So the day before we got to the Grand Canyon, the third person in a month fell to their death. I have to say that at no point in time have I thought to myself, Wow, dying on my vacation would be the best thing ever. The thing is, all of them were preventable. Stay on the damn path. No photo on the edge is worth dying for. Don’t get me wrong, the Canyon is damn beautiful, but scary as hell.
We left Tuba City early, because we wanted to avoid the Spring Break crowds as much as possible. We didn’t realize that there was a time change in there. Navajo Nation ignores Arizona time. So it was an hour earlier when we got to the Canyon.
That didn’t hurt us in the long run.
6 AM on the rim.
Our dads would be so proud of us for getting up so damn early for a National Park.
The park needs maintenance. I’m not a fan of graffiti, but this isn’t a bad plan.
We drove the east rim and stopped at all the viewpoints. Not a lot of people. Saw these deer.
We love deer.
We picked up a shuttle in town and planned to hit the west side of the rim…and there were the elk. Right in the village.
Hi guys.
Haven’t seen that flower before.
The canyon was pretty chilly, in the 30s, when we started, but it warmed up.
We did a little bit of the Rim Trail.
We weren’t really prepared for more of it.
The sun is coming up. It’s still early.
Whatever I thought I remembered from my childhood and early adulthood, it doesn’t match up to seeing it again.
HOLY SHIT THAT’S DEEP.
And huge
Sorta mind-boggling.
And intensely beautiful.
It was definitely worth the day trip, and we’ll need to go back.
I’m willing to hike in, but something has to bring me back out. And not in summer. Too hot.
We saw this little girl multiple times on the shuttle. As we drove past amazing vistas, she had her nose in a book. I know that kid. Seriously. I was that kid. And she’s reading one of the Warriors series.
Just like my kids did. Dad kept trying to get her to look out the window. She’d look up, peer around, and then go back to the book.
So we get back to the visitor center around lunch time. We’re looking for bathrooms, a T-shirt, etc. Little kids running around and screaming, people everywhere. And we’d had this continuing conversation about turkey vultures or condors. We saw a condor in Zion, and then I look up, and amidst all the noise and people, there’s two of them (no I never got them in a photo together). You can see their tags. They’re condors. In the wild.
Shitty picture, I know. But I stood there and tears came to my eyes because that’s what we’re working toward. Despite stupid people and the government trying to drill for oil in National Monuments and other stupid crap because we need to keep our huge SUVs and you can’t take away my plastic water bottle. There it is. A pair of fucking condors in the wild.
Yeah. That was cool. No one but us looking up.
So we ate lunch and decided to leave the rest of the Grand Canyon experience for another trip. I think we’d like to camp and maybe hike the rest of the rim and who knows what else. As we’re leaving, we’re noticing these huge piles of dead wood and branches in the forest on both sides of the road.
You can see a couple of them in this picture. They’re everywhere. Miles of them. Because Arizona apparently raked the woods. You’ll only get that if you’re from California, maybe, after Trump blamed our most recent horrific fires on not raking the woods.
Yesterday, I went to quilt class, and then came home and finished cutting all these out.
I did it while editing a long science lab video for my students. Lots of wait time while video portions saved. So I cut and waited. Tonight, I’ll sort and start ironing. Hopefully. I’m really tired, so we’ll see how that goes.
We left Arches and drove through more beautiful rocks to get near the Grand Canyon in the next day…lovely Tuba City, to be specific. We knew we wanted to come in the East entrance, and do it early, so this made the most sense. The other thing we knew we wanted was a damn shower. So there was that.
We ended up driving through Monument Valley…we didn’t have time to go in and do the drive (always leave stuff for the next trip). But you can see some of them from the road that goes through…
It’s beautiful country…
That storm kind of chased us across the state, but without any real rain until we got to our hotel.
So making a plan to go back…
As it was, I think we stopped at almost every scenic overlook…
But didn’t buy anything.
Driving through reservations is always interesting. I taught near a reservation for a few years. It’s a different way of life, not always by choice. It’s interesting that we both thought Monument Valley was a national park, but it’s reservation-owned. So that’s a good thing. We white folks have taken so much away from the Native Americans.
The majority of what we drove through was Navajo Nation.
We illegally transported alcohol through…whoops. I’m impressed that they’ve taken this step toward managing alcohol abuse on the reservation. It’s drastic, but hopefully it works.
We finally made it to the hotel…and the most amazing thing in the world…a shower.
Too many hot hikes with no washing…this was a good thing.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to finish up. Another early meeting, though, so who knows.
Yesterday, we managed to get all the quilts shipped to where they were supposed to be going. Now they just need to GET there. That’s always the stressful part.
Meanwhile, after work, we walked the dogs…back to the routine! In the two weeks since we’d been there, the mustard had grown like…well…a weed. A lot of it was taller than me.
Certainly the path was harder to find.
Still new flowers popping up. We had a little rain this week.
The grasses are higher than I’ve ever seen them.
These grasses have purple heads of grain on them…
Tons of fire danger. Lots of foxtails to go in doggie feets.
Poison oak (not above) encroaching on the trail.
Flowers in abundance.
Ah, the boychild making the puppy run…
Calli and I are like nope. Not doing it.
This guy. Dude. Get off the path. Are you coming or going? Is the spike on your head end or butt end?
So many caterpillars this year…plus I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this hawk before…or one just like it who hung out on the same piece of wire.
It was a nice walk. Although then I came back and pulled things out of the fur between Calli’s toes (mostly not from the walk). Those curly things are a bitch to get out.
She was a very good girl and didn’t bite me.
