Login

Midway and the Great Mobile Hunt

Have you ever had to search through miles of powdery snow for a lost $400 iPhone that could have fallen anywhere? No? Then I guess you haven’t truly lived. I can now say that I have. Here’s my tale of how our fun weekend turned into a phone search.

January is not my favorite month. It doesn’t have the pleasant weather appeal or holiday enticements that make other months popular; it doesn’t even carry in it the hope of spring like February does. So Jason and I decided that our January needed a little pick-me-up. We therefore made a weekend getaway to Midway with my brother and his family to enjoy the only things splendid about this month: snow and after-Christmas sales.

Isabelle, who only figured out that whole walking thing recently, didn't even try to move with all her snow clothes on. She would just stand there looking awkward until someone picked her up.
Jadon was excited to have a snowball fight even though the snow was too powdery to really form into balls.
Jason gripped me tight in fear at the mere thought of descending the tubing hill...okay, maybe not.

We started our snow fabulous weekend by tubing at Soldier Hollow. Since the tubing hill wasn’t crowded due to all those that savor sleeping in on Saturdays not being conscious yet, which usually includes me, we were allowed to hook all of our tubes together in one giant mass. Jadon, my brother’s five year old, loved it and wanted our cluster to make choo-choo noises as we cruised down the mountain.

After we spent the morning tubing we went to Park City for some serious shopping at the outlet stores. The frigid temps didn’t stop us from going store to store in search of awesome deals. We definitely found some. My favorite thing about shopping that afternoon was getting Jadon to help me pick out jewelry. He took offering his assistance very seriously and conscientiously evaluated all the available pieces before giving me his recommendation. It was very cute and quite humorous.

The setting for Final Fantasy XXXVI? It's quite possible.
Streams of frozen water, glassy teeth of ice, playing in an ice castle is rather nice.
As we toured the castles snowflakes were a falling. It added to the wintery wonder of it all.

That evening, after shopping, we walked through the famous Midway ice castles. I must admit that before this trip I didn’t know that such “famous” structures existed but apparently every year a guy from Midway makes these giant ice sculptures and keeps building them higher and higher through the winter until they are simply monstrous. They were pretty impressive and I guess they deserve their claim to fame since they attract about 40,000 visitors each year. If you feel inclined to view them I would recommend going after dark; all those illuminated icicles look mesmerizing and surreal etched out of a blackened sky. But don’t be surprised if the setting fills you with the desire to sport a furry loincloth or a sword of smiting, such props would seem commonplace among these frosty edifices.

This was taken at the top of the Timp View trail: wisps of clouds, a sprinkling of falling snow, and heaps of powder. Breathtaking!
Jason the subjugator vanquishes the Timp View trail.

The following morning Jason and I were back at Soldier Hollow for some snowshoeing with Jason’s parents. This is when our phone troubles really began. We decided to climb a trail called Timp View; this path was marked as “most difficult” and it seemed to go up and up endlessly but the views just kept getting better as we crested one hill after another. It was beautiful and we even got to make first tracks since no one had trekked through the upper regions of the trail after it had snowed the night before. It was a refreshing experience and we got back to our cars feeling tired, content, and cold. That’s when Jason realized he was missing his cell phone. Ugh! Although he claimed that he had zipped all of his pockets up, he last remembered having his phone before we started our ascent up the trail, which meant it could be anywhere in the miles of snow we had crossed. With fresh powder everywhere, which a flung phone would just snuggle right down into, we both had very little hope of finding that allusive electronic but we thought we better at least give it a try. So we started backtracking up our path and I began calling his phone in hopes that we would hear it ring if we passed it. This plan only had a shot at working if his phone was set to ring not just vibrate, which was another detail that Jason couldn’t recall. Blast! Trying to dial his number, which required glovelessness, while trudging through snow proved too awkward and freezing so I headed back to the car to concentrate on my calling efforts while Jason continued to cruise back up our route. On my 22nd call he answered. He had miraculously found his phone near the top of the trail. He would have passed right by it, since it was indeed buried in the snow, but he heard it ring and dug around until he uncovered it. Yes! All that teamwork paid off. Everyone was shocked that we were actually able to locate the phone, including the workers in the lodge that had told us it was a lost cause when we had reported it missing. What can I say; the Rachel and Jason team is a pretty darn good one.

So that is how our fantastic Midway weekend turned into a seemingly futile mobile search and then ended happily ever after after all.

