Spiral Jetty Revisited

A fun northern Utah adventure... a trip to the Spiral Jetty, a rather famous 1970's land art installation. I'd been there a few years ago, back when the Great Salt Lake was much higher and the Jetty nearly under water, but now after years of drought the entire jetty is exposed, making it totally different experience.

We found lots of baby jettys on the shore.

While we were there we hiked the hill for the aerial view... and while we were there did a cheeseburger summit!

Having taken this adventure with my nerdy birdy friend April, we had to enjoy all the bird sitings along the way. I wish I had gotten a good shot of all the Long Billed Curlew we saw, but birds are so hard photograph with my meager 200mm lens. I was however pretty happy with shot of this great clutch of burrowing owls! Pretty cool eh?

After a hot springs soak we decide to a sunset spin through the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge would be fun. It was getting a little dark for bird pictures, but sunset is always spectacular there.

My photo question of the day... Which of these do you like better? I sure can't decide!

Some favorite music

So I have a favorite music artist. Kind of an unusual choice for an old gal, as he's a hiphop/rap type artist, and I find that a lot of people my age (54!!) don't embrace the 'new' music. But I am a gal with quite eclectic musical tastes, and love discovering new and interesting artists. Grieves came to me through my daughter, who discovered him when he opened up for Atmosphere, way back when she was about 15. We have a funny bit of history together about Grieves, which I have written about in the past here and here. I really, really love his music, have all his albums and joke that I am his "oldest fan". It really surprises teh 20 somethings at work when I start playing his music in the lab. What? An old woman likes hip hop? Say it isn't so.

Imagine my surprise last week when driving home from work, listening to my totally un-cool and un-hip, 'All Things Considered' on NPR and I hear Grieves "Bloody Poetry" playing! So what does this mean? Is NPR cool now? Or maybe it's always been cool, despite that my listening to it made my kids nuts back when they were in school. Sarah always complained that everyone on public radio talked in a mono-tone! Or maybe I'm cool now? Eh, probably not...LOL Is Grieves now a mainstream artist? I've always thought of him as 'alternative', I don't think anyone I've ever told about him, old or young, had ever heard of him. I hope getting played on NPR is a sign that he has "arrived" as his music is great! Give him a listen!

Bling time

Who wants some bling? Girls all do, right? Apparently, somewhere near Broadway in New York City there are crown stores full of beautiful tiaras at very reasonable prices and when a gal I know heads to to NYC she likes to shop there. I was the lucky recipient of a tiara for my birthday last year, and last week when planning a trip to NYC my friend put out the "Who wants a crown?" callout on facebook and ended up needing to pick up ten tiaras. I guess we all want to be princesses!

We have no tiara stores in Salt Lake, but it seems we are not lacking bling, sometimes found in surprising places. On Saturday while running errands I stopped at the IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association) store, and there I found more bling than I've seen in forever.... sparkly western belts, rhinestone necklaces, and if you were kid, or a gal with very small feet, glitter toed cowboy boots in pink and blue and silver! I guess country gals like to be blingy princesses too!

Oh, and while you are at it, you can buy some baby chickens, or maybe a rubber pirate chicken.

Happy Places...

A late Friday afternoon/evening trip with my nerdy birdy friend April to visit a few of my happy places, Crystal Hot Springs and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. It was a rainy day. Rain is quite welcome here in the drought worn west, I know that in the past this dry section of the refuge pictured below has actually been a wet land. The good news is the birds are back. We stopped an watched a flock of ibis in a alfalfa field on the road to the refuge. I couldn't get a good picture, as the birds are so flighty, but it was so fun to watch the dark heads bobbing up and down all over the field.

Heron, stilts, avocets, pelicans, blackbirds, cormorants, greebs ducks and geese were plentiful, almost better than seeing them was enjoying the cacophony of bird sounds that greeted us when ever we stopped and got out of the car.

Another nice thing... no bugs, so we were actually able to enjoy our time out of the car!!! White Faced Ibis - I wish I could have gotten a better picture of all activity in this field!!! American Avocets - I never tire of these! and thy were noisy And we are always thrilled to death to see a Sandhill Crane!

My Son, the Skate Boarder

Matt at the Eureka, CA skatepark in 2010.

My goodness.... it has been forever since I posted anything... and not for good reason, I actually have a full list of things I've meant to post.. cool pictures from another trip to Eureka, adventures on a trip to in Zion, Brighton snow sculptures, Northern Utah Adventures, amusing things I have found here and there... It seems like after a few days have past it is 'too late' to blog the things that capture my interest... hmm perhaps I should backward blog them all.

 But here, before it is 'too late' I want to blog a fun thing from last week... Not my life really, but my son's, but it made me smile! This is my son's adolescent fantasy come true. He spent every warm weather moment of his childhood on his skateboard (How many times did I hear "Watch me ollie Mom!"?), or watching skate videos when the weather was bad, and he and his friends were constantly filming their tricks and making their own videos. Now, finally, at age 25 he debuted in his first 'pro' skateboard video last week. He's at minute 8:01, just one quick trick (nothing fancy he told me), but his name is in the video. He said he didn't even realize he got filmed that day.

   http://snowboarding.transworld.net/videos/fakie-bigspin-the-movie-3/#zKGMi0FBks4XDHsa.01