OK, so I scratched her belly too.
I graded some stuff, and then settled down to try to get through more of the Wonder Under. Puppy helped.
Not so much.
I have that one piece on the top right of the second yard to do, and then a third yard. I have quilt class tonight, so I’ll try to get done there…if I can. Then sort them etc. I have a plan. I always have a plan.
I got into another show that will be local here in San Diego…it’s called Indoor/Outdoor (way too similar to Inside/Outside, whose opening is this Saturday). It will be at the Athenaeum in Barrio Logan, The opening is June 8, probably 6-8 (I don’t have an exact time yet). There will be a coinciding exhibition with our Swedish compatriots at the San Diego Art Institute…we did a show with this group in San Diego and Sweden previously. So more about that later.
For now, off to school to an early meeting, then labs all day long…cool ones, though. Hopefully it will all work.
I keep forgetting to talk about my upcoming solo show in Pittsburgh. Like many of you, I got a show rejection, not surprising, but then the gallery where that show was going to be contacted me about a solo show at their satellite gallery, and that’s how this stuff happens. Very cool, and I appreciate the jurors who recommended my work for the space. It’s actually a glassed-in area of a public space in the BNY Mellon Center in downtown Pittsburgh (500 Grant St, Pittsburgh, PA 15219), and it’s the satellite gallery for Contemporary Craft. My exhibition, Elemental Fiber, will coincide with Fiberart International at the CC gallery, so that is also very cool. They looked at my work, had some tentative selections, then talked to lawyers (ah lawyers) and picked what they thought would work in the space. There is still nudity! It’s an interesting space, and my goal is to get there in the summer to see it (and Fiberart International, if possible), but I will miss the opening due to my daughter’s graduation from college.
So last night, after tutoring, I managed to pack up 7 quilts, shipping 6 to Pittsburgh and one to Form Not Function. Three boxes, 22.5 pounds of quilts.
It took a couple of hours to dehair everything, cut a few slats, I made a label for one yesterday, to make boxes, and negotiate all the shipping stuff. I’m dropping one this morning, and the boychild has to drive the other two to an official UPS Customer Service Center (only two in central San Diego, unfortunately). Such a pain, but totally worth it. You don’t think about the business side of making art quilts: entering shows, putting pictures up on websites, shipping work, publicizing it etc. It takes time and effort.
Same with the job. Yesterday, we realized we had some lab prep to do for tomorrow’s lab, and panic ensued. We had borrowed a magnetic stirrer (per the instructions) from the man’s workplace (nice of them to loan it to us) and made this stuff…
There’s a great video somewhere of me yelling Vortex! as the powder stirred into the water. Then we needed to make these glue strips…
So between the two of us, I think we have 5 experimental versions of this on different substrates. I finally put one batch in the oven last night, and this morning, I have what we need. But we’re pretty sure if we use the toaster oven that our principal got the school to bake glue that we will get into a shit-ton of trouble. Like that will stop us. Substrates used: white board, plastic covers, parchment paper, tin foil? (if she did it), even thought about wax paper or plastic wrap. Something about the smooth plastic doesn’t work as well…the glue pulls in on itself (“cohesion” and “friction” were commonly used last night in dinner-making conversation, as well as in texts with my co-teacher, which ended with us each buying shirts on Amazon, I think). Wanna nerd out? We can make that happen.
We just hope some version of the lab works. We also have our annual meeting with parents this afternoon to persuade them that their kid should take our reproduction unit (parents have the right to opt kids out)…it’s scary how many parents don’t want their kids to know anything. Plus then I have to place them elsewhere and give them an alternative assignment, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world. At this point, I’m up to 10 of them, which means having to grade all those alternative assignments at the last minute too. Sigh.
I didn’t even finish grading a whole assignment yesterday. I tried, but there was too much management that had to happen. Sometimes when we give them independent work, we end up having to micromanage it so that they’ll actually DO it. Sigh.
After all that, I think I cut out Wonder Under for maybe 30 minutes. But you know what? I cut it out for 30 minutes. That’s a good thing. I’d like the Wonder Under all cut out by the end of my Thursday quilt meeting. Then sort it. Then start ironing to fabric on Friday night. I’d like all the ironing done the following week, because we’re going to LA and I’d like to be cutting stuff out on that trip. Or done! I don’t think that’s a thing. Then I lose a weekend to Boston and the girlchild’s graduation (lots of drawing and embroidery then), but I can iron down and start quilting. Yikes. Time is tight. My phone says I have 44 days to finish, but it needs to go to the photographer before that. I can do it. It’ll be OK.
There are 924 pieces in this quilt, but most of them are pretty small. So it was just under 3 yards of Wonder Under. Last night, I finished the first full yard and did a chunk out of the 2nd yard. Not fast. But progress.
I do have more travel photos. I just couldn’t deal with them this morning. Hopefully tomorrow, but I have to be up early two mornings running for meetings. Woo hoo! Sleep. Ugh. Go to bed early? Get no work done. Go to bed late? Brain stops functioning. Must regulate mood today. Deep breaths. A walk after work with the dogs and the boychild. Looking forward to that.
After two nights in Bryce, we drove to Arches National Park, which basically took all day. We went through a bunch of wild landscape, up over a snowy pass…
We were on this scenic highway 12, which was really beautiful, but long. Totally worth it. At some point, we came to Capitol Reef National Park, or maybe Escalante/Grand Staircase was first…I don’t remember.
That looks like Capitol Reef. We ate lunch in a shady spot and then it rained.
Not bad…just enough…
I basically spent the whole day staring out the window at all the weird rocks…especially those green ones.