Rachel January 13, 2011 2 Comments

Culture and Chemistry

I needed to travel to New York City again for the annual Society of Cosmetic Chemists scientific seminar. Jason was down with that as long as he could tag along. We stayed over the weekend after my seminar was done to make the arduous airplane ride worth the bother.

We snapped this of the Chrysler building just as it was getting dark. Perfecto!

The great thing about NYC is that no matter how many times you visit there are always more things to do and see than you could possibly have time for. This year, out of the nearly limitless options, we ended up going to a lot of shows and being all sorts of cultural. We saw the Lion King on Broadway, the New York Pops’ Christmas concert at Carnegie Hall, and the Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. They were all fantastic but I was most excited about getting a chance to see Carnegie Hall. Being inside a legendary venue like that felt like being a part of history and our seats were in one of the hall’s cool old school opera boxes so that was pretty sweet.

The stage at Carnegie Hall: famous, festive, fabulous!

Another highlight of our trip was being part of the studio audience for a filming of The Colbert Report. I love Colbert, and if he isn’t the very definition of culture I don’t know what is, so I was thrilled that we were able to procure tickets and be in his crazy presence. What a nut! The one downside to attending the Colbert Report was that we had to wait outside in the frigid NYC winter for over an hour before they let us into the studio. By then both Jason and I felt cold down to our bones and we couldn’t get warm the rest of the night. But Colbert was worth it most definitely.

This girl and guy are going to see Colbert!

In addition to the multitude of entertaining shows we went to, we found a plethora of culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Holy relics Batman! This museum is amazing. We spent all day there and only saw a small fraction of their exhibits. We made it through the Egyptian portion, the arms and armory wing, and some of the countless paintings. Everything we did see was spectacular from Henry VIII’s armor to the Temple of Dendur, which was transported in its 800 ton entirety from Egypt to the museum to save it from being submerged when the Aswan High Dam was created. Jason was captivated by the Book of the Dead displayed in the Egyptian section. Who knew that the Book of the Dead wasn’t a Hollywood fabrication? The many incredible paintings by Rembrandt, van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet-just to name a few-were probably what I liked best but I think we could have spent a full week at the MET and still not have seen everything. Wow! Wow! Wow! If you ever get a chance I would highly recommend checking that place out.

This archway was part of the outer court of the Temple of Dendur and apparently part of the packaged deal.
Jason loved the way I contemplated all of the paintings at the MET so he took this picture of me pondering Monet.
These decked out dudes and horses in the armory section of the MET were really cool.

There are only a couple letters separating couture from culture so I think it’s quite fitting that the pursuit of fashion accompanied our cultural escapades. One of my favorite things about NYC is the shopping. Manhattan is surprisingly deficient in certain types of shops. For instance, finding a grocery store is nearly impossible and when you finally do stumble upon one you inevitably discover that it is roughly the size of a 7 Eleven. But what Manhattan lacks, I mean really lacks, in way of fresh consumables it makes up for with other goods. The hotel we stayed at was just a block away from the famous and fabulous shopping on 5th Avenue. Oh glorious shops! I am not ashamed, though perhaps I should be, to admit that I spent rather a lot of money along that stretch of road, probably enough to feed a family in Ethiopia for a year. We went to FAO Schwarz (They still have the huge piano featured in the movie Big on display.), Tiffany’s, H&M, Anthropologie, Henri Bendel, and many more. For any of you ladies planning a trip to NYC, Henri Bendel is a must! If multiple floors filled solely with jewelry, purses, scarves, makeup, and hair accessories don’t make you drool then you don’t deserve the estrogen in your cells. If I lived in NYC all those divine shops would be the death of my financial stability I’m afraid. Good thing there is a limit to how many darling dresses one can stuff in a suitcase.

The doorman at FAO Schwarz looked awesome but he made me feel super short.
Jason was eager to visit the first Apple store on the planet. It's legendary...I guess.

No trip to NYC wouldn’t be complete without some good grub: a literal cultural intake. My two favorite places we ate at this time were Five Napkin Burger and The Modern. At Five Napkin Burger I ate the best hamburger that has ever touched my lips: a big patty of chuck roast, a thick slice of gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, and a rosemary aioli sauce. Oh my goodness! The Modern is part of the Museum of Modern Art and features a fusion of American and French cuisine. The food there is served as a series of small courses. All the courses we had, from horseradish crusted Scottish salmon with Riesling froth to Beignets topped with maple ice cream and caramel sauce, were delicious and the serving staff was impeccable. I would highly recommend both these places to anyone that finds themselves in NYC.

