Welcome ski season!

Park City Mountain Resort, now under the control and ownership of Vail, opened yesterday to huge crowds.  Unfortunately, we don't have much snow yet, so all those people packed on to 3 or 4 runs.  Yuck! 

To help nudge the ski season along, we got a decent snow last night and we should get another 4-6" tonight.  The Park City skiers are happy, but no one is as happy as the local dog population. With a big wind last night, some of the drifts were about a Jasper high.

 A snow bank is truly is happy place.

 I walked around to check on our ex-house to make sure everything was OK.  Jasper was exuberant, probably hoping that we were going to run the snow blower. What you can't see is that I am even more exuberant knowing that I don't have to blow the snow!  On those windy days, 6" of snow piles up to 1-2 feet on the north side of the house. 

Maybe I'll get out for a quick ski run this week, avoiding the opening weekend crowds.  Canyons opens soon and Deer Valley opens in two weeks.

Think SNOW!

JW's Gala

Last night we went to John Well's house for a formal get together.  We met John through Rob Schumacher.  John went to the University of Maryland and eventually did what we did, taking a year off from work that suddenly lasts more than a decade. He was just written up in this article in the Park Record.

 As much as it hurts me to think that Christmas lights are up already, this isn't John's house.  John hired a local company called TapSnap to come in for the party.  They use a green screen to capture the pictures and then they can place you on any number of backgrounds.  This one was one of the most popular, but they also had things like the pyramids in Egypt.

Having TapSnap at your party isn't cheap, but I guarantee you they will have a line waiting for photos all night.   They bring all sorts of things to dress up for your photos, but in this case, our masks were part of the party's required attire.

I really liked the masks Julie and I had, but I think Karen had those most interesting!

Car recalls

Julie and I were concerned about her Subaru and my Honda being a part ofthe latest air bag recall.  That seems like a fairly nasty one.   As part of looking into it, I found this web site:

SafeCar.gov
All you need is your VIN number and you can see all the recalls that apply to your car/truck and which ones have already been fixed.  Normally you can find your VIN number on a small plate on your daskboard, looking down through your windshield.

Very handy.

Cabo San Lucas

Last year Julie and I joined our friends Chad and Cathy for a trip down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We had such a great time, we decided to do it again.

This time Mother Nature threw us a bit of a curve though.  Back on September 14th, Hurricane Odile slammed into Cabo as a category 3.  This is an area that rarely sees more than a tropical storm.  Power, phone, internet, water and sewer were out almost everywhere.  The airport was closed for weeks because of damage to the terminal buildings.  Hotels were boarded up and flooded everywhere.  We got a call from Alaska Airlines saying that our flight to Cabo was cancelled.  Time to make a go/no-go decision.

We watched the progress on repairs for a while and then checked into flight alternatives.  Things started lining up.  Instead of flying out through LA, we got the direct flight on Delta one day earlier.  Somehow we ended up saving $250 per person at the same time!  Julie found us another condo in the same complex for only $225 for a night, so we had one extra day in Cabo, direct flights instead of a hop, and saved $775 between the four of us.

Last trip we stayed at an all-inclusive resort a few miles outside of town on the Pacific ocean.  This trip we were around the point in the calmer, more protected waters.  Our accommodations were at the Villa La Estancia. Most of the units are 2 large bedrooms, 3 baths, with a full kitchen and living room.  There are some much larger penthouse units, but we weren't in one of those.

While some areas had clearly been hit very hard by Odile, our place was immaculate.  Other than a few stumps from downed palm trees, you would have never been able to tell that anything had happened. The Mexican government and local authorities had done an incredible job of getting everything working again.  Restaurants and stores were open, the marina had only one dock unusable, and there were armies of workers everywhere continuing the cleanup.

One of our first nights we went to the Sunset da Mona Lisa restaurant.  The layout of this place was magnificent and all I had to shoot pictures was my iPhone.  Click on the link for their web site to see better photos.  It is expensive, but to those from Park City, this would be deemed "average".  Get there in time for sunset and sit outside.  The design and views are simply awesome!!

Julie and Cathy have both become big fans of golf, so we decided too head out and play.  Most of the courses had taken hurricane damage and were in various states of disrepair. The first course we played was Cabo Real.  It was a nice course, but their electronics had taken a lot of damage and essentially killed their irrigation system.

This was the only hole we played that really looked damaged.  You can see that we are barely above the sea.  Chad took this opportunity to hit it right down in the construction goop.

The greens were nice because they had been hand watered but the fairways were just coming back in.  Two weeks from now the course should be really nice.  We did get to play inexpensively and the little restaurant at the clubhouse was awesome.  I would never expect to get such excellent dining service at a golf course snack shop.

Chad and I went out fishing for a day.  We went out on a 34 foot boat with a captain and a mate.  The waves were quite peaceful in the protected waters but unfortunately, the fish seem to like it better out in the ocean.  Thank goodness for seasick patches. It worked fine, but I would have been in trouble without one.

Chad, busy reeling one in.

We chased quite a few Striped Marlin but never got one to take the hook.  We did have a sea lion rip the bait off several of our hooks though. Bastard!