We didn’t hike…there wasn’t time.
We did get out and look at stuff though…like petroglyphs…
Cool stuff. By the time we made it to Arches, it was after 5 PM, there was no one on staff anywhere, and we had to try to get a tent to stay in rocky ground. That’s our tent in front of their camper (it was the only place the stakes would go in).
And here’s what happened to the mallet.
Oh well. The stakes went in well enough to survive the wind and rain storm the next night.
We got up relatively early the next morning and walked out to the Devil’s Garden area near our campground…this time, we actually camped in the park. With no showers. I remembered that later.
The thing about Arches is that there are arches everywhere…the one below lost a major piece back in the 70s, so you can’t go up to it anymore. I’m OK with that.
It’s pretty huge though.
This is what stopped us going to one of the arches…climbing up this rock fin. Too slippery.
We got about halfway up and stopped. Other people kept going. I’m OK with that too.
Flowers and plants everywhere…a bonus of a rainy spring.
I think you totally miss that in summer. This is Delicate Arch. We did the in-between hike, not the rock-scrambling hike. There are people up there. Not us.
It was also pretty warm in Arches. I don’t do well with warm.
The flowers do though. This is Pothole Arch…fascinating thinking about the science behind all these.
We did all the short hikes during the day…
There were lots of people on these. Pulling a dance move? Nah. Pointing at an arch.
There were lots of them.
So a weird selfie, but mostly was trying to get my feminist shirt, which I hiked in, and a bunch of women told me they liked my shirt. That was cool.
Nevertheless She Persisted applies to many things. Turret Arch…
So I have all these appliqued quilt blocks from 2005-2007 that I did (a friend made the patterns), and some of the places we went are in those blocks…like this one.
This is one of the Windows, North or South…
I think it’s South.
Then we went into town for alcohol, wood, and gas. All important. We came back and tried to hike Park Avenue in the middle of the day heat. Ugh. No. We got about halfway…but I really feel like these rocks should just fall over.
They are illogical. The valley was very warm.
I can’t imagine it in July. Interesting rocks above and below though.
Petrified stream beds. Balanced Rock!
We did over 11 miles of hikes that I counted on this day, but this was like 300 yards off the road…so we walked much farther than 11 miles…just in little bits.
This is Skyline Arch…we hiked out to it.
Because we wanted to see the rock fall…some huge piece fell out back in the 1940s and is lying in the path. Not as exciting as the view up.
Then we headed back to camp…had a snack, refueled packs, and did a longer hike to see Tapestry Arch…
And then Broken Arch…well, flowers first…
And trying to find the path with stone cairns…some big, some tiny…
And wandering around the sandy landscape…until we found Broken Arch…
And a view of where we were hiking next, to Sand Dune Arch…this is the back view of Broken Arch…
At Sand Dune Arch, stupid tourist photos got in the way…this lovely Asian woman is in all my photos because her husband kept saying, “put your arms up.” “Now move forward three feet.” And my patience was wearing thin. His as well…
Although he smiled for me. Heading back toward camp…it was further than we thought…
But there were very few people out there. This funky flower…only the top one can be purple! All the rest are yellow!
Weird. We had a long discussion about open carry in a National Park, because of the guy who was hiking in front of us at Sand Dune Arch, with his gun. To protect himself from??? I just don’t know. Scared old man.
Back to the campsite, where we attempted to clean up enough to go out into public for dinner. Yes! Food cooked by other people in a restaurant! What a concept. We earned it.
Still no shower.
On the way back, we rode through a storm that then chased us into our tent for the night, tensely listening for thunder, planning to run to the car, finally collapsing exhausted by probably 9:30 PM.
The next morning dawned perfectly clear and beautiful…
So we packed up and got ready to leave. We originally had no plan for after this…we’d thrown around ideas, but knew we needed to start heading back home. So in the restaurant in Moab, we made a plan (because we had no cell service in the campsite)…and made a reservation for Tuba City, near the Grand Canyon. A quick day trip through there, then heading home. More on that tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I survived my first day back at school yesterday. I’m exhausted. No shock there. This is puppy love while I’m grading assignments on the stationary bike.
I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I packed up one quilt, six to go. I traced this piece, ready to embroider…
I’m a little short on two of the colors, so they hopefully will show up in the next week or so. I’ll go as far as I can. I started some of the embroidery on it…just because I need to get them done.
She’s pink and purple for now. And then I cut stuff out for a while.
I went to bed early again…
It’s going to be a rough week. But I’ll get stuff done. I have to.
Is not a thing. Not while hiking. No oxygen up that high. OK, not really, and we did eventually adjust, but it made hiking a challenge. After two days in Zion, we left for Bryce Canyon National Park (not a canyon). It’s not very far away, and there are a lot fewer people than Zion, hallelujah. A chunk of the park was still closed for snow…including some hikes and the main road past mile 12. That was still cool, though, because it was beautiful with the snow on the rocks.
So we camped just outside of Bryce, because campsites in the park are first come, first served, and we didn’t think we could get there early enough to get one. It was just outside the park, though, so no worries. We got in, set up camp, and then headed off to Bryce to see the sights.
The first day, we just drove to all the overlooks and well…looked at them.
The snow made it even more beautiful…
No matter when you go to these parks, the weather is going to have an effect…too hot? Too cold? Snow closed the road?
I enjoyed seeing Bryce with snow…
I think I’ve only been here once before. I’m not sure.
So driving up to the points closer to where the road was closed, there was definitely more snow…
At least by the side of the road…
Natural Bridge was as high up the road as we could go…and these guys were hanging out there…
We didn’t see much wildlife at Bryce…just a few deer on the last day.
