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Putting on the Gritz

You know that patriotic song that finishes with some line about the greatness of America from sea to shining sea? Well, Jason and I have witnessed firsthand the greatness of this country from one side of the continent to the other over the last month. Just a few weeks ago we were dipping our feet in the Pacific and last week we splashed into the Atlantic.

I had to travel to Charleston, South Carolina for a conference and good-natured Jason happily went with me to see a state neither of us had visited before. My seminar was just a two-day affair but we stayed a couple extra days to gluttonously savor the flavor of Charleston. Even though we’ve literally almost spent more time traveling the last month than we’ve spent at home, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore some new territory.

The banks of the Cooper River were pocketed with swamp lands. Those marshes were surprisingly pretty.
The Nathaniel Russell House had ornate oval rooms and a three-story spiral staircase. I felt like I should start gossiping about Mr. Darcy in its hall.

Charleston is a quaint old town with a sophisticated Southern feel and a whole lot of humidity. Since I’ve been to the South many times I was not surprised by the thick wall of moisture that greeted us when we exited our airplane. Nor did the row of rocking chairs lined up in the airport for flight waiters to relax in astonish me. Jason was a little taken aback by both though. Ya ain’t in Kansas no more honey.

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge's diamond-shaped towers looked interesting from any angle.
The Morris Island Lighthouse lies 300 yards off the shore at the tip of Folly Beach. It made for a nice backdrop.

Charleston’s significant role in America’s past was apparent from both sides of its narrow topsy-turvy streets. Its avenues were lined with tightly-packed antique homes and worn cobblestones. Porches with wicker chairs and rockers invited the world to sit back and take a load off under roofs that had quietly seen the passing of generations and the making of nations.

The shrimp and grits at High Cotton were highly delicious. How can you go wrong with fried okra, sweet corn, and a garlic broth?
Slightly North of Broad or S.N.O.B. was one of my favorite restaurants out of the many fantastic we tried.

With my conference taking up most of our first couple days, the only sightseeing we really got around to those initial nights was viewing delicious food as it traveled from our plates to our mouths. Charleston, it turns out, is something of a hotspot for fine Southern cuisine, especially seafood. The city seemed eager to ease into relaxation quickly in the evenings so everything closed early, except restaurants. Most shops locked their doors at 5 but bistros welcomed guests up to 1 AM. Therefore, Jason and I were forced to spend our nights eating. What a trial. We had fried oysters, apricot glazed flounder, crab cakes, stuffed hush puppies, and sautéed snapper with basil puree. That was all very good but what I craved most, and ordered almost every single night, was shrimp and grits. Too much of a Yankee to know what grits is? Imagine something along the lines of polenta but creamier. Grits is a tasty complement to pretty much everything. (And yes, grits is singular.) It’s hard to find grits that is cooked right and impossible to find it at all here in Utah. Too bad, I would trade wobbly green Jell-O casseroles for grits any day of the week. Even Jason, a diehard grits skeptic, was converted by the flavorful dishes I ordered in Charleston, which he readily sampled but was too cynical to get himself.

The walls of Ft. Sumter, where they were still standing, were 5 feet thick. Originally this fortress was designed to fit 135 cannons but it never got fully loaded.
This huge live oak tree stretched 145 feet across. It rested on the banks of the Ashley River long before colonialists did.

Even with all the extra grits weight we were carrying around we still managed to waddle through a lot of Charleston. We visited the Nathaniel Russell House, an antebellum mansion that had been skillfully restored and reminded me of something out of a Jane Austen novel. We walked along the shoreline at various parks and meandered down Rainbow Row where the pastel color scheme of the historic houses brought to mind tropical flowers and inviting Caribbean waters. We toured Middleton Place, a renovated plantation along the Ashley River that had grounds so expansive it took us a few hours just to walk through them. The maze of paths at Middleton Place wound through countless pockets of earth hedged by walls of camellias, magnolias, and bamboo so thick it was easy to imagine that if you held still for long enough you too would sprout roots into the fertile soil. We took a ferry out to Ft. Sumter where the first momentous shots of the Civil War were fired. We also made it to Folly Beach and sorry Californians, this water was warmer than what we waded through a few weeks ago in Santa Monica.

Cypress Lake was really a swamp that bordered one side of Middleton Place.
Middleton Place had so many picturesque plants and ponds that you didn't know where to point your camera.
This tree looked lovely bowing a greeting to the pond lilies.

If history enthralls you, if enormous live oaks draped in weepy vines give you that peaceful insignificant feeling, if shrimp and grits entices you to keep cramming up to your uvula then Charleston just might be the perfect place for you to visit. It has all the charm of the Deep South plus the friendly natives speak what can easily be identified as English while they feed you until your eyes pop. Sign me up and roll me home!

Rachel June 9, 2012 2 Comments

My Tidy Little Habit

We are all creatures of habit, whether those habits include leaving piles of dirty socks in odd places all over the house or hitting the snooze button 10 times before we actually get out of bed. Oftentimes our habits do nothing but annoy our spouses or make us as round as bowling balls but occasionally they can be of good use.

Jason and I are far from lazy but between working hard and working hard at having fun there aren’t enough hours in the day for everything we need to get done. Hence, it’s often proven difficult for us to keep up with our housework even when we have the best of intentions. We used to clean in massive clumps because we couldn’t find time to do so otherwise but a few months ago I decided to put an end to this manic straightening. I devised a plan to encourage housework to become as much a part of our regular routine as brushing our teeth or putting on a fresh pair of underwear each morning. (Jason often overlooks applying daily deodorant so I won’t use that as an example of an established habit.)

