Spring Break

For many years, we had a tradition of going to Moab for spring break, to enjoy the warmer weather, sunshine, and drier trails than were available in the Denver area.  It was great: we'd get the first sunburns of the season, the first saddle sores, the first wobbly legs from pushing hard on a long bike ride.  This year, we got the chance to revive that tradition and introduce it to Cailan.

We left our house on Saturday morning, not so early that we couldn't have a nice French toast breakfast but not too late either.  We wanted to arrive in Moab with plenty of time to find a campsite, a task that we were worried could be difficult, since it was the weekend of the annual Moab Skinny Tire Festival.  Fortunately our location gives us a headstart on all those Denverites, and by 11:00 we had found a campsite by the Colorado River and were setting up our tent.  We gave Cailan and Utah strict admonitions about going too close to the river's edge - one of them listened. After a picnic lunch, we set out for the trails.

We went to a fairly new area called the Moab Brand Trails, a trail system with several loops of varying degrees of difficulty. In a very uncharacteristic move, I didn't buckle on my bike shoes and slap my helmet on my head; instead, I found myself tying on my running sneakers. I am getting ready for my first half-marathon in April, and I really needed to do a long run this weekend to stay on top of my training schedule. Chris and Cailan geared up for a ride on the big yellow tandom, and we all headed out in the same direction, heading along the EZ Trail toward the Bar M loop. Chris and Cailan soon pulled ahead of me, though they paused a couple times to give me a drink from a Camelbak and to snap a picture.

I saw them again after another mile or so. They had stopped near the junction of EZ and Bar M to look for a geocache. I grabbed another sip of water and kept moving. It was a gorgeous day: sunny and somewhere in the mid-60s, a very comfortable temperature for running. The scenery was spectacular. From the Bar M trail I could see many of the rock formations in Arches National Park, as well as the La Sal mountains. The EZ trail was narrow and windy, a soft dirt surface studded occasionally with rocks. The Bar M trail was wide and hard-packed with many sections of slickrock. Both were fun to run on, and the trail system is well marked, with signs at every trail junction and trail maps at many of the intersections.

After I'd gone about four miles, I started to wonder why I hadn't seen Chris and Cailan again. They had been planning to ride the Bar M loop also, and even though Cailan doesn't pedal very hard, they can easily outpace my running speed. But they had several geocaches to hunt for, not to mention any lizards, rocks, flowers, or sticks that caught Cailan's attention, so I wasn't too surprised. At 5.5 miles, I could have taken a cut-off trail back towards the parking area, then caught the Lazy trail to get back to the truck, but I decided to stick to the Bar M, so the boys wouldn't get worried if they didn't catch me. In retrospect, I wish I had taken that left turn, because after 6 miles, the Bar M trail stopped being quite so fun. The trail surface alternated between soft loose dirt and deep sand, and the trail went up and down a series of gullies - each up started to feel longer and steeper than the last one. Eventually the trail curved around to the left, turned into a gravel road with a long gradual climb, and was parallel to the highway; it was not nearly so scenic and at a point in the run where I really could have used some distraction to keep me going.

At 8.25 miles I was back at the parking lot, and Chris and Cailan weren't there. I called Chris and, after a couple of missed calls due to bad reception, learned that he was on the Bar M trail, at the top of one of those gullies, with a pinch flat. He'd unpacked his spare tube, only to discover that it also had been the victim of a pinch flat. He opened his patch kit, and found one lonely patch left - not enough to fix the two holes left by a pinch flat. I couldn't do anything to rescue him - I didn't have any keys to the truck. I couldn't even ride my bike to them, because my bike was locked on the roof rack, and Chris had the only keys. Fortunately, on a spring weekend in Moab, you don't usually have to wait long to meet someone else on the trail, and soon he had met a couple bikers with a well-stocked patch kit.

Cailan kept himself busy during the tire change by taking pictures with Chris's camera. I think when they finally got back to the truck, he had taken over 100 pictures, including a couple dozen shots of Utah (including a few that were in focus), countless pictures of dirt, a nice series of Chris in action with the bike pump, and some self portraits.