We figured it was too cold.
Although our first night, we heard what sounded like a very lonely or wounded animal. A really loud animal. A sound that worried us a bit. Is that a bear? I don’t think that’s a bear. Do we have bear boxes here? Um. No. We don’t.
Bears are pretty rare up there, but the noise was loud and from a large animal.
Plus honestly, we kind of froze a bit on the first night camping here. It was in the low to mid 30s (good thing it didn’t get down to 18 degrees like we had originally seen). We didn’t prepare enough for that…the second night, we figured it out.
Anyway, so we got to all the overlooks on the first day, and then headed back to the campsite.
So we overlooked this field…there’s a fence on the left and in front that is the end of the campground, and then there’s all this open space out there. It didn’t block any of the wind, but that died down around 8 PM…
There was still snow in some of the campsites, but we liked this one well enough. It was pretty damn quiet. We made skillet enchiladas the first night…
Pretty easy…
Pretty tasty…and then the sun started to go down.
Definitely time for fire.
Like I said, at this point, the wind had died down.
And the moon was starting to come up behind the tent. We changed into warmer clothes…
And watched the sun go down and the moon go up.
The next morning, we planned to hike the Fairyland Loop. We didn’t get up very early, honestly, after not sleeping much, and my blood sugar had crashed, so that always helps me be in a sunny mood. We got to the parking lot a little late, but it turned out OK. I think we started hiking around 10 AM.
So in this loop, you hike down into the amphitheater and then around inside for a while, and then you hike out. It was awesome. Breathing was an issue at times, but mostly it was OK. It got warm at times when the sun came out…I was perfectly happy with the clouds and slightly cooler temperatures for most of it though.
It was definitely cool seeing the formations from below as well as above.
It’s supposed to be an 8-mile hike, but somehow we managed to make it 9 1/2 miles.
I guess we wander a lot.
That formation is definitely a cat.
I was fascinated by the trees, dead and alive. I saw at least 4 different pines, including one very strange one…
The one in front…almost sausage-like branches with the thicker needles.
There were people on this trail, but not a ton…and most of them understood trail etiquette, until we got to the very end.
And there’s flowers growing in rock…
We stopped to breathe as needed…
So the trail down to the Tower arches here is a shorter one…so lots of people here.
But we climbed out here…
And went and found a bathroom, washed off our muddy boots (I think my boots still have Bryce mud on them). There was a little snow on the path too, but not much.
But that was at the top, at Sunrise Point. Then you have to walk around the rim to get back to Fairyland Point, because the shuttle doesn’t go there.
It’s mostly level. MOSTLY. I saw on the hiking apps that people were arguing which direction was easier. I’d recommend starting at Fairyland Point and hiking down and back on the rim. Otherwise, you’re climbing up Fairyland for about 3 miles.
I like a short painful climb better than a long one.
He agrees.
The last 2 1/2 miles were all on the rim…
Which was a nice way to end. So I think that other fire picture was actually the second night, where we were warmer (dressed better, towels on the air mattress, etc), but the wind picked up and was throwing things around. We did sleep better, and that weird animal only yowled once. Well. So not a yowl. This is a shitty picture of what is probably a pronghorn antelope (it was far away), and when you listen to them online, that was what we heard.
A lonely or horny antelope. Good to know.
Meanwhile, I’ve been doing stuff here. I swear. Getting ready for school. Ugh. But also…finishing the second embroidery. Gotta get these washed and ironed and officially photographed.
And also cutting out Wonder Under, because I finished tracing on Saturday night.
Good to know. Plus yesterday was Calli’s 10th birthday…
From the girlchild. This is her baby. Old baby, for sure.
OK, off to school. Not sure exactly what I’m doing today, but I know I’ll be tired doing it.
Soon, so soon, I will have to get back into the standard routine of up early, write early, think early, eat early. I am not an early person. I can do it if I have to…trust me, on this trip, there were times we had to be up early to hike before heat or beat the crowds, and I did it, but sleep sometimes is so hard to get that it almost hurts. This morning, I am so tired, and it’s not even that early…tomorrow it will be two hours earlier, and my body is already protesting. Part of that is staying up too late, of course. Whoops. My bad. Good reasons though.
But I do have a meeting today and will have to leave soon (hence the not sleeping in until I really want to wake up, although really, the cats were already like, BIATCH WHY YOU NO FEED ME, so there was no hope).
I went through the 3000 pictures I took on the trip (I don’t really know how many there were) and pulled some I thought were especially good. I posted a brief run-through of the trip a few days ago after the most amazing shower in the world (not the shower itself, the physical stall in a bathtub…it wasn’t that awesome…it was just an amazing shower because I was so dirty by the time I got to it). Here’s the first two days, extended dance mix.
We left early in the morning, drove through Riverside and Las Vegas, and killed an inordinate amount of butterflies, it was truly disturbing.
I feel to atone I will need to plant my yard with whatever plants they eat and then get a bunch of caterpillars and let them feed off my yard. Because it was horrific.
On the way to Vegas, we stopped at Seven Magic Mountains…not because it’s totally amazing…but because it was weird…
It was also virtually impossible to avoid all the selfie people and people in general in this photo…
Definitely an interesting start to a trip that was all about rocks.
We drove all day, pretty much, checked into our bunkhouse, and then drove into Zion to check it out, hopefully get a map, and figure out what we were going to do the next day. It did actually bring a tear to my poor little eye, driving into the park and seeing those towering rocks. We did a short hike to make up for being in the car for hours…
and checked out the view…
From a little further back even…
Yeah. That.