Now that's a face no scum can resist.

I instituted “cleaning night” and now Jason and I spend an evening every week attacking our house with dusters and mops from top to bottom. Cleaning night has proven quite effective. Our house stays pretty tidy these days and if it does grow unruly putting it back in order isn’t an insurmountable task. I’ll admit that all the summer yard work and vacations have made it considerably harder to keep the cleaning constant but we’ve managed to stay on top of it reasonably well because I’m too obstinate to give up on any of my cockeyed ideas.

Now that our house doesn’t suffer from dust neglect I’m preparing to implement phase II of my habitual ploy. You know all those deep cleaning projects that you never ever have time for: the cupboards, the pantry, vacuuming under the bed, etc? Well, I have schemed up a way to get them all completed regularly. I have compiled a list of all these never-dones and Jason and I are going to take one of them on every week until they’re finished, at which point we’ll begin cycling through the list once again. These deep projects will be tackled in addition to our regular cleaning night. Yes, our lives are going to be even more packed, which doesn’t seem possible, but at least our cupboards will be tidy. Sadly, time is always a casualty in the war for neatness.

Between yard work and house work and regular work, life doesn’t give one much of a break. Jason and I sometimes lose whole weeks without anything to show for it except sparkly bathtubs and a happy yard. This seems to be an all too common complaint among the chronically busy. Regardless, I think cleaning night is a keeper. I would recommend a straightening ritual to anyone. Why should date night have the monopoly on breaking a sweat?

Rachel May 29, 2012 No Comments

Onions and Needles

Twice a year Jason and I head to Moab; these trips are nearly as constant as the ebb and flow of the tides. This spring we had a hard time finding an open weekend to visit our favorite adventure hub but somehow we squished it in. How can you not make time for Moab?

Crossing Onion Creek over and over was delightful and messy. I'm not usually that thrilled to be that soggy.
One prickly pear blooming in the desert is lovelier than a garden full of roses.

On this outing we again hit a couple new biking and hiking spots. It seems like no matter how many times we go to Moab there is always new terrain to explore. We biked 20 miles to the Fisher Valley Ranch and back via Onion Creek Canyon. Although this sandy bouncy road definitely wasn’t on the upper end of the technically challenging scale, the unfit would probably find it unfit for cycling due to its persistent climbs. For us though it was as tempting as a cup of hot cocoa in a snowstorm. All those bumpy hills strewn in unnatural looking reds, greens, grays, and yellows practically begged our tires to tread on them and we were happy to oblige. The dreamlike scenery kept our eyes popping but the best part of this ride was its 52 river crossings, and no, that was not a typo. Jason and I got to navigate our bikes through Onion Creek 52 fabulous times. It goes without saying that we did not return to our car dry. And, thanks to a 25 MPH wind that whipped the endless supply of sand into our faces, I didn’t even return to our car looking human. Instead I resembled what would happen if a stinkbug and a sandman produced unfortunate offspring. They really should never have kids together. Despite the gritty gusts that literally picked up our bikes on occasion and turned me into walking sandpaper, we thoroughly enjoyed this ride. I would recommend Onion Creek to those who aren’t super confident in their off-road skills but don’t mind a good workout or a wet crotch.

This is an untouched photo, as hard as that is to believe. Onion Creek was really that red and otherwordly looking.
That smudge of dust is not the workings of a camera lens gone awry but rather the sandy minions of an aggressive breeze.
In the narrows of Onion Creek Canyon my bike kept tilting toward the river gorge far below thanks to that tricky wind.

The second part of our adventure took us to The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is comprised of three separate sections that are divided by the Colorado and Green Rivers. While we’ve hit the Island in the Sky District before, we’ve never made the 65 mile journey south of Moab to see The Needles until now.

Misshapen rocks littered The Needles' landscape.
We came across this rattler in The Needles just a foot from our trail. Later we discovered that it was a midget-faded rattlesnake, one of the deadliest vipers in North America. Apparently they're quite reclusive so a sighting is rare. Lucky us!

The Needles bore little resemblance to the Island in the Sky or anywhere else for that matter. It was a jumble of strange boulders and outcroppings. Its fingers of rock lined the horizon like ancient stone cityscapes. Everywhere you looked fields of mushroom rock popped out of the earth as if they had sprung up overnight.

This tunnel added a little claustrophobic zest to our Chesler Park hike.

We hiked to a place called Chesler Park, a peaceful scrub brush covered meadow surrounded by spires of stone that stretched toward the infinite sky. There we climbed a random rock blob and ate our lunch with a 360 degree view of the circling sandstone towers while a curious crow watched us from a few feet away.

We came across these unusual kissing petroglyphs at the top of Big Spring Canyon. Okay, so we created them with our cheesy shadows but aren't we clever!

Sunsets in the desert are glorious and not to be missed. So after our hike we relaxed above Big Spring Canyon and watched the whittled stone transform from a dull brown to a blazing red within minutes. Unlike other flames, this fire burned without a sound. In fact the world was so still at the top of that canyon it almost made your ears ache.

The Red Cliffs Lodge is frequently our hotel of choice. It is also home to the Castle Creek Winery...and this cute truck.

That concludes my account of yet another trek into Utah’s southeastern desert. If you’ve never been to Moab what are you waiting for? You could travel the whole world and not find anything comparable to the understated patient beauty of this worn landscape. It may have taken thousands of years of infinitesimal alterations to create this unique masterpiece but I would recommend not waiting that long to enjoy it.

Rachel May 23, 2012 1 Comment
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