Utah: The Best Neighbor

Well, we've done it. We have made it through another ski season.  Closing day has come and gone and we now find ourselves reflecting on the goals we set for ourselves over the past 5 months ago, when our vision of the winter was tinged with hopes of opportunity and tempered with memories of lean snowfalls from recent memory.  I would be lying if I said I didn't feel some disappointment with my ski season.  We didn't really get any snow until the very end of January, and then we had it for about 6 weeks.  It was cold this winter, which is whatever.  It's winter.  It's just hard to make real progress when the conditions are marginal for much of the season.  Last day of the season was, of course, hilarious, with us gaping at the Pond Skim antics until we rode our last ride up Chair 9 with the kids, watched it slow to a halt and hooted and hollered before skiing down, en masse, one final time.

Anthony did the Pond Skim but just didn't have enough speed to make it all the way:

But now we are in April.  I allowed myself 5 days of sloth when the area closed, just kind of bonking into the change of pace: driving to work with the gondola being closed, not skiing on my lunch break, the Lodge being closed and my job slowing considerably, and weekends opening themselves up to possible desert excursions when we are not in an apocalyptic dust and wind cycle like we are today.  If you didn't know that half of Utah is swirling in our valley right now, you might think there is a wildfire nearby.

The kids are off with their mom to some incredible resort on Balboa Island in Newport Beach for part of their spring break, and after some indecision about whether to stay here and ski tour or make a break for the desert, we leaned towards a weekend getaway and it really paid off!

We like to say that Utah is the best neighbor you could want to have.  It's kind of like that house on your street when you were a kid that was different but cool, and you always wanted to go hang out there because they did things different, but were always happy to come back to your own house.  I wouldn't want to live in Utah but I also wouldn't want any other state 90 minutes away.  It is a world of wonders.

We arrived at our Favorite Campsite, with enough time to take a stroll, eat some dinner and lounge around the fire before slipping into a deep tented slumber.  It has been determined that we sleep better in a tent than at home.  Crazy, right?  Johnny likes to get up when it's dark to make the fire and coffee and watch the sky shift from all shades of black and blue to full light.  I prefer to time my exit from my heavenly bag when I hear the crackle of the embers and the pour of the coffee, usually a few minutes shy of the sun plopping out over the tops of the mountains we drove out of 12 hours before, like a big eager yolk.

We had a nice long excursion that day, highlighted by the discovery of an arrowhead (!).  

Right there at my feet.  We also figured out a passage from one canyon to another that had eluded us before.  We exposed our bodies to the light of day for the first time since the end of October and I don't know if ghastly or ghostly is more apt, but either way it was not pretty.  A couple of matchsticks running around the desert, tan from the neck up.  By the end of the day on Sunday we had taken the pallor off our skin, just enough to have that Been at the Beach All Day Feeling.

Saturday night the wind picked up enough that we ate dinner in the front seat of the car, before hunkering down around the fire, watching the flames get thrown around like they were liquid until we dusted ourselves off, covered our heads with pillows and muffled out the flapping tent and swirling sand until morning.  I was scraping sand out of the corners of my eyes when I worked my way out in the morning.

Sunday was full of wonders as well.  We came upon a ruin site with an unexpected surprise: an intact kiva.  I declared that I was "pulling a Kim Ryan", we lowered ourselves into it and found some incredible designs around the inside:

As Johnny was reading the register before we started to walk away, he read a note by one of the Rangers (whom we affectionately refer to as either Rump Rangers or Touch-Hole Patrol, for no other reason than that it is hilarious and brings forth several minutes of giggling) in the register that stated "Peregrines are back."  Not 3 minutes later we hear someone squawking and carrying on, look up to a ledge 50 feet above the ruins and watch 2 slate-blue peregrine falcons carrying on, most likely a male bringing food to a female on some eggs.  Incredible!  World of wonders.

A magnificent golden eagle was surveying the field by the road on our drive to Blanding, so we turned around and gaped at the size and grandeur of the largest bird of prey in North America before it swooped off to knock a medium-sized mammal to its death for dinner.  We had a brief discussion as to which is more of a badass, the great horned owl or the golden eagle.  We concluded that the golden eagle is way more badass, not just because of its size but more because it doesn't use the cover of night to hunt, it just sits up there on top of a telephone pole for all the world to see, finds what it wants, and gets it.  Kind of like a honey badger with wings.  He doesn't give a shit.

So anyway, I have started skiing to work.  I know, right?  If I want to start skiing with those Ophir girls, speaking of badasses, I better get myself in gear.  It is 90 minutes to get from town to the top of 7, and a quick LOUD ski down to the Lodge.  Deafening, actually, that solid morning snow.  But whatever, it's good exercise and a fun way to start my day.  I like the nice zippery sound of my skins on the snow as I slide my way up the hill with the chickadees making a happy little fuss in the trees on the trails.

Everyone is gone on spring break with their kids to tropical and exotic locations.  We are here experiencing the true remaining off-season, similar to how it was 20 years ago, but also not.  It is really really nice to have town be this quiet for a couple of weeks.  I love it.