And on the way back to the car, saw our first of many mule deer…
Oh hai! Sorry. Go back to eating that bush. Tree. Whatever it is.
We talked to the ranger at the entrance, and he said to make it into the visitors’ center parking lot, we needed to be there before 8. OK. We can do that.
This is, of course, how we end up making sausage and eggs on a barbecue outside at 6 in the morning. Ugh.
The different lights of Zion…
We didn’t camp in the park because apparently the tent caterpillars are awful this time of year. We did see lots of caterpillars. We’re hoping they all survived, to make up for the deaths we perpetrated on the way out there, even though it’s not the same butterfly dammit.
So the night before, we decided we would hike the Angel’s Landing trail until just before the crazy part, the single-file part. We decided to do it first, because it’s the hardest thing we wanted to do. We were on the trail early, around 8 AM, with this deer…
There were others. The hike starts in the bottom of the canyon, and then it climbs.
It climbs about 1000 feet to Scout Lookout, and then another 500 feet for the Angel’s Landing part. It’s also a higher elevation than we’re used to, so we took it as slow as we had to. Basically, that’s how we did every hike this trip. At the appropriate speed for us.
A view of the valley…you can see some of the trail we’re climbing on the bottom right.
Part of the trail that climbs up…this is the easier part.
Much easier in shade too…the full heat of a summer’s day? I wouldn’t be able to hike this…looking down at what we’ve climbed up…
There were quite a few people on this trail.
The valley again…see the trail to the left of those people? Yes, we started down there.
Beautiful views as the sun starts to come into the valley. And we’re still smiling…
At this point, we’re on the 21 switchbacks that make up Walter’s Wiggles…looking down, you can see a bunch of the switchbacks.
It was slow going, but we went.
And finally at the top…
Well, at Scout Lookout, which is where we stopped. The Virgin River where we started…
The rock face in front of us…
And the crazy people who aren’t scared of heights and don’t mind waiting forever for a space to keep moving.
I’m sure it’s cool. I just wasn’t gonna do it. I am afraid of heights. So there.
The sun peaking over the rock walls…
Then we explored the rest of the park until we couldn’t handle badly behaved tourists any more.
This is on the Riverside Walk…down to the Narrows.
The Narrows had too much water flow to hike down it. But I’d do that. Another day.
This fat squirrel perched in a tree…
Eat your greens.
On one of the flatter hikes we did…
An afternoon view of the rocks now…
At this point, it was much warmer, although still only in the high 70s. It felt warmer than that though.
This is the Lower Emerald Pool…
There were many closed trails and the main road through Zion was closed for repairs, so we’d have to come back to see the rest of it. The people made it hard, though…not on the first trail, but everywhere else. There should be a trail etiquette class required before you can come in a National Park, I think. Although Zion was the worst for that.
Anyway, more later…I have to leave in 5 minutes. We spent one full day and an hour or two of another day in Zion, and we could have spent a whole ‘nother day, no problem. Good to know.
I’m totally off schedule now on blogging. I downloaded about a million pictures this morning, but can’t get my head around most of them yet, so let’s keep it simple. I did artsy stuff while traveling. I drew all but two nights, mostly in campgrounds. Which is a cold and dark thing to do, let me tell you. But easier to see than trying to embroider in the dark on black fabric.
So the drawings…the first night, we drove from San Diego all the way to Zion National Park. We stayed about 25 minutes outside the park, but my first night was obviously influenced by driving in and seeing the rocks…brought tears to my eyes when we drove into Zion. The skirts that the rocks make, the sedimentary lines…I’d been seeing them all day. The moon was almost full.
And we saw our first of many deer that evening.
The second drawing was after a full day of approximately 14 miles of hiking in Zion. I don’t fall asleep easily, but the man does. So I sat and embroidered in the semi-dark (and then drew myself embroidering, which is just weird) while he slept…hands over head because the neighbors had their TV on too loud.
That was pretty realistic…except the room had no rugs…just cold concrete floors. Rugs, people!
Then the next night, we were freezing our asses off in a campground near Bryce National Park…there were lows in the mid-30s. The man made a fire behind me, and I drew the hoodoos I’d seen while we went to all the overlooks.
The next night was still cold, although it didn’t seem AS cold, probably because we were smart and put on three layers of all the warm things before we even started dinner. I had a glove on the non-drawing hand. I apparently can’t draw with a glove on. We’d spent the day hiking down into the canyon (which is an amphitheater, not a canyon at all)…and then around the rim, for a total of 9 1/2 miles or so…this time, the hoodoos were above me and there were twisty trees everywhere.
One of the weirder ones. The next day, we drove to Arches National Park, to a slightly warmer, but much rockier campground inside the park, and no wood or alcohol (should plan ahead in Utah, people, or drink beer and burn your clothes…whichever works for you). How beer and Mikes Hard Lemonade are acceptable drinks to the lord, and wine is not, I will never understand. Don’t even argue alcohol percentages with me.
Anyway, that night, sans fire, I drew this, a conglomerate of everything we saw that day, driving through Capitol Reef National Park and Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument, plus over some pass with aspens and snow.
The last night in Arches we went from dinner straight into the tent, completely exhausted after over 11 miles of hiking in the heat, plus a rainstorm that had wind and lightning, but held that far enough away that we didn’t have to sleep in the car. So I didn’t draw.
