another lovely dog from the desert trip.

noch ein schöner Hund bei der Reise in die Wüste

i love the desert

ich liebe die Wüste

Stella!

ah… the utah desert. i have to tell you it makes me feel alive. this time of year, the grape holly is blooming and smelling absolutely amazing, the lizards are starting to wake up and, after a storm comes through, the canyon potholes are full of water.

that last one usually doesn’t affect me so much. maybe some wading, maybe some seriously deep wading even, but this weekend we did a canyon with someone who does some serious canyoneering. At one point, as we are about to stem ~12 ft over a pothole in the canyon he remarked, “i don’t think anyone really knows how deep that pothole is. No one i know has ever been able to touch bottom.” yikes.

aah… Die Utah-Wüste. ich muss sagen, daß sie mich lebendig fühlen macht. in dieser Jahreszeit, die grape-holly blüht und riecht unheimlich schön, die eidechsen wachen und, nach einem Gewitter, die Strudellöcher sind mit Wasser gefüllt.

Das letzte betrifft mich nicht so sehr. Vielleicht ein paar Löcher durchwaten, manchmal auch recht Tiefwaten, aber am Wochenende haben wir sind wir in einem Felsschlucht gewandert mit einem Typ der ein richtiger “Canyoneer” ist. Irgendwann, als wir bald ~4m über einen Kolk herüber spannen mussten, sagte er, “ich weiss nicht ob überhaupt jemand weiß wir tief dieses Strudelloch ist, dann niemand den ich kenne hat je den Boden erreicht - auch nicht beim Tauchen.” Oje!

Whew! That was a thing. What kind of thing? Well, a busy, but fun kind of thing.

If i were more organized, or better at time utilization, i would have done research before we went to estes park, or i would have at least read the material we received. I am neither and did neither, if you follow me.

We got to the YMCA after 8 hours of driving (not bad!) and another forty minutes of being lost. Then came dinner, meet and greet, and then bed.

along I-80

major gas food stop

Being the asocial butterflies we are, sop and i went for a hike on the first day.

The trick was to figure out where to go. None of the maps seemed to show where the YMCA was in relation to the park and the YMCA map hikes seemed to be capped at 5 miles. We got a scoop from an employee, however and cruised out.

sweet-smelling sap

sop strong

We headed to Sprague Lake, saw no one on the trail there and then about 50 people at the lake itself due to the parking lot next to it. It’s a gorgeous lake with a loop trail around it.

On the way to the lake, we noticed a side trail to “East Portal” and decided to spur off to that on the way back. As we headed down the other side, there was a marker for the YMCA, meaning we could make this more of a loop than a spur, pretty happy about that.

East Portal looks to be a small hydro-electric plant with a campground near the base. We hung out for a bit, eating apples and looking at the wildlife.

We then headed back up the trail to the marker for the YMCA and followed it back down to the campground we had just left! The trail continued past the campground along the road to the YMCA and withing a half hour we were back at the meeting room watching people do some fabulous water colors.

In the evening we played aerobie and listened to stories, waking the next day for group pictures followed by horseshoes, a two and a half hour game of disk golf and then bubble blowing.

burst

On the last day, we did a little archery before heading to Denver to visit friends.

earning his scout badge

nice form

wave b-bye

In Denver is a restaraunt named Casa Bonita. A few years ago, someone from Salt Lake tried to copy it for Larry H. Miller. They ended up being sued. Since we went to Casa Bonita a lot as kids, we all went to the Salt Lake version, The Mayan, to see how it compared. It does not. Honestly, the only reason i can think for suing the people who made the Mayan would be so that people would know that they were not the same thing so they wouldn’t NOT go to Casa Bonita. Casa Bonita has tons of fun things for kids. It has winding pathways and treasure hunts and puppets and games. The Mayan has a big screen TV. Casa Bonita has Sopa Pillas, divers, mariachi bands and skits. The Mayan has divers and a weird face projected on a ‘cliff’ face. Both have mediocre food, but one is fun and the other is bum.

So, while in Denver we went to Casa Bonita! We also went to the Coors plant in Golden. Since my grandparents lived in Golden when we were kids, the smell of the hops and barley you get outside the plant reminds me of them. I don’t think they would like the idea that beer reminds me of them, as neither drank alchohol, but it’s really just the ingredients of beer, so perhaps that is okay.

The Coors plant is a pretty cool facility. One of the things i find the most interesting is that Coors recycles or reuses 95% of their waste! Coors is also one of the 750 breweries in america to survive prohibition (over half of the breweries shut down).

brewing kettles

the beer vault

designated driver

mashing containers?

A. Coors

wheat

this post will be updated as i remove dust from my scans. Thank goodness for the film/slide scanners at work, though. So glad to have access to them.

On our second day, first day of real hiking, we headed to egg canyon for a loop hike with a jaunt off to lamanite arch, you know, the arch where sop intended on asking me to marry him?

We started out in the bentonite hills and stumbled into the canyon…

bentonite hills

daisies and bentonite - a classic combination

petrified wood looks so much better than this