***Pause***

I interrupt my vacation travelogue to report on todays hike. I took the dog walking up Porter Fork in Millcreek Canyon tonight. Porter is one of my favorite summer time after work hikes, as it low enough in the canyon that I can get there quickly, it's shady and cool, as spring fed creek run alongside the trail. Well, trail isn't right, as it's really a one lane asphalt road, which is kind of nice if you end up coming back in the dark. Does pavement makes it a walk instead of hike? Or does the fact that there's about a 1200 ft elevation in the 1.5 mile walk to the end of the road make it a hike? Either way it's pleasant after work workout.

The road services an area of about 40 summer homes - rustic cabins, quaint cottages and a few new summer homes that make my real house look shabby. It's still pleasant up there despite the homes. Most are tucked back into the trees, and it seems rare that more than 4 or 5 are occupied at anyone time. Usually there are more hikers and dog walkers up there than summer home people.

I had a laugh when I walked by one cottage that was right alongside the road. I'd never seen a lemonade/dog treat stand when I was out hiking before! Too bad the stand was abandoned when we walked by, I'm sure Daisy would have liked a treat!

Minnesota Travelogue

I have always wanted to go to Minnesota. I'm not sure why, other than it is a cold weather place and I'm a cold weather person, or because I enjoy Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" Radio show or liked his book "Lake Wobegon Days" or maybe I wanted to see the 10,000 lakes. My brother moved to the Minneapolis area a few years ago, the kids and I each had a $100 Delta airline that needed to be used by August I had a holiday weekend and the kids were both in town, so we jetted off to Minnesota for a long weekend.




My brother lives way out in the western country/suburbs In the little town of Minetrista. The area is every bit as lovely as Garrison Keillor portrays it in Lake Wobegon Days. Green trees and idyllic farmsteads with waving fields of wheat and beautiful old barns. Lots of lakes, the biggest being Lake Minnetonka. We stopped along the lake at the cute little town of Wayzata, an old historic railroad town. The old train depot is now a museum, and outside the station they had this cute model train running outside.

Lucky Week

A butterfly I saw while hiking Bowman fork tonight

I am not quite sure what happened in the universe recently, but apparently last week was my luck week. I checked my facebook page and found that I had won a little contest a friend of mine sponsored. She owns Creekside Creations, a company that makes all natural soaps and lotions etc. and I one some of her marvellous products. Thanks Caryn!

Monday was also "dumpster day"; the one day a year where the county places big dumpsters on the street for us to discard "big stuff", so it's a good time to trim trees etc., One of my friends recently purchase a very high quality, professional pruning saw, and he let me borrow it to trim a tree who's branches were whacking my house. Thanks Jamie. I spent most of Sunday using that saw, and had piles and piles of branches lining the street by the end of the day. I snuck out of work early Monday, dreading that I had so much stuff to toss in the dumpster. Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner toward my house, and all my piles of branches were gone! My neighbor was out hauling her branches to the dumpster, so asked her if she knew who had taken care of mine. It turns out the county sent a big truck and scooped up all my branches!!! Talk about good luck! I may as well have won the lottery! I'm sure my poor neighbor wished she'd hauled hers to the curb the day before. You can bet we'll all be trying that strategy next year!

If that wasn't enough luck for one week, I actually won a subway gift card during a vendor show at work. I am simply not accustomed to having such good fortune!

Farmers Market

This morning my daughter, her borfriens and I went downtown to the farmers market. Peppered amunst the produce and craft sellers are musical acts. My daughter stopped to listen to a piano player, who interestingly, had the top of the upright piano open so that you could watch the mechanism. I walked up toSarah and said "Do you find it more interesting to listen when you can see inside the piano?" No" she replied, "it's more interesting when tha piano has been pulled behind a bicycle." I look over, and realize that in my fascination with the hammers hitting the strings, I never even noticed; that the piano, whick was on wheels, was attached to a bicyle! I'm not sure how much a piano weights, but I can't imagine pulling one with a bicycle. I can only presume that the owner must live in the flat part of the valley.

4th of July Weekend....

