a lovely visit from the parents

My parents drove some 3000+ kilometres to come visit and bring me the old gas stove they brought with them from England when we moved in late 1988. Instead of it being a squirrel nest in their basement, I thought it would be put to good use in my kitchen...

While they were here, we went on a nice hike to Wind Caves, they came and watched derby, and we also explored the Ogden hot springs.

 vista from the wind caves hike, "China Wall" on the left.

 

pretty little rest spot on the hike

  

 dad taking a photo of me from one side of a wind cave while I take a photo of him

 

gorgeous vista from the hike with dad's hat for "whimsy" or "cheese" depending on your point of view...

  

tub at Ogden hot springs

riverside tubs at Ogden hot springs

Catch up 1: Pomp & Circumstance

At the beginning of the month my "little" sister (can't remember how long ago it was that she surpassed me in height exactly - not that it's difficult to do...) got married. It was a big country club whoop de do involving taffeta and such. My favourite 3 photos of the event from my camera (operated by Becky) are as follows:

My fantastic cousin Fred.

My fabulous friend and camera operator; Becky, and my fierce cousin Amelia (can I actually limit myself to only "f" descriptors in this post?

The fiesty bride and fervent groom thoroughly enjoying their fancy speech. Ha! I did it!

holidays in the great white north

due to my sister's work schedule, we did the whole gift thing early this year - which was fine, since that meant that we covered my birthday one week prior as well. to celebrate my last Monday being 30, I got to eat real bagels and lox, and my parents got me a new camera, which I "desperately" needed (this is, of course, relative - my old camera still functions, however since the lens cap hasn't opened or closed on its own in over 3 years, the lens is most definitely scratched and photos have been getting duller as a consequence - also, relatively - no one "desperately" needs a new camera, seriously there are far more important things in life than material goods... but I digress)

ok, where was I? right, so we did the last Monday of my being 30, and also, so far, we have country skied and eaten.

my dad bakes bread, excellently, and is also renowned for cutting enormously thick slabs of it - this is a fairly good representation of the following: dad, thick slab of freshly baked bread, and sister

a couple of streets away from where my parents live is a park that has a decent loop around it for x country skiing, it's very convenient, except that dog walkers seem to be taking advantage of the somewhat flattened ski tracks, using them as trails, consequently destroying the tracks, and also (joy of joys) leaving us frozen turds to ski over... anyway, here's mom skiing

here's me standing and posing with a stupid grin on skis

greatest thing about the new camera? (ok besides that the lens cap opens and closes and the lens isn't all scratched up) there's a ridiculous function that allows you to swap colours. this also allows you to take photos of people and make them look like zombies without photoshop! I have a very bad feeling that I will be taking a lot of absolutely terrible photos for the humour of them

one of several oddities inherited from my dad's parents, this wooden horse is apparently dressed like santa this year (actually, I'm here so rarely that I can't be sure it isn't ALWAYS dressed like santa), mostly I was just messing with my new camera and thought it looked crazy rabid from this angle

me messing around with my new camera, the best part of this tree is the 2 birds on top, which are so incredibly old, and no longer have either beaks or tails - those birds rule!

the very red looking moon during the total lunar eclipse (at -10 degrees C) on the solstice, pretty awesome despite the numbness - this is my dad's photo, my frozen fingers and shivering prevented me getting a single photo that wasn't blurry

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: The Bad

Unfortunately, my work visa was not processed in time, and I was restricted north of the border until USCIS made a decision. In order to try and save my sanity of not being able to work and being completely powerless in the situation, I found a few things to keep me occupied besides incessant phone calls and reading mystery novels.

The animatronic dinosaur "park" at the Calgary Zoo. Look at all the faux rock formations!!! Faux red rock canyon, faux devil's postpile, faux hoodoos! Plus how cute are the dinos?

The best part of this video is the screaming children running in terror as soon as it roars.

I just thought... how do they stay in business? I asked the cashier what the story was with the name, and believe it or not, she said the original business used to sell loose tea, tea that had been overweighted, and thus discounted. Suuuuurrrrre

On Labour Day weekend I went to my first Pow Wow at Stoney, it was outrageous! Dance and drum competitions all day and night every day, First Nations People from all across North America! Unfortunately everything was moving and the lighting was poor, so this is it for photos, but I attempted a video of a drum team - until my camera crapped out on me anyway.

The Great SW USA Adventure

After much fund-raising and heinous heinous planning, I embarked on leading a group of students and my sister on a 10 day camping excursion from Bakersfield to Carlsbad Caverns and back. With the exception of one flat tire, we literally had no problems at all - some sketchy weather at times, but all in all, the mission in its entirety was accomplished with success.

Below are highlight photos from each day, the rest of them can be found here.


Day 1: Death Valley - the scenery was spectacular, and I've been yearning to see the fabled moving rocks up close in person for years, so this was for sure the highlight for me. Way too cool!