The next night was after the most glorious shower ever (after two days of hiking hot and no shower facilities)…and after that, I drew this…
The whole trip on my mind…trees, rain, water, deer, rocks, tent, hoodoos, lightning, Balanced Rock from Arches. Plus an idiotic president and political party that don’t see the importance of our park system. Fuck them. The park staff are doing their best, but they are understaffed and underfunded, and it’s obvious. If I win the lottery, I’m giving a big chunk to the National Park system. You should too.
I didn’t draw the last night we were out. Too tired.
OK, then the embroidery. My patterns are being sold on the Global Artisans page, and soon there will be kits as well. As part of that, I need to stitch all of them. So that was one thing I did in the car…not while driving…
I had already started the Space Mother at home, but continued in the car on the first day…
I thought I might run out of the gray, so I did all of it first…then I went on to the blue…
Mostly I’m using backstitch, but I like the additional thickness of chain stitch and an occasional pile of French knots. This is the 2nd night in the bunkhouse near Zion…
She’s getting closer to done. This was right before I drew the picture of this exact scene. And this is how far I got before we left Zion.
Almost done…on the way to Bryce, I finished her…
All the fussy little bits…although I thought she was done here and then…
I decided to fill in Earth…
And her eyes. There she is sitting in the campsite while I wait to set up the tent…
She still needs to be rinsed out and ironed…then she can go on the pattern cover. So that was the first night in Bryce. She took about 10 1/2 hours to embroider.
While dinner was cooking, I traced the next one, Earth Mother with Wavy Hair, using Saral transfer paper.
With her, I was worried about running out of the flesh color. In the kits, you only get one bobbin of each color, so I have to be sure what I’m doing will allow for enough thread. Honestly, I’d probably use 20 different colors if I weren’t limited to 5.
Transferred before dinner boiled over…
This transfer paper is not the most ideal stuff. Still looking for a better option on these. I started trying to stitch that night, but black fabric made it almost impossible to do at night in camp light. So the next evening, while the man was cooking, I did some stitching.
All the flesh first…then when we left Bryce, there was so much too look at that I don’t think I stitched at all. Although there’s rainclouds…so maybe this is on the way out of Capitol Reef? Not sure.
I know I stitched in Arches though…
Yup. Eating, because blood sugar had crashed. This might have been in the morning actually…yes. Waiting for tea water to boil. Always waiting for that. Goldfish are a perfectly reasonable breakfast food. Shut up.
I didn’t get much done in Arches. Rain and all. But here’s on the drive out of Arches toward Tuba City, Arizona…
I got a lot done that day…and then retraced the lines, because they were fading, in the hotel…
Before…and after…
Still looking for a better option…
I didn’t stitch going into the Grand Canyon…I was too damn tired. And then in the canyon, didn’t stitch. This is on the way out, toward Phoenix.
I got a lot done on that afternoon. And then nothing done that night.
Driving back home, I drove the first three hours or so, but eventually traded the steering wheel for stitching. This is the hill up toward my house. Home!
Damn stuff is already starting to fade. I have the flowers on her arm to do, the bronchial tubes in the lungs, her eyes, the things on her face, half her hair, the jellyfish and other fish, her fingernails, her watch, and the trees on her head. That sounds like a lot. I guess it’s a lot.
I did a little last night too…trying to do a little bit at a time. So hopefully she’ll be done in the next week. I have some transfer pens coming that might help, and an idea for a better transfer paper. We’ll see.
The only other art-related thing that happened is that we stopped to see the exhibit I’m in, Things That Matter, in St. George, UT, through July. There’s a catalog available of all the pieces…
It’s a really nice space…my face is so happy to be out of the car and walking around…
That’s a big quilt y’all.
OK, and I’m currently working on a new piece that I can’t show yet…but I did get it fully drawn and numbered the night before we left…it’s only 924 pieces…
There’s part of piece 133.
And when we got home yesterday, I spent about 3 1/2 hours last night tracing the first 300 pieces…
I’m hoping to do the same tonight. I guess all you will see are extreme closeups of things that make no sense. I’m OK with that.
Anyway, tomorrow, I’ll try to work on some posts of the other cool stuff we saw…because we did go to see mostly rocks and what rocks do. Which is also cool. Plus we hiked a lot. Also cool.
Wow. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without posting in years. In my defense, my cellular connectivity has been iffy as hell, if not nonexistent, for much of this trip, and when I did have it, I was busy doing something else or totally exhausted after hiking over 11+ miles a day. I realize that’s not much to some, but this old body has been running on little sleep, weird food options, and lots of climbing around for days now.
Seven Magic Mountains outside Las Vegas
That said, it’s been freakin’ awesome…a mind-blowing trip of all the different geologic formations you can get in two states (Arizona a little, but mostly Utah). I think we both decided while huddled in the tent last night during a rainstorm that we were done with camping on this trip, though, as we pinky-swore to wake the other one up if we heard thunder, so we could race to the car before lightning hit the aluminum connectors of the tent. Or the ground.
First night checking out Zion…
So this is the short version. We left last Wednesday on a long drive to Zion National Park. We originally had a reservation for the east side of the park, but they closed the road going through on April 9 to fix storm damage this winter, so I found a weird but functional place on the west side in La Verkin about a week before we left. It had a kitchenette and shared barbecues, so we used those (yes, even for pre-hike breakfasts of sausage and eggs). It’s Spring Break for about a million people, quite a few of them from other countries, and they all had the same plan for visiting Zion. We went in to the park that night to plan the hikes for the next day. We also did the Archeology Trail as a warm up for the next day…and saw our first wildlife.