We all had water and snacks, then we pulled my bike down from the roof, I changed shoes and plopped my helmet on, and the four of us took a spin on the EZ Lazy loop. This was about 3.5 miles of easy but fun trail, a few bumps to go over and some nice swoopy downhill singletrack. At least, I think it would have been easy if I hadn't just finished an eight-mile trail run. My legs felt a bit like jelly. Back at the parking lot again, Chris unloaded his single bike and went to look for a little more challenging trail. Cailan and I hung out near the truck, casting spells with our magic wands (which closely resemble drumsticks) and collecting magic rocks. I'm not sure what exactly was magic about the rocks, but we sure did find a lot of them. The sun started to disappear early as it sunk behind some rock towers in the west, casting our play area into shadow and sending me to the truck to dig up long pants and a sweatshirt. When Chris returned, we loaded up and drove into town to buy a patch kit and a spare tube and enjoy dinner at Eddie McStiff's..

Then we went to our campsite along the river and started to get ready for bed. Of course, we had time to cast a few more spells in the dark, before retiring to our tent.

depths battle

I went to the depths battle.

I saw when the creatures got together, and the zombie squid had its tentacles wrapped around the common bottlenosed whale's fins.

The zombie squid's eyes were scary.  They followed me wherever I went.

I watched it disappear into the depths and then come back.

I saw the whale above the shark's fins.

The zombie squid's beak is so cool. 

I saw the zombie squid run into the whale. It would really hurt if it ran into me.

The shark's teeth are so big. They are strong and knock things apart.

I saw one mysterious mile. The shark looked like it was above the water.

The zombie squid lives very deep.

The place with the darkest depths is a tunnel-like maze. Most of it is unknown. The only thing that is known about it is that it is very big and only has light at the very end.

This a very neat photo that I got. The pygmy saltwater crocodile is one of the coolest animals known.

All good things must come to an end...

January 2nd was the last day of my Christmas vacation. We decided to squeeze a little more fun out of the holiday with a day trip to Moab, and we were delighted when our biking buddies Max, Maria, and Nico were able to come along. We went to an old favorite trail, Klondike Bluffs.

It's not a hard ride and it has some interesting features that make it a great ride. You start off on a dirt road, but before you get too far you get sucked in by a horrible sand trap. You're riding along and the bike gets slower and slower, the front wheel starts to swim around, and inevitably you're off the bike, trudging ankle deep in fine soft sand. Then there's another sand trap, but after that the surface is good.

The road winds along among squatty humps of red rock and then you get to the big rock slab. The entire slab is sloped, making for a gentle but constant climb; traction on the rock is outstanding. It's a big white rock, wrinkled with seams and pocked with craters, so that you might think for a moment that you're riding on the surface of the moon. In fact, Chris and I have ridden this trail at night under a full moon, with the white rock taking on a silvery glow while everything else disappeared in shadow.

Another cool feature about this rock - and the best part of the ride, if you ask Cailan - is the set of dinosaur footprints. There are many very distinct three-toed prints, maybe about 15 inches long to the end of the middle toe. Cailan had some ideas about which Jurassic carnivore might have made the prints, but I don't know what dinosaur was actually responsible.

After climbing maybe 2 miles on the rock slab, you're out on another dirt road, and spend another mile or so alternating rock and dirt. When the road ends, there's a bit of singletrack that climbs pretty steeply along the north-facing side of a hill. On this trip, much of it was covered with snow. We all did some pushing through the snow, but there were also parts we could ride.

Then the trail ends at a bike ride, which looks a little out of place this far out in the middle of the desert. The bike trail ends because this is the border of Arches National Park: no bikes allowed. But a quarter-mile hike over more of the white slabby rock brings you to an overlook with an amazing view. You sit on the white rock, which just in front of you drops away to form the walls of a sort of cul-de-sac canyon. On the far side of the drop of is more white rock and behind that the orangey red rock formations of Arches and behind that the snowy tops of the La Sal mountains. Ravens and swallows soar and swoop in the canyon as you eat a snack and soak up the sunshine and the brilliant sky.

The return trip is mostly downhill. On the way down the white rock becomes snow, and your bike can carve beautiful turns this way and that as you descend. And even though the temperature was just above 40 degrees, a certain member of our party couldn't resist the temptation of a pothole filled with melted snow:

After the ride we drove into Moab and gorged ourselves at Pasta Jay's, one of the only restaurants that stays open all day during the winter slow season. Then we had to hurry home so Chris and I could get to a dance rehearsal. The sun painted us a glorious goodbye in the rearview mirror as it settled below the red rocks.

