Utah travels, Willis Creek

Brian and I spent a week in April hiking and biking in Utah. Brian has always wanted to bike the Slickrock trail, so that was our inspiration for the trip. We wisely realized we are in no shape to be mountain biking 6 straight days at 4,000 feet so we bookended the biking with two days of canyon hikes in Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument on either then. In case you're wondering (as I did many times on this trip) Portland is 50 feet above sea level.

We made our first base in Escalante, UT at a nice little camping/RV park on the edge of town. The local guide shop recommended Willis Creek and Bull River Gorge as fun non-technical slot canyons. We started in Willis Creek, which carves a wide-ish (10-20 feet) slot on and off for about a 1.5 miles from the road until it joins Sheep Creek. The hike was flat and relaxed, with just a bit of water flow, and the rock was gorgeous. All intersecting layers of slanted sandstone. 

One of several narrows on Willis Creek.

I love the layered texture in the Utah sandstone.

Another textured wall.

View from the fire road headed home.

We had a couple hours of daylight left after Willis Creek so we headed further down the fire road to check out Bull River Gorge. We found the top of the gorge but couldn't figure out how to get down into it. It appears about 100-200 feet deep and maybe 8 feet wide at the top, very cool. I now have the entrance beta and fully intend to go back sometime to hike through it. 

On our way home to camp we stopped at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park and did the three mile petrified wood trail. I had previously only seen a handful of petrified logs out in nature, although I am the proud owner of a small chunk of petrified wood. This park was amazing, so many boulders, logs, and piles of petrified wood. The rock took on a whole rainbow of colors. My favorites were a brilliant yellow that commonly formed the outer shell of the logs and a rick pink-purple that sadly did not photograph well. The trail was steep and tiring but very worth it. Five stars, would complain my way up again.

We got so excited when we came to the first petrified log, not realizing this was 0.1% of the petrified wood on the trail.

Rainbow rock with purple and yellow sections.

We also saw sandstone with this interesting bb texture.

 

Yarn Monster vol. 1

In mid-December I found myself unexpectedly without anything brainless to knit during a work meeting. This posed a problem. I have to manage my focus level very carefully on long calls: if I pay 100% attention I will burn out in about 40 minutes, if I fall below 60% I'll lose track of what's going on. Offloading 25% of my mental energy onto easy yarncraft lets me stay engaged for as much as two hours. In desperation, I grabbed my trusty purple crochet hook and some scrap yarn and started making a hexagon. By the end of the meeting I had a ten round motif. I dug out some other leftovers and started making it sisters. They combined to form this:

Baby yarn monster, Portland 12/15/17.

and I lost my mind. I love everything about this little proto-blanket. I love using up my scraps. I love how quickly each motif stitches up. I love randomly selecting where to attach them and how colorful it is. I love its portability. 

I crocheted my way through San Diego, Chicago, and New London over the holidays. Since returning home I've dug out more scraps and continued to add to it. My plan is to make a ~4" x 6" blanket that I can use on my side of the bed. Sadly, our cat army would ruin any yarn-based blanket left exposed so it will have to be protected between quilts.  

Yarn monster in San Diego, 12/19/17

Yarn monster in Chicago, 12/24/17

Yarn monster in New London, 12/31/17

Winter Travels

I did a bit of a U.S. tour over Christmas/New Year's. We started out with a week in San Diego to visit Nick's family and ensure we'd be as unprepared as possible for the bitter cold in the midwest. I went on some good walks, had a delicious steak dinner with old family friends, and benefited from the annual cookie baking marathon. Nick's mom gave me the amazing gift of one of her spinning wheels. It is a Ashford Traditional and I think it has been to New Zealand. I can't wait to get it spinning. Sadly, I had to leave before actual Christmas to head to Chicago.

Wiggly cactus - one of many cool plants I saw on our walks. Most were hard
to photograph without creepily taking pictures of other people's houses.

I'm not sure if it's possible to hike directly to that little peak in the distance,
but I plan to find out the hard way someday. Maps schmaps.

My newwwww spinning wheel! Eeeee.

When I got to Chicago, it was a very reasonable 40°F. The weather proceeded to get colder 10°F/day for the next four days. We still had a really great time. I got to know Jack's friend Nicola a bit better and Brian had opportunities to be a photo bug. For our arrival meal, Dad found a local joint with great thin crust pizza that you could eat in the adjoining bar. On Christmas Eve Eve we had our traditional meal of lasagne with hot beef sandwiches with my mom's side of the family. I got a lot of fun presents and was able to deliver several craft projects I'd been working on this fall. We even snuck in a game of Tripoley. 

On actual Christmas Eve we went to see Wicked in downtown Chicago. The show was great, fun songs, cool costumes, and a good emotional arc. I've listened to the soundtrack a few times since. 5 stars, would see again. I would also like to know how long it takes to scrub the green off Elphaba afterward, or if they even bother. 

Snowy bean and skyline.

I love this ceiling in the Chicago Macy's.

Brian and I test drove this couch for quite some time while the other folks shopped the fur vault.

After our days in the big city, we headed north to my folks place in Wisconsin. I had fun showing Nick around my hometown, visiting Wilmar's Chocolates, playing board games, and watching movies with my dad. We compared notes on how we passed the time summers, and whose childhood library has the better indoor garden (mine, there are tiger cages). We also went to see Coco and play skiball at the movie theater. I thought the film was really fun, it got me more excited for Incredibles II this spring. Becky and David stopped by for a couple hours one day. We had fun catching up and meeting their new baby. He's a cutie.

Rick and Nikki and the boys came up for a day over the weekend. We introduced Isaac to the ancient art of Yahtzee. Rick forever skewed his understanding of probability by getting three yahtzees in one game. We went for a hike in the meadow with Simon and played in the snow on the sled. The average high while we were there was about -4°F. The bitter cold kept us pretty much indoors, but we did do a few short trips out to visit the horse down the road and to stomp around in the meadow. By the end of the week I basically had cabin fever though. 

My mom's tree looked magnificent.

She featured several ornaments handmade by my friend Jessica the craft genius.

Becky's baby rocking the hat I made him!

Nick takes being a good house-guest very seriously.