Day 2: Zion (and some rain) - the checkerboard mesa was pretty spectacular, although I can't seem to forget the extreme craving for pancakes after we saw oodles and oodles of stacked up crossbedded sandstone...


Day 3: In the rain we saw Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon National Parks, but having been to both before, and always coming away with the feeling that photos just don't do the grandeur justice, I have to say that the fake cops lining every small Utah and Arizona town were truly the highlight of that day. I suppose the purpose of the dummy cops is defeated when 9 people are poking in the windows of all the cop cars pointing and laughing and taking photos...


Day 4: From the Glen Canyon Dam to Sunset Crater to Montezuma's Castle & Well, and ending at Meteor Crater - the highlight of this long day for me must have been laughing at the photos of two students: one wearing a crooked tree as a mustache, and the other wearing a "junior ranger" vest in a gift shop - though they were hysterical, I'm showing you the craziness that is Montezuma's Castle.


Day 5: The spectacular Petrified Forest (and Painted Desert), followed up by Roswell and the Bottomless Lakes in New Mexico. Some of the petrified trees were impressively large...


Day 6: A morning at Carlsbad Caverns, the by the Permian Reef Trail (Texas) and onwards to camp at Rockhound State Park (obvious choice for a geology group). My highlight is the unlabeled cave formation of such obvious nature...


Day 7: A lengthy but scenic drive through the Sonoran Desert (yes, I realize that most of the trip was actually in the Sonoran Desert - but this day went through the actual National Monument) - while the highlight was likely the "Desert Dance Party" at the camp at the Petroglyph Site, this Chuckwalla I saw was pretty freaking cool.


Day 8: An excursion to the Salton Sea (as stinky as promised) brought us full circle back to California, and while we camped at Palm Canyon in Borrego Springs (Anza-Borrego State Park), which was beautiful and delightful and comfortable, the highlight has to be a dead fish on a stick. GROSS!


Day 9: Joshua Tree National Park - I FINALLY made it inside the park boundaries - and the spheroidal weathering of the monzogranite is really what makes this place stand out. Especially with butt- and whale-shaped rocks...


Day 10: Departure for home via my old faithful: the grand Mojave Desert. After over a year of threatening to do so, the Creech finally went for a swim in one of the brine trenches. We all nearly died of laughter.

2007 Holiday Highlights

Kiki investigated the snow - he didn't seem all that excited about it.

This is an antique waffle iron. We used it to cook delicious, delicious waffles.

A brief but fun visit to "SK" was had.

I had made and gave to my mom an impossibly difficult puzzle...

...regardless, we completed it.

Kiki gets a hand knit sweater for xmas from Lulu. He is not as pleased with it as we are.

The allergic one and the allergen have a nap.

Becky and I purchased plane tickets, celebrated, and drew a cover for the journal we intend to team write on our trip to Italy.

FIRST!

This weekend I had early xmas with the LA family - my super cousin was in one (of many) parades on Sunday with her middle school cheer team (she's the tall one 2nd from the left in front) and I'm sure you can tell from the title of this post that her team came in 1st!

Naturally a visit to that house in LA would not be complete without a photo of one of the cutest cats in the world: Molly Chub Chub (even though Chub Chub is not really part of her name). Here she is trying to nap (what else do cats do?) while her younger "step brother" Smokey comes over to investigate.

The day after the lengthy day (Nov. 9)

After delivering KM to the airport bus at pre-dawn, I forced Pearl to accompany me on a trek through the Mojave desert via old Rte. 66.

Boats on Rte. 66... nearest body of water? Unknown.

I'd like to make this into my "small house".

Roy's - at Amboy - best sign ever.

We checked out the world's first commercial solar plant, browsed houses, looked at boats for sale, met odd characters, jumped on lava rocks at Amboy Crater, looked at the blobby granite mountains, did yoga, and moved vast quantities of sand from the Kelso Dunes to our pants while trying to get them to "boom".

Hovering above Pahoehoe.

Airplane on a noisy dune.

The day finished with a sunset on the way to giant burgers from Bun Boy in Barstow. As any good day in the desert should.

Sideview sunset leaving the Dunes.

Noisy Dunes (Nov. 9)

err... sorry for the "turn your computer screen sideways" requirement for these...

Kilometers and Pearl come to visit! (Nov. 8)

In one lengthy day we had a luxurious omeletey breakfast, hiked around Red Rock Canyon, off-roaded to find "Burro" Schmidt's tunnel (some detours were had accidentally), and clambered throughout fossil falls.

Much jumping photos were taken.

Flying high on the red rocks.

We three hat-wearing adventurers...

The walls in "Burro" Schmidt's cabin were lined with... uhhh... garbage. But nifty garbage from the 1920's through the 1950's!

Jumping over Saltdale on the other side of Burro Schmidt's tunnel.

Roaming up, over, under and through the water-carved rocks at Fossil Falls.