Labor Day

I'm so past due to post something on this blog.  It's September 1st!  The whole month of August just seemed to disappear without me being able to make it last longer.   

Actually almost the whole month of August I took vacation.  Three weeks worth.  It was so nice!  I went back to Utah and hiked my favorite hikes.  Landscape Arch in the first picture is from Arches National Park.  I first stayed in and hiked four National Parks in Utah in 1994, so this was my 20 year anniversary trip.  I intended to stay in the four parks again and hike the same hikes, but it didn't work out that way.  Partly because two of the hikes I wanted to do were closed for repairs.  And partly because the weather wouldn't cooperate.  

I had LOTS of rain and cool weather.  In fact I hiked one hike in the rain!  I was determined to do the Navajo Knobs hike in Capitol Reef National Park, because Capitol Reef was the first place I ever camped in Utah and Navajo Knobs was the first Utah hike I ever did.  Only I had 24 hours of continuous rain while I was there.  So I hiked it anyway.  9.4 strenuous miles in the rain.  Nope.  I'm not goal-oriented.  Nor stubborn.  Why would you ask?


The picture above is the view looking down on the road while sitting up on the Navajo Knobs.  The view isn't clear because it's raining all out across that land (and where I was).   Then this picture is looking up at the Navajo Knobs from the road later on that same day.  As you can see, the Knobs are now above some of the clouds.  The clouds weren't that low when I was up there.


Other than uncooperative weather I had a good time on the trip.  I started in Zion National Park as usual, hiking Angel's Landing, but left a day early because the other hike I wanted to do was closed.  Then I ended up skipping Bryce because it was 57 degrees and pouring when I got there and they were forecasting that same weather for the next two days.   So I went on to Capitol Reef and ended up with rain there too.  Then I went to Moab and Arches National Park, where the weather actually cooperated. After that I went down to Durango and spent some time in Mesa Verde National Park since I was three days ahead of my planned trip.  And ended the trip up spending a couple days in Buena Vista visiting my sister and her husband.  It was overall a really nice trip.  And if I didn't get to do all the hikes I wanted, I did my three favorite ones, Angel's Landing, Navajo Knobs and Dark Angel.   

The cats survived my absence just fine.  They've finally warmed up to my pet sitter and accepted her attention.  It's been awhile since I've been away from them for this long, so I'm sure they got lonely.  This last week I've been home and doing all the house-related things I never get around to when I'm working.  And of course getting ready to go back to work after being off for three weeks.  The second week I was gone, I accessed my work email and cleared 700 emails.  This week I did the same and cleared almost 400 more.  "Cleared" being a euphemism for: tagged those that I need to deal with and deleted the rest.  At least tomorrow shouldn't be too overwhelming, email-wise.  

The one thing I'm a little worried about as far as work tomorrow is shoes.  I pretty much destroyed both my big toe nails, I guess hiking in boots that didn't fit well.  Although my toes did NOT hurt while I was hiking.  They were new boots and hiking in them was really comfortable.  I don't know whether they shrunk just a little getting so wet in that long second hike, but when I took my boots off after the third hike, both nails were pushed up and shifted over from all the blood under the nails.  The right big toe nail I'm definitely going to lose.  It's creating a new nail bed because of the damage to the original one.  The left toe nail I may keep.  It's slowly turning from solid purple-black to yellow-red.  Anyway, I've only worn sandals since that last hike, so we'll see how closed shoes do tomorrow.

It looks like the little pine tree will survive after all!  It's put on new growth all around and through the dead areas, and is growing taller as well.  That little tree just amazes me.  It reminds me of that line from the original Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way."  It just keeps striving to live.

I also decided that I'm going to try planting some flowering things next Spring.  Around the Buena Vista area there is a lot of a shrub called Russian Sage that is a gorgeous purple and beloved by honeybees.  And I saw some beautiful hollyhocks too.  So next Spring I'm going to try those two and see if I can increase the bees and hummingbirds around here.  I really like growing things and especially things that bloom.  

That's the short version of my August.  I guess that's about it for now.