Saturday I went out with the mountain bike group for my first ride of the year. We road Pipeline trail out, which, by mountain biking standards is a relatively mellow trail; fairly flat, not too technical. I pretty such suck going up the big, steep uphills, and the big steep downhills can be a little scary, so for me this is an excellent ride. I did manage to successfully ride a few "technical" spots that are challenging to me so I was pretty pleased. I love this picture that Mike, one of the group organizers (and coach, cheerleader and total enthusiast) took. It really makes mountain biking look like, well, MOUNTAIN biking. I am the middle rider.


Sunday was spent at a creek side picnic with a friend. We were supposed to join other friends at the beach at Pineview Reservoir, but were turned away, for crowd control reasons by a cop doing his best "Dirty Harry" imitation. So we found a lovely picnic spot instead.


So the weird thing about Utah ... 4th of July fireworks are held on Saturday the years the 4th falls on a Sunday. No one here seemed to get the message about "separation of church and state". Two exception (that I know of)... the Salt Lake Bees has a big fireworks display after their July 4th game, and The Country Club did theirs on the 4th. Luck for me I get a great view of The Country Club's fireworks from my deck.

Divorced Fathers Day

Holidays are one time being divorced kinda sucks. Turns out father day is no exception. For Fathers Day Sarah made her father a cake... a flourless chocolate torte topped with chocolate ganache. Beautiful isn't it? But I didn't get any! See what I mean about holidays sucking when you're divorced?

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood....

I think the pictures say it all.....

Sightseeing...

I had a nice surprise this week. My brother came and spent a week here in Utah on business. He flew in Sunday early afternoon so I stook him adventuring. First stop was Antelope Island, where we climbed to the top of the Buffalo Point ocerlook to take in the views. I think the views of the Great Salt Lake fron here are amazing. I did learn a valuble lesson though... don't go there in the spring. The bugs were terrible. We were totally swarmed with little tiny biting flies, which made for a quick trip.

From there we headed up north and due to a detour to grab something to eat we drove by the old Union Pacific Station, where there is train museum. Jim saw the old engines outside and wanted to stop and play and climb on them. They were pretty cool to see close up, especially the really old ones. It's great to have a brother who wants to play!

Our real northern destination was the hot springs, where we had a nice soak. I liek to take visitors there because hot springs are a rarity in most places. I'm not sure anyone every likes them quite as well as I do (I'm a hot springs nut!) but it's always a nice day.

But were are the pictures you ask? I snapped one while walking ot the top of Buffalo Point. When we reached the top I went to snap another and realized my camera was gone. It must have worked it's way out of my pocket as we hoofed it up the hill. I was traumatized. I've been carrying my little Pentax Optio S5I (it's the one that fits in in the Altoids tin) practically everywhere for the last four years. I love my little camera, have no desire for another one, it is my trusted friend! We scoured the trail on the way down, but didn't find it. There was a couple hiking down as we went up, my hope is that they found it and turned it in. We checked on the way out, no such luck. Sigh. Monday, I started researching new cameras, then realized I should check with a park again. I made a call and low and behold my camera had been turned in. So Monday after work I drove the 40 miles back to park and now I have my baby back. Maybe I shouldn't get so attached to things, butyou know newer isn't better if love what you have.

And it continues...

.... Winter that is. Scenes from my morning, noon hour and evening.....

Spring Revert Again...

Spring reverts to winter once again....
Woke up to snow again this morning. Not really accumulating here in the valley, but it looks like the mountains are being treated to another good dose of fresh white frosting. I love the snow more than most people, but am slightly aggravated by it today because Matt is driving up from college today. The only thing I dislike about him going to school in Durango, CO is that when the weather is bad I worry about his 7-8 hour drive through desolate desert and over mountain passes. And of course the weather is frequently bad at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break so I often get a little worrying in. Heck, his first year of school classes were canceled the week after Christmas break because nobody could get to Durango... all the passes into town were closed. We've learned to watch the weather and pick travel days accordingly, although today he has no choice because he has his last final this morning and an appointment here in Salt Lake tonight. But who really expects to have to worry about him driving over Soldier Summit in a snowstorm the last week of April??

And again...

The view from my front porch today!

