Arches National Park~ a weekend of hiking

Two weekends in a row hanging out with Tony; it's a record. We met in Moab, ostensiby for Tony to bring me Nellie, now that we have a house that allows a dog. It just so happened to be perfect desert hiking weather. Tony always gets the short end of the stick when we "meet in the middle", but this weekend he had to be in in Salt Lake on Monday to fly to Atlanta for some sort of Robot Rodeo....(he assures me this event that requires his attendance sounds WAY more fun than it actually is), so driving to Moab was not so bad.

This photo is a good example of the fins that form from erosion.

Arches National Park is in eastern Utah a few miles north of Moab. It is known for preserving over 2000 natural stone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch ( of which I don't have a photo because we did not hike in that part of the park) in addition to a variety of unique geological formations. The park lies above a sub-terranian salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and sandstone fins. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches. (wiki is my source)

This area was part of Edward Abbey's home turf and he was actually a park ranger there for one year in the late 60's. Thus was born the novel Desert Solitaire, a must~read for any quasi~environmentalist. It has reached biblical proportion among more than a few. It is such a quotable read. Such as: Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself."

We passed by about 6 or 7 arches on this hike. We even passed a huge arch that had recently collapsed.

We could literally spend an entire week here hiking all day, every day and still only cover a small portion of the park. We entered through the main entrance, since we have a national parks membership pass, but it is also possible to enter for free along a long, winding and sandy back road. Your vehicle needs pretty high clearance to make it but it would be well worth the trouble just to avoid the throngs of tourists that rarely venture much farther than the parking lots closest to whatever arch they want to photograph.

Hope Lake hike

Fall is upon us and the aspen are golding-up nicely. It's no spectacular New England display of colours, but the majestic mountains make up for much. Owen, Nellie and I decided to hike up to Hope Lake last weekend to eat a picnic lunch. It was only a 7 mile round trip, but was challenging enough because the trail head started at 10,000 ft and ended at 12,000 ft.

Indian summer was definitely upon us. When we arrived at the parking lot I was amazed at the number of cars. Just to get to the trail head was a bone-jarring 4 miles up a steep mountain "road". Well worth it, however.

Moah in late summer with my husband and boys.

No he is not yet living with me, but I am sure seeing him more this year than last. But I won't complain and just be happy to be with him when I can.

We did our annual late summer pilgrimage to Moab, but it was not late enough. FREEKIN' HOT.
We did a great 15 mile mountain bike ride covering a technical part the Kokapeli Trail and the Porcupine Rim before dropping onto Sand Flats road. When we arrived back at camp, Owen was a wilted flower in need of rejuvenation after the almost 100 degree, 2 hr + ride. MOAB BREWERY and BEER CHEESE SOUP did the trick. He was back on his game and scrambling about the red rock under a starlit night sky. Ben opted not to ride and stay at camp and smoke Marlboros and drink beer instead. Yikes, life as a party animal sure seems dull to me.

Dirtbag Travel

I will have to drop the "Idaho" from the blog title in about 5 weeks. Still have not upgraded beyond "dirtbag" style of travel, so I can keep that part. In fact, I believe the only time we have ever stayed in hotel for vacation is when we are out of the country or with my parents or other relatives. Oh yeah, and once this winter in Moab when Owen requested a hot tub and swimming pool for his birthday.

In fact, we have been doing a bit of of dirt bagging since I bought Tony the shiny, new, North Face 3~person tent he has wanted since Ben was about 8 yrs old. Often times it is just easier to not take the Vanagon. We have been doing quite a bit of mountain biking in Jackson, Kelly Canyon, Victor, IF foothills and tomorrow, Montana. It has been years since we have mountain biked so regularly together. I have been mostly remiss in taking photos to document these rides. I will try to remember the camera this weekend.

The beginning of the end

This is our last summer in Idaho. I was all ready to come back and make the best of it but my husband has seen the light. He needed to decide for himself. So I am going to dedicate myself to loving Idaho and its surroundings and my friends more than ever for the next seven weeks before I head back to Telluride.




Owen's very best friends in the whole wide world have moved and he missed saying goodbye to them, so he is a bit sad and lonely here. I imagine this will mean we will be making the drive to Teton Valley often because that is where the rest of his friends live. That is fine with me.

Ben turned 21 today, so to that end, he spent the day chasing down all the free beer and shots offered by the bars in town to those turning 21. This seems wrong to me, on so many levels, but if I had been a drinking woman when I turned 21, I am sure I would have embraced the concept with gusto. We are celebrating tomorrow evening since Tony will be flying back today from a trip to Boston.

On speaking Spanish and eating pastries

Every language teacher tries to come up with creative, authentic and fun ways to get their students speaking in the target language. After all, communication, not conjugating verbs in the past perfect tense of the subjunctive mood, is the point of learning a foreign language.

So where is it that you usually find the intrepid foreign travelers trying to hone their language skills? They are meeting in the coffee houses and pastry shops of the world, hunched over a thick, black mug of java and a croissant , rubbing elbows with the locals and parsing utterances that may or may not resemble speech.

The upper-school Spanish speakers at the Mountain School have taken this idea to Cindy Bread in the form of talleres de conversación, conversation workshops. There is only one rule at these gatherings: no English. The incentive of a home-made baked good in the middle of a school day makes adherence to this rule successful. Kids often call each other out, in Spanish mind you, if they hear someone breaking the rule.

What do we talk about? The possibilities are numerous: pick a topic from a hat on which to speak, student presentations , improvisation scenarios, chat about weekends past, present and future, friends and families, plan an upcoming experiential trip. Students get a little taste of what it is like to try to figure out how to say what they want really want to communicate but might not have the language skills to do so. A little bit of immersion right here in Telluride, Colorado.

Telluride knows how to party

Telluride has over 30 parties and festival throughout the course of the year. They even have the Annual No Festival festival mid-July each year. Only t-shirts are sold, no events. Halloween is no exception to the must-party atmosphere. Everyone gets into it.

When I taught at Conval High in NH, about 20-30% of the faculty and students pulled it out on Halloween. Many thought it uncool to dress up and celebrate. Different states, different mentalities. Maybe it is the vestiges of the puritanical, have-no-fun history of New England. Colorado does not have that problem. Just living here is a reason to celebrate. Halloween is no exception. At the Mountain School we had a 99% dress-up rate. You just do it and enjoy the silliness of it all.

Then we left for the second half of the day to participate in the all-town Halloween Parade. Everyone comes out for it and it is usually snowing. This year the weather cooperated and it warmed up slightly by the time we were all outside.

The somewhat famous annual KOTO (local and only radio station) holds its annual Halloween Bash at the Sheridon Opera House. This year they celebrated their 33rd party. It has been voted the best party in Colorado by many a magazine. And I did not go. Owen would have severely disapproved of me foisting him off on a baby sitter on Halloween. Instead we trick or treated.

and then went to the Rock-n-Roll Academy Party at the Elks Lodge, a kid-oriented affair. A bunch of my students' bands were playing and we had a lot of fun. No alcohol, just bad coffee and plenty of sugary treats.

Walking through town on our way back home from the party we came across a few of Owen's friends playing outside a restaurant. I went in to say hello while Owen played and the parents practically dragged me into a seat at their table. It was immediately obvious that they HAD been to the KOTO party. Hey, free food. Who was I to argue? We closed the place down. We were the only ones there. Everyone else in town without kids was at the opera
house.