One of the courses Jason ordered at The Modern was a poached egg in a jar with sea urchin froth. It sounded too weird to me but Jason was intrigued by its strangeness. He enjoyed it though he admitted that what I got tasted better.

We had a lovely time in Manhattan, and we were drenched in culture by the time we returned, but visiting NYC always makes me wonder how people can live so removed from nature. Perhaps it is easy to feel, when surrounded by manmade giants of steel and glass, that nature is obsolete but I could never believe or live like that. Man’s accomplishments and creations may be everywhere in NYC but the awe of nature is completely lost. No thank you; I need my green growing things. I’d take my snow capped mountains over the bustling streets of NYC any day…though I wouldn’t mind having a few of those 5th Avenue shops here in Utah.

Rachel December 18, 2010 2 Comments

I Love Moab in November

Jason and I have vacationed in Moab many times but the pleasant weather, breathtaking scenery, and killer biking trails always call us back for more.

This was the view from our cabin's patio. Beautiful!
Our cabin was nestled on the banks of the Colorado River. It doesn't get much more scenic than that.

Although we just went to Moab in June, we weren’t quite ready to acquiesce to winter yet so we traveled down there again for one last hoorah. We typically go to Moab in the spring or fall when the temperatures are about perfect; we had never been this late in the season so we weren’t sure what to expect. The weather turned out to be quite pleasant. Jackets were needed but we stayed pretty warm with them, except when the sun went down. Burr!

Partition Arch is a favorite of mine. It's like a window to an alien landscape.
This rock had a face so Jason thought I should kiss it.

Moab was pleasantly uncrowded, the most deserted we have ever seen it. We were even able to secure a cabin at the Red Cliffs Lodge, a popular hotel that we have found it impossible to get reservations at during the busy season. Now that I have stayed there I can see why it’s always packed. Our cabin was situated on the banks of the Colorado River; we had our own private patio from which to gawk at the majestic sandstone cliffs that broke the skyline. Our suite had an inviting fireplace and a Jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom. I would highly recommend this lodge to anyone fortunate to find a vacancy there.

Jason did his impersonation of a dark angel in honor of the Dark Angel behind him.

We spent our time in Moab doing the usual: hiking and biking. While the day we spent hiking in Arches National Park was lovely, our real adventure was our bike trek. We went biking on a “trail” that we hadn’t tried before: the left side of Tusher Canyon. This was supposed to be only a moderately difficult path but I don’t think I’ve ever feared for my life while biking like I did as we traversed the narrow ledges of this canyon’s walls, ledges that slanted into a sandstone oblivion. The hundreds of feet between us and the ground were not broken by trees or bushes; nothing to soften a fall or hold onto meant that any slip-up could result in an abrupt encounter with the valley floor.

I snapped this of Double O Arch. Way to go me!

But potentially falling off cliffs wasn’t our only problem in Tusher, finding the cliffs that we would then try to avoid falling off was also a big dilemma. Like many of the lesser known Moab trails, the path up the side of Tusher Canyon was not marked and since it traveled over rock it wasn’t as if you could just follow the footprints of those that went before you. Our biking book said that after about 3.4 miles of riding to look for an obscure rock ramp on the right that leads up a passable portion of the slickrock. Earth to the author: how are you supposed to notice an indistinct bank of rocks that slope up when you are surrounded by upward slanting rocks? Needless to say that finding the “ramp” was tricky, frustrating, and involved a lot of backtracking.

Does that look like moderate biking to you? I don't think so. And yes, that tiny dot is me.
I was holding my breath the whole time Jason was riding along this ledge. It made me really nervous.

Was it all worth it? Absolutely!!! The top of the plateau we risked our lives to reach was a slickrock paradise! It was all freestyle riding up there and gorgeous. And since it was off-season we didn’t see a single biker so all that slickrock goodness was ours to enjoy by ourselves. I would gladly get lost and face precipices to bike on top of the world like that again.

Defying gravity? No, it's just the sticky slickrock.

The bottom line? I would recommend Moab in November. You’ll need a jacket but you won’t have to fight throngs in the national parks or on the slickrock and you will have all the lodging options your heart could desire. Do it! Do it!

Rachel November 24, 2010 No Comments
 Categories

Recent Posts

Recent Comments
Blogroll