A trip to Bryce Canyon

Julie and I were going to make a trip to St George, Utah back around Thanksgiving to celebrate Julie's birthday. Unfortunately, we had blizzard warnings throughout Utah for both of our travel days. We put the trip on hold.

Now that mud season is upon us, we decided to do our trip to St George and add on two days in Bryce Canyon and one day in Zion National Park. As always, I take a lot of photos, so I am breaking down the trip into chunks. Here's Bryce Canyon.

If you haven't been to Bryce Canyon, you should add it to your must-see list. The main attraction is a giant amphitheater (not really a canyon at all) full of rock spires called Hoodoos. The rock is a gorgeous mix of whites, pinks, yellows, reds, and everything in between.



If you travel further south into the park (18 miles long) you can see another amphitheater, but this one is a bit less spectacular.



It is such an interesting mix of shapes and colors that it is hard to capture. Even if you sat in one place, shooting in one direction, your photos would change dramatically with the sky and the position of the sun.



Some of my favorite areas had interracial hoodoos, with the light pinks and the reds living hand in hand. Of course, they don't actually have hands, but you get the point.



The south end of the park is around 9110 feet above sea level. For those who have skied Park City, that's pretty close to the top of Deer Valley. So, even in mid-May, the hiking trails at this end were all closed because of snow. We got lucky and had two gorgeous days. Right after we left, they had another big snowstorm. So much for being 50 miles from Arizona.



The hoodoos wear down over thousands of years, leaving sand. Sometimes you find patterns of sand that look like they were created by an artist. Is Bryce a Christo project?



Other times it is the hoodoo's shape that is interesting. They range from sheer walls to tiny, thin towers. If you were ever at the beach and made drippy towers with wet sand, you could be a hoodoo master.



Others were almost like giant knife blades, thin towers and walls with edges honed by the years of wind and water.



Every shape and color and yet they all looked beautiful.



And on to another favorite of mine, the trees. It is hard for a tree to grow at elevation. It's harder to grow at elevation in barren soil that was just recently a rock. Now imagine that barren soil is always disappearing, washing down hill. It makes for a tough life and some interesting trees.

This little guy was growing in a big hill of sand from eroded hoodoos. I wonder if it was ever standing up or always just drifted down the hill.



At the top of a hill, you get little water and your roots are always getting exposed.



And some just look like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I would guess this poor thing was 20+ years old.



We didn't see a lot of wildlife in Bryce. There were a fair number of Pronghorn, but I never got a great picture. There were the deer that you felt like you might have to kick out of the way. Beggars.



But my favorite animal was the endangered Utah Prairie Dog. We only saw one of the bigger colonies as we were leaving and we didn't stop, but this one guy was quite the ham. Here his is doing the well known "on alert" pose.



And more relaxed, but still not trusting me.



OK, now we are getting relaxed enough the drag along the ground for a good belly rub.



Bryce Canyon is a fantastic place to visit, especially this time of year. It is warm enough to get good hiking in, but the crowds are still two or three weeks off.

On to Zion.

The last of a generation

This past weekend my grandmother, Julia Dunn, passed away. She was 91 years old and was living with her daughter Nancy when she died. She was the last of my four grandparents alive and it's very sad to think that for me, this is the end of an entire generation of knowledge and experiences.



This is a shot of my grandmother and grandfather, Tyler Dunn, outside their house in Hamlet, NC. Most people don't know where Hamlet is, but it's close to the old Rockingham Motor Speedway. Hamlet was a big railroad town decades ago, before such towns withered away, losing to trucking and passenger cars.

I enjoyed the differences of a small town. On a visit as a young boy, I walked downtown and stopped in a store to buy some candy. The store owner looked at me and said "You must be Tyler and Julia's boy. I heard you were coming to visit." That wouldn't happen in the Baltimore/DC area where I grew up.



My grandfather died years ago, but it was amazing he lived as long as he did with a three pack-a-day smoking habit. After many decades of smoking, he quit cold turkey. It wasn't a consideration of his lungs, which were as torn up and clogged as the ones you see in the "stop smoking" ads. They told him that if he kept smoking around the oxygen tanks he needed for breathing, he would burn the house down. All it took was the right motivation and he simply quit, right then.


It's sad to think about my four grandparents all having died, but they were all wonderful people and if there is a heaven, I know they are all safe and sound there.

It's also a reminder that when you get up around 50, it means your parents would be getting old and you grandparents would be quite so.

Well finally...

No big news, but we finally hit 60 degrees here. It's the first time this year.