Today's another fine Utah spring day....complete with SNOW, yet again. We awoke to about 3 inches, of fresh wet snow, sure to melt by days end, but it made such a beautiful morning. Cool air and a beautiful sky! I think we've had more snow in April this year than we had in December. A good thing for us spring skiers for sure!!

More Utah Spring!

Six inches of snow on Tuesday, and I found my pond frozen on Wednesday.
They had so much snow at Snowbird they declared "interlodge", meaning the canyon was closed and no one was allowed to leave the buildings for 2 days. The marvelous thing is that I had planned to play hooky from work on Thursday to ski Snowbird with a friend... we could not have had a better spring ski day.... but the better part... my friend is a condo owner up there, so after sking we got to use the hot tub and go to the condos wine and cheese party. A real "resort" skiing day. What can I say, life is good and I am a lucky girl!!!!!

Apres Easter Egg Dyeing

Since the yard still had some snow left from Thursdays big snow storm, we decided to use the leftover egg dye to decorate the snow. Too bad it all melted away in a couple of hours...

Happy Easter!

Nate and Sarah

Easter Sunday morning was spend dyeing easter eggs. Unfortunately Matt was back in school in Durango so he couldn't be here, but his friend Nate, who is living with us this semester while he attends college at the U of U, joined us in the festivities. Nate, who I've dubbed my "pseudoson" was pretty thrilled to get a easter basket filled with chocolate just like Sarah did. My friend Jason also joined our egg party. It's a lot of fun when we big kids all get to act like little kids. A good time was had by all!

And doesn't everyone pull out the Christmas table cloth when they dye eggs???

Sarah's dye job and rockin' nails
Nate's abstraction

Sarah's beauty



Jason's melon

My doggie Daisy, after a recent snowstorm. I think she is a reverse dalmation!
Have I ever said how much I love my dog. She has been the most wonderful companion and best friend!

April Fools???

Yup it's Mother Nature playing tricks on us. We had frigid January like weather in December, February was almost spring-like, March could not make up her mind, warm one day, cool the next. And now for the 1st of April, we have, ta-da, the return of winter!! A good ten inches of snow at my house this morning, as measured by the snow on my upstairs deck. If I didn't enjoy the snow so much I'd think this was Mother Natures idea of an April Fools joke!

The Sky's the Limit

It's hard to beat a good western sunset and luckily for me we get a good view of them from the upstairs deck....

Todays weidness....

Something kind of weird happened in my world today and that reminded how I've been neglecting my blog again, as I like to share all life's oddities here.

I had to run an errand at lunch time. I was standing at the light where the library entrance crosses South Campus Drive waiting for the walk signal, when a red SUV came down the hill. The horn started beeping as it crossed the intersection. I looked up, thinking perhaps it was someone I knew, and what did I see??? Butt cheeks hanging out the passenger side window.... I'd been mooned!!! By a college student. I would have thought they would have chosen to moon some cute young coed, not some old lady crossing the street... I guess I feel special today... LOL
(_!_)

Valentines Day... again

Here is my Valentines bouquet. A gift from me to me, hand made by me. This is how I spent my Valentines day... alone... alone in the studio, torch a blazing, glass a melting. I think there are worse things than being single!!!

(Now if only I had a partner to dremmel the bead poop out of the holes... a girl can dream, right?)

Valentines Day...

Well, for me Valentines Day was really Singles Awareness Day (S.A.D.) **Sigh** No big plans for me other than to make beads, a nice gift to myself. My daughter on the other hand has a boyfriend, and she wanted to make him cookies. Hard to do when he's hanging around so she ended up making them at about 11 pm Saturday night. She planned to use her friends grandma's "best sugar cookie recipe", but when she mixed the dough it was wayyyy too soft to roll out. Alas, what she didn't realize was that there are rolled cookie recipes and drop cookie recipes, she was using a drop cookie recipe. So it's midnight and her cookies are failing. Somehow her cookies problem is my mine now, I'm the mom, I know it all, right? What to do, what to do. I suggested molding them with the coookie cutter, but they spread out oo much in the oven. So she used the cutter on the hot cookie, that seemed to work. So she ended up spreading the dough out on the cookie sheet, baking it, then cutting out the cookies with the cutter. Crisis averted, so I went to bed. I don't know how late she was up decorating, but here are the results. I think they came out really cute.