This is me with my Mahi Mahi.  He was big enough to provide several lunches and dinners for the four of us and some extra came back to Utah.

Chad also caught one and it got vacuum packed and brought home.  We should have some excellent fish dinners over the next month or two.

While coming and going to the fishing grounds, we passed a really unusual new golf course.  This hole is probably a long, downhill par 5, heading down the sandy slope towards the ocean.

This hole is a bit hard to see, but it runs right along the cliff edge.  Not only would I need a bucket of balls to finish the hole, I would be concerned about driving my cart into the ocean.

We wanted to try and play the course but it is private. If you are willing to sit through a long real estate pitch, you may be able to get on in the sweltering heat of the afternoon. No thanks.

On our way back in, we got a visit from Paco the begging sea lion.  What a fat, lazy life.

One of the most unusual things we saw this week was the guy with a Harris Hawk.  He works the complex of three side-by-side resorts (ours was the middle).  The hawk visits every day and is used to keep the sparrows, pigeons and sea gulls away.  He only catches one every few days, but his presence is enough to have an effect.  He did happen to nail a sparrow right outside our condo one day.  Wish I had seen him do it.  I did get to see him eating his victim though.

We decided we would head out for 9 more holes of golf.  This time we played at Cabo del Sol's ocean course. It was in better shape, having not suffered the watering problems of Cabo Real.  The course was beautiful and interesting.  Only when I came home did I find it has been listed in Golf Magazine's top 100 courses in the world every year since 1995.

Here's Cathy launching one.

The holes were very challenging but damn they were nice!

Julie, about to launch one.  This green was wrapped on two sides by the ocean.

Chad and Cathy on the 18th tee box. 

And then our turn.  Fortunately, with it being a bit off season and post-Odile, we were able to play this course less expensively than normal.  Normal for the peak season is $365 for 18.  I have never paid half that anywhere.

On the evening of October 31st, we went down to eat at Alexander's at the marina in downtown Cabo.  It was odd because we were the guests of the people who had rented us our condo.  They new Chad and Cathy and insisted on taking us out.  The food was wonderful and the service was exceptional, but that wasn't even the most interesting part.

We ran into a celebration that was a cross between Halloween and Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead).  It seemed that every family in the greater Cabo metropolitan area was downtown.  All the kids were dressed up, as were some of the adults.  Thousands and thousands of people were walking the street, getting candy from the businesses and people along the way.  It was bigger than any Halloween celebration I have ever witnessed and we were right in the middle of it.  We were at a table right along the marina walkway and the guys at Alexander's gave us buckets of candy to hand out.  What a blast!

This is our excellent head waiter, cooking us some food at our table, and posing with some poor unsuspecting Robin that was walking by.  Me? I had neither my camera nor my phone to capture all of this.  Argh!!!  Thanks to Julie for at least having her phone and taking a shot.

Thanks to Jeff and Melanie for a great, unexpected evening out.

I am so pleasantly surprised at how well the town had recovered from the hurricane.  They have a long way to go but most things are up and running and lots of things are back to 100%.  Hopefully they will make a lot more progress before peak season starts in January.

After a week of perfect sunshine and toasty days, this was our first day back.  Jasper was happy and we need the snow for skiing, but this sure was a bit of a shock to the system.

A delinquint hodge podge

I haven't been posting much to my blog lately.  It isn't that I haven't been doing that much. It is mostly due to the rare times when I have been taking pictures.  So, here is a collection of things that have been going on, all viewed from my iPhone.

We had a very wet August and September, but October has been Rocktober! Gorgeous weather, week after week.  Mostly just blue skies, but when the clouds show up, they have been very interesting.

 The Planning Commission has been very busy.  Nothing quite like the fun of getting 680 pages to review on Friday night and having to have read through it by Wednesday.  Sometimes we get to go on field trips, although the city calls them site visits.  The embarrassing thing is that as city employees or representatives, we have to wear boots, vests and hardhats, even though the site is mostly like your back yard.

The pets are doing well, but the kitty has been hankering for a new box.  We didn't have one for her so she dug around and opened up a tiny old one.  That is one determined cat.

 Julie and I have been playing a fair amount of golf lately.  We know that the end is near for the Park City golf season, so we have been squeezing it in.  The course is prepping for winter, which means pulling out my favorite golf sign. 

 Julie keeps getting better.  I figure next year some time she will start beating me.

 You don't get great shots with an iPhone looking back into the sun, but what a glorious day to be out golfing!

I was going to head up into the Uintah mountains last night to do some serious star photography but it fell through.  Partly me being tired and partly Julie not wanting me out just beyond nowhere, late at night, by myself, without cell phone service.  I suppose that's reasonable.  Weather permitting, I will try again Thursday night.

It's just wrong!

Porsches, even the SUVs, are supposed to be colors like red, black, or a nice dark metallic blue. This should never be done to a Porsche.  In fact, this should never be dome to any car.

I would best describe this with the quote from the movie American Graffiti:  "Sorta a cross between piss yellow and puke green."