Julie and I are off to Bryce Canyon, Zion, and St George. Should be a ton of good photos!

The wildlife comes alive

Now that the snow is starting to melt and the weather is warming up, the wildlife is beginning to appear, and sometimes in unexpected places.

We have had a fair amount of fox visits lately. We've seen them and heard them. Up on the hill behind our house, there was a nice, clean line of fox tracks. He clearly knew where he was headed. In contrast, Jasper's tracks run every which way.



Not far off were a different set of tracks. They were too small for fox, so I am guessing raccoon or skunk, but I haven't bothered to get out my tracking guide book.



Meanwhile, the moose are showing up everywhere. This one is wandering down past our local radio station, one block off Main Street. Last night there were three about 200 yards from our house, but it was too dark for pictures.

Most of the moose look like crap right now. As they switch from their winter coats to a lighter, breezier summer wardrobe, they all look like they have mange.



I've driven over an hour to grab photos of the Sage Grouse doing its courtship dance. Other than those adventures, I almost never see one. Even if you are close, they often hunker down and become nearly invisible. Last night, driving home from a Friends of Animals board meeting, I saw four males, all meandering along the road. One wouldn't get out of my way. I finally got Jasper to give him a "Woof" and he walked off the road. I wonder if there is a lek anywhere near our Rescue Ranch.



Mud season is a crappy time around here, but at least the local wildlife provides some entertainment. It won't be long before they all start producing babies. I really want to grab some shots of a fox family this year.

Single cup coffe makers

Even if you haven't used one, you have almost certainly seen them. These coffee makers use little pre-made cups (pods) of coffee, tea or hot chocolate to make one cup at a time. When we were staying with Ken and Jennifer in Raleigh, we used their Tassimo brew system and liked it.


This seemed like it could be the answer to one of our problems: I like a strong, black cup of coffee (yeah Starbucks!) and Julie likes a lighter, flavored cup of coffee or a latte. I came back and did some research.

Seems like it is always something. In this case, the Tassimo counts on heating the brewing water up to 200 degrees, well below boiling, and then pumping it through the grinds. Here in Park City, because of the altitude's effect on air pressure, water boils at about 197, 15 degrees below the "normal" 212. This means that the coffee maker gets upset because boiling water damages its insides and because the sensor never sees the water hit the required 200. Hence, no coffee and a damaged coffee maker. The manufacturer says no higher than 6500 feet, which is about 1000 feet below here.

Go figure!

It's almost spring

We all know there is a spring somewhere. It just isn't here, yet. We still haven't seen 60 degrees yet. Not even a brief pop. Last night we went with the Benson's to a great new restaurant called Silver. It's expensive but the food was excellent. On our way in, this was what Main Street looked like.



From dinner, we went to a play called the Park City Follies. It is a humorous, satirical look at life in Park City, focusing almost completely on events of the past year. It was great local entertainment, but here is what we came out to.



Alta got 20+ inches out of this storm. They normally get about 500 inches of snow per year. That seems like quite a bit to most of us. This year they are at 723 inches (a record) and have a 210 inches of snow as a base. Picture a 17 foot tall tree, covered completely in snow.

It was only 19 degrees here this morning, but the rumor is that we may see 60 by Thursday. Yeah!

Odd things we see

I love having a camera on my phone. You run across the oddest things and it is nice to be able to capture some of them.

On our first night back, we had to stop for some breakfast food. There was an entire display of fried pork rinds. I didn't know pigs came in so many flavors! We don't have this in Park City. Notice you can also get "fat back skins". Yum!



In complete contrast, we ventured over to the new Whole Foods at Strickland and Six Forks. It is a very nice, high end grocery store with a tendency to provide healthy food. I think they got carried away with these "organic baguettes". I am sure there is some way to explain how this is legitimately organic, but come on, processed white flour makes for white trash carbs.



Outside Salsa Fresh, on of my lunch haunts, I ran across the Jesus Saves / No Abortions mobile. It made for entertaining reading, but it looked like hell and you had to be about 3 feet away to read most of the stickers. Jesus needs a better marketing team on this one.



... and my favorite. I am sure the driver of the van in the picture above would refuse to order pizza from this delivery guy. I like their slogan.

Barbie's wedding

It was tough to see our friends Mark and Barbie Reid get separated and eventually divorced. The good news is that Barbie found someone (on Match.com) and fell in love. This weekend we got to attend the wedding of Vernon and Barbie Dixon.



The wedding was held at an old estate north of Raleigh called The Sutherland. It was very pretty and seemed to have everything you could want for a nice wedding and/or reception.