Horoscopes

The snowy Nevada desert... from my little road trip last weekend.

So do you believe in horoscopes? I'm not really a believer (show me the data LOL), but I like the idea of believing. I am always amazed though, at how well I tend to fit descriptions of my sign, Sagitarius. Since i like to entertain possibility, I do read my horoscope from time to time, and sometimes I am amazed at how spot on it cam be. Then again for all the times it seems accurate there a plenty that it doesn't. It's more fun to ignore those days.

Today was one of those rare days that I thought to look up my horoscope. I usually do this through my yahoo page simply because it was an wasy thing to add there. So here is todays Yahoo Horoscope:
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February 03, 2010
Sagittarius (11/22-12/21)

Okay, so you might be taken by surprise. Love doesn't run on a schedule, does it? Especially not this kind of thing. You're at the beginning of a period of meeting new and interesting -- no, fascinating is more like it -- individuals, most of them from distant places. When one of them appeals to more than just your intellect, who's to say how it will end up? Only you and your soon-to-be sweetie -- and if you're smart, you'll do what you can to make sure the two of you walk off into the sunset.
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Well that is certainly interesting, they do seem to be on to something, with this line at least:

You're at the beginning of a period of meeting new and interesting -- no, fascinating is more like it -- individuals, most of them from distant places.

Do they know something of my social life? Turns out the the Meetup singles group is having an event tonight, and I signed up to attend. Hump Day at the Bayou, a local club, known as Beervana because of it's extensive list of brews. Meetup people are often transplants, people new to Salt Lake, so there is a very good chance I will meet people from distant places. Hmmm how uncanny, that this would be todays fortune.

Now the romance part? Truth be told these meetups are often more women then men, and the men in attendance are often younger than I am. Then again, it is always different people, so you never know. Maybe there could be potential sweetie in attendance tonight. Doubtful, but always possible. Perhaps I should try to be extra witty and charming just in case!

A night on the town...

Being a poor divorcee, OK not exactly poor, but a heck of a lot poorer than I was as a married person, I'm all about enjoying free entertainment when I can. A while back I got a sent a certificate for a free nights lodging, and 2 free dinner buffets in Wendover. I saved it because, unlike most promotions it was actually good on the weekends, and it might make a fun night out. I found it the other day, realized it was about to expire so I decided it was time for a fun little road trip.

For those that don't know, Wendover is the nearest across the border gambling town in Nevada. Hop in I-80 drive 2 hours west, step an inch over the state line, and there you are. Nevada style decadence, built solely to entertain the people of Utah.
I'm not really a big partier or gambler, but it is fun to get out of town and do something different now and then, so I made a reservation, grabbed a friend and off we went.

We had a fun evening. Friday night is seafood buffet night, so it the best night for a free dinner, 3 kinds of crab, fish, shrimp, mussels, clams and oysters. I adore seafood, so it was a real treat for me. We wandered around a bit, I like to people watch and take in all the crazy lights. Eventually we found a bar with a live band, and stayed and listened for while.

I'm not much of gambler. My intuition, and the statistics course I took in college, tell me that if I were really going to win, these places wouldn't exist, so I'm pretty happy to just put a few bucks into a video poker machine and enjoy it until it's gone. I threw five bucks in the machine, played for at least an hour and several free drinks, and was still $0.20 cents ahead when I got bored with it and cashed out. This is what I don't like about casinos: a number of years ago they went electronic, so you put you money in, gamble away, and any winnings are printed on a receipt that you redeem at the cashier. How boring! I though it was much more fun when walked around with your tub of change, dropping quarters (or nickles in my case as they last longer)into machines, and get to hear the jingle of coins as they were expelled into the metal tray when you won. I miss the old days!

I case you can't tell by the pictures, I kind of like the crazy casino lights. They make you nuts, make you get lost easily, and make you glad you are not an epileptic, but I think they are fun to look at. Kind of like living in a Christmas tree.