showed bright blue sky.  In the end, we lucked out, and the blue sky won out for the day.  It was sunny and warm (around 40) for most of our riding time, and we had a blast.

Views of the mountains through the trees:

A shot of the boys having fun:

And finally, a picture of Daniel at one of the signposts with his name on it:

Happy Birthday, Dan!

Our regular knitting/fiber posts resume tomorrow.

All for now.....

Out For A Sunday Drive

Since the footing still really in't solid enough to get the horses out yet, D and I have been doing some day-trips for humans-only on the weekends, just to get out and about and explore a bit.  Sunday, we decided to drive out to the Little Sahara Recreation Area to the south and slightly west of us.

The Little Sahara is approximately 6000 acres of BLM land that are dune fields deposited by the Sevier River on its path to what was Lake Bonneville, 15,000 years ago.  Because of the way the mountains funnel the wind through that area, the dunes are constantly shifting and moving.  The area is now set up for "recreation" and by that, I should caution that this mostly means ATV/OHV vehicles.  It's not very busy right now (which is why we went), but I can only imagine the noise and dust generated here in the warmer months.  The campgrounds, scattered throughout the road-accessible areas of the park, must be jam-packed.

The nicest part of the drive was actually the access road on the way in.  The sand is currently covered with a light layer of snow, so there are tons of criss-crossing animal tracks, and we saw 2 juvenile bald eagles.  The BLM ranger told us they are migrating right now, and the youngsters obviously were busy looking for food.  No pics from me, sadly, as they were too far away for my little camera.

Our first stop was the area around the White Sands Dunes, where there are rolling dunes and small riding bowls.  Here's a picture of the dunes just as you step out of the parking area:

And a picture facing out towards the east and the Black Mountains. (You can still see how hazy it is even though we were outside the city.)

The primary attraction for most visitors to this area is Sand Mountain.  This is an almost 700-foot wall of sand.  It is about a 45-degree angle to get to the top, and we watched several of the ATV'ers have their machines bog out and have to turn and come back down without being able to climb the entire hill.  (Click to enlarge and you'll see a few ATV riders included for scale.)

My favorite part of the park, however, are the old juniper trees.  They were loaded with berries and I love the twisted, striated bark.

A nice tour.  I wouldn't go out there when the place was at peak, but it was fun to see the dunes and walk in the sand while there is still snow on the ground.

All for now....