As you can see from the picture, the gentleman presiding at the wedding could have been a "head jolly old elf". He had a wonderful infectious smile.



It was an evening wedding, with the vows and reception both outdoors. Fortunately the weather was nice. The night before had been rainy and in the 40's. I don't care what tents and tarps you have. That would be miserable.

The bride and groom both did a great job. The only little glitch came before the ceremony started. A woman, who I think was one of Vernon's sisters, was standing over by the sound guy's table and she passed out. She was back on her feet quickly and I think very few people even knew it happened.



My entertainment was the little ring bearer. I'm not sure who he was, but it is obviously quite the challenge to keep a little boy entertained during the wedding vows. He was yawning and fidgeting and squirming. You can tell that life manages to get on track pretty early. Already you can see that his little partner (the flower girl) has his butt back in line!



The bride and groom did the traditional dance. Clearly they had practiced and were much better at it than Julie and I. Two decades ago, we decided we would take some ballroom lessons before our wedding. Julie didn't excel and I was a total failure. Perhaps I can get on a TV show that combines Dancing with the Stars with The Biggest Loser. The biggest dancing loser?



Then something I hadn't seen before. Vernon is a musician. He had written a song for his new bride and he performed it for her in front of everyone. We were all very impressed.



And as the night ended, we got to toss rose petals as the bride and groom headed for their car.



Getting to see the wedding was nice, but what made it extra special was getting to see so many of our Raleigh friends, all of which either live or lived in our neighborhood, Duxford. From left to right:

• Carmella and Jim Saunders. Carm is one of Julie's best friends. Jim goes on our Myrtle Beach golf trip every year.
• Mitch and Erin Krohl. They bought our condo in west Raleigh and years later, became our next door neighbors in Duxford. Stalking us?
• Alex and Judy Plavocos. Live two doors down from us in Duxford.
  
• Julie and I
• Stephen and Julie Kjellberg. They lived a few doors down and Stephen did the huge remodel on our house.
  

They are a wonderful group of people and one of the biggest reasons we miss Raleigh.




Sorry Alex, but I couldn't resist. You know how iPhone's now have a camera on both sides of the phone? One is for taking pictures of other people and places. The other is to shoot yourself for video chats. Somehow Alex's camera was set to the one looking back at him and he kept wandering around taking pictures of himself. Too funny!



Although the wedding was the big event we were in town for, we got to see lots of other people.

We stayed with Ken and Jennifer Polleck at the Polleck Estate (my name). They have a wonderful house, overlooking a pond, in a very convenient location in North Raleigh. It was good getting to see them, mooch some excellent accommodations, and have a great base to visit everyone from. Thanks Ken and Jennifer!

We got to do an Easter dinner with my Aunt Martha, cousin Sara, and my dad and his wife Colleen. In addition to the company, it was nice getting to have some Honey Baked ham. There isn't one anywhere convenient to us in Park City.

I had lunch with Chuck Terrien. Chuck, Julie and I all worked in the same department at IBM and he was the one who helped me discover my condo over in west Raleigh. We ended up living about 50 feet from each other.

Finally, I had dinner with John Walker, a very long-time friend, co-worker, co-business founder, skier buddy and much more. It is always a treat catching up with John's never ending series of adventures with his company Zenph Sound Innovations. They are doing work that may dramatically change the music industry as we know it. You should definitely visit their web site.

It was only a short visit, but we managed to pack in a lot of visits, a great wedding, and even some exercise along the way.

Heading for NC

This afternoon it's 35 and snowing here in Park City. Time to make another trip back to NC. I checked the weather and it is supposed to be in the mid 80's and sunny the entire time we are there. It's going to be quite a shock to the body.



Our main reason for returning to Raleigh is to see our friend Barbie get married. I hope to grab some excellent pictures.

What a difference a view makes

I was up on the hill behind our house this morning, playing with the dog as yet another snow storm blanketed the ground. Just walking around reinforced how much difference a few compass degrees makes in the battle of sun versus snow.

In our yard, which is on a hill facing south, almost all the snow has melted. We have a few inches, but that is just from last night's snow. The longer hours of sunshine have had their way with the snow.

Up on the top of the hill, the sun comes in at an angle because the sun is still fairly low in the sky and the ground is flat. There is still a good 18" of snow everywhere.

Over at the ski resorts, you go up about 2,000 feet and are on a slope facing north. They have still got 120" of snow on the ground.

It really is amazing that you can have that much variation in locations that are within a mile of each other.