Annual fall trek to the Silver Fork

Ron and Carol Lee have organized a fall two-day hike over the mountains for the last 13 years.  We have been lucky to join them the past few trips. Each year we start in Park City, hike over to Big Cottonwood Canyon, and spend the night at the quirky little Silver Fork Lodge.  It is actually more of a restaurant than hotel, but there are seven, very basic rooms upstairs.  Sure beats having to camp and the food at the restaurant is excellent.

We took a different path this year, starting on Rob's Trail, near the Canyons ski area. We had eleven hikers and four others who were meeting us at the other end.  Seems that some people have those job things.

 The weather was sunny and perfect, but there was some snow at the higher elevations from the past few days.  Glad we weren't hiking in the rain and snow!

 Most of the early part of our trek was in thick forest, but the sun found ways to sneak through.

 Here we have Randy with his lovely wife Karen, celebrating the Murdock ski run.  You do have to hike up to ski down, and trust me, it is a lot steeper than it looks.

 The aspens were still pretty and the mountains way off in the distance are snow capped.

 We went from Rob's trail to Ambush and finally up the Crest trail.  Every time we were on the north side of the hill, we were hiking in the snow.

 We went past Desolation Lake.  We debated what gave it that deep color.  Thoughts ranged from the mining minerals to my useless suggestion of agricultural runoff. Somehow I don't see much fertilizer being applied at the top of the mountains.

We made the turn down into Big Cottonwood Canyon on the Bear Trap trail.  It was scenic, but steep as hell.  Quite a bit was still slick with light snow, so my cartilage-less knee was getting a bit pissy.

As always, we spent a good hour in the Silver Fork's hot tub before gathering for a great dinner.  A couple of people stayed up watching the baseball playoffs.  That caused an unfortunate delay.  One of our couples headed to their room, only to discover that they had locked themselves out.  Did I mention that this was a tiny little hotel?  Now all the employees had left and there was no one to let them in. They ended up sleeping on the sofas in the TV room.  Every year we seem to have something interesting happen. 

We lost a few hikers for the trip back to Park City, some because of work and others because of aching body parts.  Nine of us headed back on the less scenic, but quicker path straight over and down to the base of PCMR (now Vail Canyons South?)  A nice hike on another perfect day.

This is a great group of people to do this trip with.  We get in about 20 miles of good mountain hiking and then enjoy an evening away from normal life.

Thanks Carol for getting us all together!

Fall with mom

My mom came out to Park City to visit.  Her timing ended up being a bit unfortunate. We just had the rainiest September in something like 25 years.  However, there were some gaps in the rain and we used the time to venture out and see the fall colors. When it wasn't raining, the clouds managed to make a great background.

 The trick was to find when the light was shining on the right trees. That meant chasing little gaps in the clouds.

 Guardsman Pass is always one of my favorite areas for color. I was hoping the temperatures would drop so the area would get snow instead of rain.  Hard to beat the fall colors with a dusting of snow.

We also drove over to the Sundance ski resort.  The leaves had already changed and dropped off, so I tried shooting some little waterfalls instead. Walking around the base of Sundance is so different than any of Park City's ski resorts.  Instead of a ski base, it feels more like a yoga retreat.  There is a beautiful creek running through the forest, dropping into ponds surrounded by statues.  The place is serene. 

I love how freezing the action shows how much the tiny droplets are going everywhere. Photographing water at different shutter speeds is like art.  By making little changes, it looks like you have an entirely different subject.  Compare these to the long exposures at the bottom of this entry.

On the way home from Sundance, we ran across about a dozen kite surfers out on the Deer Creek Reservoir. The winds were stiff and they were getting huge air when they jumped.  You just never know what you will run across.

 On another day, mom and I went over to Mirror Lake in the Uinta mountains.  The Provo River drops several thousand feet along the way, offering up hundreds of little waterfalls.

There were a lot of aspens showing off their yellow leaves, but one hillside was full of trees that blended from yellow to orange.  The huge hillside was full of this coloration, but we never saw it anywhere else on the 15+ miles of driving through the forest lands.

Mom left on Tuesday, missing even more rain, some sleet and snow showers.

This morning it had snowed lightly up on Jupiter Peak and the colors were gorgeous.  I had such a nice time with mom near Mirror Lake that I decided to go back.

 Jasper was the happiest one to go back.  There was snow everywhere at the higher elevations.  Just before you get to Mirror Lake, you drive over Bald Mountain Pass.  It is at a bit over 10,500 feet.

 It was cold and windy, so there wasn't much "mirror" in Mirror Lake. The trick to getting a nice reflection is to go very early in the morning when the winds are calmest.

 Cloudy days are great for shooting waterfalls with long exposures. On a sunny day, the reflections off the spray make the water so bright, that everything around it photographs almost black.  On a cloudy day there is a lot less difference.

 I think this 30 second exposure was my favorite from the day.

I feel a bit bad.  Mom was here for some of the worst weather we have had in quite a while.  Starting tomorrow, it is supposed to be bright and sunny for the next week.  Still, this area had enough interesting sights that even on a bad visit, it is beautiful.