Mule deer everywhere…
We got our butts up early and headed out to garner a spot in the coveted Visitor Center parking lot (you don’t wanna know how early), and then caught a shuttle to a hike I said I’d never do: Angel’s Landing. It was still morning cool, which is a good thing, because that climb and the Walter’s Wiggles with 21 switchbacks (it didn’t seem like that many) is not something I would’ve wanted to do in hot sunlight. We didn’t do the last stretch that’s single file and a chain attached to a rock wall, but we did go all the way to Scout Lookout. Some might call that chickening out…I don’t care…we did awesome.
Looking down from Scout Lookout…
From there, we caught the shuttle and did all the things we wanted to do…part of the Pa’rus Trail, the Lower Emerald Pool Trail (Upper and Kayenta were closed due to storm damage), Weeping Rock, and the Riverside Walk out to where The Narrows starts (also closed, because the water flow was high from Spring melt and rains). At that point, we’d had it with crowds of people and their bad tourist behavior. The Angel’s Landing crowd understood trail etiquette and were amazing…the shorter hikes? OMG. People. Really. So we headed back to our domicile and another barbecued dinner. We did a lot of miles that day…my app says over 14 miles that day total.
Waterfall at Weeping Rock
Friday found us driving to Bryce Canyon National Park, where we camped outside the park, because everything else was first come, first served, and we didn’t want to risk having nowhere to stay. The campground at Ruby’s Inn was quiet and the showers were free and hot, and it wasn’t as cold at night as it was originally supposed to be, but it was still pretty damn cold. We got there pretty early on Friday and set up camp, and then headed off to Bryce to check it out. I’m glad we did, because we saw a bunch of the easy stuff on Friday, thus allowing us to do a really long hike on Saturday without feeling like we had to then go look at everything else. There was snow at Bryce, most recently from like 3 days ago.
See? Snow.
Sleep was not our friend Friday night; it was just too cold. Nevertheless, we got up early again and headed out for the Fairyland loop, which goes down into Bryce and wanders around, then climbs back out (oh yes, at elevation No Oxygen for You), and then traverses the Rim Trail back to the Fairyland parking area. Wow. Great hike, but we did way more than the 8 miles it claimed.
Down in the amphitheater…
We figured a better sleeping plan on Saturday night (towels on top of the air mattress to stop the cold seeping up from the ground, even though we had a tarp that was supposed to help with that, plus three layers of clothing, and wool socks, dammit, because cold feet were an issue the night before), and got out of bed early again, expecting (rightly so) a long driving day.
I have absolutely no idea what this is a picture of, but it was on Sunday.
We made it through parts of Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument and then Capitol Reef National Park, and finally headed into Arches National Park in the late afternoon, where we actually had a reserved site. At this point, it was Easter night, and there was no firewood or alcohol to be had (both useful for keeping moods light after a long hard day of driving, plus trying to pound tent stakes into hard rock), so it was not the best night, but the morning dawned ready for a day of hikes. And hike we did.
Double Arch in Arches National Park
We were camping in Devil’s Garden, so we started on that hike, although we turned around at the rock scramble where I was like um no way, can’t do that. So we then drove through the park, stopping at just about every possible sight, attempting one longer hike at Park Avenue (way too hot in between the rocks). We made a quick trip into Moab for alcohol, ice, gas, and firewood (the necessities), but then continued on to see the rest of the arches and other bits. We made it back to the campsite, and set out on a trail marked by rock cairns to see three different arches. I think that was what put us over 11 miles that day. Awesome views though and mostly avoided stupid people.
Crazy drive at night in the rain…
We had decided to treat ourselves with dinner out (there’s only so many camp meals we know how to make before wanting to drown ourselves) , so we headed into Moab for burgers and beer (or wine, as you prefer). On the way back, in the pitch black, a rainstorm wandered in and we white-knuckled the drive all the way through the park to the campground, watching lightning strikes out there in the clouds. The campground was dry as a bone, until about 5 minutes after we arrived, when the raindrops started…and then the wind. Holy crap, everything in the car or the tent, no fire tonight! In the end, we were so tired from the day of hiking that we went to bed, no thunder ever sounded, and we slept really well. Not too cold, just right, so tired we didn’t mind any of it.
Monument Valley
There was no cell service in our campsite (further up the hill had it, but they also probably had a rougher night with the wind and the rain), so we had mapped some ideas out at dinner in Moab. Canyonlands was a possibility, but in the end, we decided to brave the crowds at the Grand Canyon. We left Arches this morning and drove through Monument Valley (we didn’t go through the actual park…that’s for another trip) on our way to Tuba City, where we actually booked a hotel room. With a shower. Because there weren’t any in Arches and I think we really needed that. So we’re clean now and have a crazy plan for tomorrow, I had my Indian Fry Bread and retraced the most recent embroidery…more about those and the daily (almost) drawings in another post. Grand Canyon tomorrow and then heading back home. It’s been a whole lot of wow and hiking our old asses off, but I think it’s been an amazing trip so far. We have a pact for tomorrow to leave the park when one of us feels like pushing someone over the rim. We know this will be just a quick view of the park, and we’ll plan another trip later.
I have graded nothing. I have dealt with very little email, due to lack of access. The world is still rotating, though, and that’s a good thing.
Notre Dame…it seems you will be rebuilt yet again. I’ve seen so many people posting pictures of it in days past. I did visit Notre Dame, but was in those fussy artsy photo years, so if I have any pictures, they are probably of gargoyle-type things in black and white from my junior year abroad. It’s sad to see it burn, but I’m hoping enough of the stone and glass survive to allow it to be rebuilt. We humans are stubborn about our architectural symbols…so many of the big churches have been burnt and rebuilt multiple times. I wish we could show as much empathy for humans as we do for buildings…although this is a beautiful one, for sure.