Sledding

Here's a little post-holiday Rorschach test: what do you see in this image?

Those red squiggles represent 3 adults, 2 little boys, 4 sleds, a sunny winter day, and two-and-a-half hours of snowy fun! Chris, Cailan, and I went up to Grand Mesa with our friends Maria and Max to go sledding. Just for kicks, I wore my GPS watch to track our action. It's pretty funny to watch it in the player.

We got Cailan a blue sled for Christmas. He'd never been sledding before so he didn't really know what to expect. We weren't sure, either. Three winters ago, Cailan didn't want to even walk on snow, even with boots on. Last winter, we had to cut a snowshoeing trip short because just the act of putting on a stiff, puffy coat sent him into unstoppable tears. This year, we got new boots, snow bibs, and a nice coat that seems both warm and comfortable, plus some mittens with a really long cuff to minimize the gap between mitten and sleeve. He was all set, but would he like it?

The answer is: yes! He liked sledding, whether it was in a sled with Chris or me or Maria, or in a sled with both Maria and Max, or on a solo trip! He liked it when the sled stopped halfway down the hill, when it whizzed all the way to the trees, and even when it capsized!

He was less enthusiastic about trudging up the hill after each trip down. Sometimes he would have to stop and take a break, or eat some snow, or lie on his belly and wriggle like an eel.

All winter Cailan has been interested in building a snow cave or a snow tunnel. The snow yesterday wasn't quite deep enough for a good snow tunnel but Chris did manage to construct a pretty good cave, just the right size for a six-year-old boy, or a rare Blue-coated Snow Goby.

Merry Christmas!

It has been a fantastic Christmas day!

First, Cailan got to look in his stocking:

Then we had the traditional Christmas breakfast burritos (what? it takes more than one year to make a tradition?) and opened more presents. Cailan got some really cool stuff, like this dinosaur game from Jim and Emiko:

And these insect robots from Shaun, Cindy, Abbey, and Quinn:

And a huge bag of animals from all different time periods and places, from Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Nick:

And some books from Grandma Bobbie:

Utah got a bright new collar from IMBA, partly made from recycled bicycle innertubes. We took off his old collar and put the new one on him. Utah promptly picked up the collar and shook it at Chris - his way of requesting that we go out for a bike ride. He kept following Chris around shaking the collar, so he ended up wearing both the old one and the new one.

Then it was time to play with all the new toys. Here's some insect-bots buzzing around in their habitat. We turned them loose inside Cailan's new blue toboggan too; they had lots of room to roam there.

Cailan made many different scenes from his new set of animals: a safari scene, a farm scene, an ocean scene, an above the water scene, a Cretaceous scene, and this Jurassic scene:

Cailan likes to zoom in on his scenes.

Now he's dominating the landscape:

After playing ourselves into a frenzy, we had a minor meltdown when Cailan realized his new Christmas money would give him enough to buy the Triops kit he'd been saving for but he wouldn't be able to go to the toy store TODAY to buy it. "But we HAVE to go today!" "I'm sorry, Cailan, the toy store is closed so all the employees can spend Christmas with their families." "But you have to call them and tell them that I need to buy those Triops!" The only remedy was the application of hugs followed by an emergency dose of lunch.

And then it was time to bundle up and go out for a bike ride at Rustler's Loop. Cailan wore his pajamas, snow bibs, and winter coat, with my balaclava under his helmet. Chris and I would actually be generating some body heat so we didn't have to dress quite so warmly.

It was a perfect December day.  There was a tiny bit of snow on the trail, just enough to look pretty but not so much as to interfere with traction.

The four of us rode one lap of the 3.75 mile loop, then Cailan and I played at the trailhead while Chris and Utah did a second loop.  We brought three of Cailan's new tyrannosaurs and made dino tracks in the snow and sand and took turns hiding them for the other to find.  We saw some friends at the trailhead, and they invited us over for some snacks after the ride.  We were happy to go - especially Cailan, who was excited to see their chickens again.  He even got to gather some eggs from the coop and feed the chickens.

Now we're at home, full of dinner, in our pajamas, playing some Endless Ocean.  Soon we'll head to Cailan's room to read a chapter of Harry Potter.  Merry Christmas, everyone!