The drawing for the next quilt is coming along nicely. It might be done today. It might not. I can’t show it to you, nonetheless, but suffice it to say, it has some imagery I’ve used before and some new stuff…because that’s always the way it is. I seem to only be able to work on it in the middle of the night, so that’s something. I wandered around it, staring at it multiple times during the day, but the stress of trying to focus on just one thing and get it done kinda got in my way. That was true for mostly everything yesterday.
I did run errands, mostly successfully. I did laundry and pulled the first round of clothing for the trip, now to be culled down to something reasonable. I am an overpacker. I admit it. I wrote out a very color-coordinated list of everything we need to take with us. Except I probably missed something. Today we try to make sense of that list. I have one medication that may not arrive in time, but it isn’t crucial. I still need to run a couple of errands today, including sitting in front of my school, waiting for the last 16 kids to show up with their Unit 6…I’m betting on the one who emailed me and no others. But they can’t say I didn’t try to help them.
We did walk the dogs too…it was too beautiful a day not to do it…
I meant to go to my quilt group meeting, but this happened instead…
And then I spent an hour or so with HTML code. Like you do. Still haven’t totally solved that issue…
This is all at Crestridge Ecological Reserve…
It’s further away, so we don’t usually go there.
But I’m on break, so there.
More flowers I never usually see…
The rain was good for that this year…
Looking forward to seeing some new landscapes in the next week…
Posting here might be more difficult…
I’m OK with that. No, I haven’t finished grading stuff. I have 10 things left to grade. I’m trying not to think about that.
OK, well sleeping in is not a thing for dogs or the trash trucks or hangry cats or the weed-whacking neighbors. Apparently they don’t know it’s my Spring Break AND I stayed up way too late last night drawing because the inspiration finally smacked me upside the head, and I can’t show you anything until like July. So just know that I’m taking photos and there will be some pic-heavy posts in July explaining WTF I’m doing. Well, I’m entering a show I was invited to enter, and the jurors are all out there in my world, and they don’t wanna be swayed by seeing the stuff first, which I think is funny, cuz you’re totally gonna know it’s mine. But whatever. I’m willing to go along with it.
It makes it hard for the next two months though, because I usually post my entire process and that’s what I write about. I can still write about it, but it will be irrelevant pictures I guess. So I had a preliminary drawing I’d started for this piece a week or so ago, and then I cut the paper the right size the other night (that in itself is sometimes an issue!). Then last night, I started sketching for the final drawing and inked a good chunk of the structure of it. I still have a bunch of vignettes for it, so hopefully I’ll get those done today and tomorrow. I’m not really expecting to be able to start tracing Wonder Under before we leave, but I’d like it ready for when we come back. So drawing and numbering…
So here’s the rest of it. Today, I’m doing all the errands and shopping I need to do before we leave. I have to pack about 7 quilts to ship either before I go or right after I get back. I need to walk the dogs. I have a quilt group meeting tonight, if I can manage to get to it. I finished grading ONE assignment yesterday, so there are still 10 left to do. To be honest, that ONE was the biggest…and then I crazily emailed the 16 kids who didn’t turn it in and gave them a chance to not lose points…but they don’t check their email, so they’ll probably lose out. Oh well. I tried. Tomorrow will be about packing and food prep. Actually, there’s some food prep I’d like to do today if I can. We’ll see. The weather for the trip is finally looking bearable…no 18-degree temps staring us down for now! Still have rain and cold, but not as bad as it was going to be. We tested putting the new tent up last night at my parents’ house, and it was pretty easy. All good.
I meant to write yesterday, because we went to four different art exhibits on Saturday night, but I never got around to it. So here they are…first we went to Oye Como Va at La Bodega Gallery…the Flying Panther Tattoo family made all these. This is by Rob Benavides…here’s an article about him with some contact info.
In a totally different style, here’s one by Matt Howse…
And something different in the skull realm by Frank Chavez…
From there, we headed out to Bread & Salt for the opening of Warpaint, with Lynn Schuette’s work. A totally different vibe, but beautiful work…hinting at our trip that starts in a few days. I really liked this line of work…
She had a few different series of works in the building…
But the landscapes and this grouping were my favorites…
Beautiful work.
In Bread & Salt is the Athenaeum Art Center Gallery, where Alessandra Moctezuma was showing work with Hilary Paul McGuire in a show called Identity|Antiquity. I especially liked some of Moctezuma’s drawings and etchings…some political and more recent…
Some with kitchen implements…
And an older etching/drawing…a detail below…
Over by the print studio was work by Elena Lomakin…who did some collage with paper and other materials…
And then outside, there was this…Kenneth Capp’s sculpture, Rose.
You’d think we’d have been done by then, but there was one more, which would put us in a place where we could eat…at Visual Gallery+Design, an exhibit called Unfolding. I knew of two of the four artists…this is Sofia Silver’s Cosmic Eye…
And Laurie Nasica’sYou and I, Highs and Lows, Down with the Current, and Le Tourbillon de la Vie…
Then off to dinner, with this showing up on the walk…
Some people.
So what else this weekend? I delivered this, freshly ironed and with hanging hardware, for the Inside/Outside exhibit that will be opening at Art Produce on May 4…
And I don’t know what else I have…ahhh…grading on the deck…
And puppies…
Funky clouds at my parents’ house…
More puppies while embroidering…
Anyone who thinks embroidery is quick is nuts.
But it is relaxing…you’ll probably see a bunch of this going on for the next month. But now? Errands. Gotta go. Get it done. Yup. Now.
Kathy Nida 