Moab Family Invasion

The following morning we went to Big Bend to boulder. I had delusions that maybe I could boulder a little bit but with no luck. The wrist wouldn't cooperate. Sigh. So I watched everyone else boulder instead. And moped. A little. For the afternoon we ventured back into Arches. The following morning Isaac and Jason hit the short Slickrock trail again. Aaron and I hiked to one of the highest points Aaron had picked out for us to summit. The top was littered with huge potholes which will, millions of years from now, become arches. Along the way we met up with our bikers and I watched in amazement as Isaac rode down a series of ledges known in our family as the infamous clunkety-clunk. It was so cool to see him in action. In the afternoon my parents and one of my brothers with his family arrived in Moab so we went spent the afternoon in the pool at their hotel before heading back to Mill Creek for an evening hike. The following morning we slipped out early to hike Gatherer Canyon before it got too hot out. Since the temperatures were forecast to hit 88 that day, we spent the afternoon, again, at the pool with my younger siblings. The following morning my dad and little brother joined us at our campsite to bike Slickrock with Jason and Isaac. Aaron had another, even higher, summit for us to conquer that day so we set out on foot at the same time as the bikers. Four hot hours later Aaron and I stumbled back in the nick of time so we could get Isaac back down to cell service to Skype into his computer programming class again. The next day we hiked Hunter Canyon again with my parents. My dad was totally blissed out on the red cliff views as we wandered up the canyon. We stopped at a gorgeous spot along the stream to let the kids play and explore. After spending the afternoon with my family at the pool we bid them farewell and headed back to our campground where we enjoyed a lovely sunset up on the red rocks behind our campsite. Thanks for meeting us in Moab. We're so glad the stars finally aligned and we were able to meet you in Slickrock paradise. The following morning we waved goodbye to Moab, crossed our fingers and hoped Sylvia would remain functional all the way home.

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Moab 2015

So after the usual 2-3 visits to the mechanic and enduring questions about whether or not we were going to "try" to drive Sylvia to Moab, we hit the road. Destination? Moab. As we detected new taps and clacks along the way we spent the first driving day playing the "What's the Noise, Boys?" game. As the day progressed my anxiety rose and my throat intermittently tightened and began to close. Does that mean I suffer from PTSD from all of our random strandings and breakdowns along the road in the camper van? I wonder why all of our friends unbelievingly ask us if we're taking her on yet another long distance trip? What? Last trip was only a small fire, a flat tire, a dead battery and the beginning sounds of a failing CV joint. And the time before that it was a new engine....and the time before that the wheel almost fell off....and the time before that it was an engine rebuild....and....maybe I can see their point. But we love Sylvia and they way she makes us feel...when she's not acting up. So here we are again.

Happily, in spite of the new clacks, we made it to Moab without incident. After snagging the last campsite in the uber-busy Slickrock campground, we didn't waste any time and hit Slickrock the first afternoon in two parties, Isaac and Jason on bikes, and Aaron and I on foot. My wrist isn't healed enough to bike so it was hiking only for me this trip. The following morning was consumed by a work meeting and skyping into the boys' computer science class. In the afternoon we managed to squeeze in a hike up Moonflower canyon and then hiked Mill Creek Canyon where we witnessed drunk college students plunging off of cliffs into a pool of water below a waterfall. Scary. The next morning Isaac and Jason biked the whole Slickrock loop. It was Isaac's first time completing the whole loop and he totally rocked it. Yay Isaac! We spent the afternoon in Arches at Sand Dune Arch where the boys launched themselves repeatedly off of a giant boulder into the deep sand. We spent the following morning stuck at a gas station with our mechanic on the line trying to figure out why Sylvia wasn't starting. When she finally started running again we anxiously crept down the steep and winding Kane Creek road to Hunter Canyon where we enjoyed a lovely hike along the creek bottom among budding trees and the sounds of canyon wrens. The following morning we got stuck parked on the street outside the restaurant where we had eaten lunch when Sylvia, again, wouldn't start. There was another Westy parked in front of us so I compared stranding stories with its owner while Jason searched the Internet for a fix. Luckily he brilliantly found a fix and we were up and running again. This time we decided to stay on paths well-travelled since Sylvia was intermittently not starting so we headed to the Corona Arch hike.




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Winter at Home

It feels like we have been home forever now. We've packed a lot into the months we've been here. When we arrived home in October the boys spent two weeks rehearsing Three Musketeers. Isaac starred as D'Artignan and worked diligently memorizing his lines and sword-fighting sequences. The performances were awesome. It's amazing what you can accomplish with two weeks and twenty home-school kids. When the play came to an end the boys started piano lessons and we organized a Python computer programming class at MSU. We rounded up a bunch of friends for a weekly board game meeting at a local cafe. In November we participated in a two-day wilderness first-aid course where we mended each others heinous imaginary wounds and brought each other back from the dead with CPR and AED machines. We stayed put for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a lovely and delicious holiday at home. We bought mid-week passes at the ski hill and hit the slopes opening day. We were off to a great start, logging four days in the first two weeks which...came to an abrupt and violent halt on the first run of the fourth day when I crashed at 47mph and broke my right wrist just a few days before Christmas. Now I have a matched set of broken-healed wrists. Jason and Isaac continued skiing weekly while Aaron and I went for walks and played games at home. At Christmas our house filled with family who graciously took care of me and themselves while I worked on my ambidexterity. Thanks for all of your help. After the New Year we organized a weekly writing class as well as a twice weekly physics class where the boys and I learned about free-body diagrams and what math is really for. People actually use that stuff to solve problems! It's not just a way to torture kids in school so they can get good grades on a test. We balanced the science and tech classes with a two-day singing workshop with Celtic super-star Moira Smiley where the kids learned to sing Celtic and medieval tunes. Jason organized a home-school hackathon with a group of our closest buddies at MSU. The kids hacked specially-prepared websites to their heart's delights and totally fed off of each other's enthusiasm. When a hack was discovered the computer vocalized triumphant-gloating delight like "First Blood," "Wicked Sick" or "Humiliation" and the hacker behind the computer would double-over in giggles. A crowd of fellow home-school hackers would then gather around to hear the secret divulged as to what fiendish thing was just done. It was awesome. In February we asked a friend to teach a couple of electrical circuits classes. With friends we accidentally melted batteries, blew up LED's, lost a few tufts of hair and received mild shocks...all in all a success, I'd say. The first two weeks of March were consumed with their bi-yearly Shakespeare play. This time it was Comedy of Errors, vaudeville style. And so, after six months at home (the longest stretch we have spent at home in I don't even know how many years) hanging and learning with our amazing set of home school friends, it is time for us to hit the road again. 

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Grand Teton National Park

Our plane arrived back in Salt Lake around 7:30. We climbed back into Sylvia where she faithfully waited for us in the airport parking lot. After leaving the airport, we beelined to Takashi for some sushi, finished dinner late and drove to Whole Foods to stock up on groceries. We arrived at 10pm just after they had closed. Bummer. We found another grocery store (which was really, very weird) and I gathered food as well as I could in my dazed stupor. At 10:45 we rolled into the in-town KOA and collapsed into our comfy camper van beds. The next morning we started the drive to Grand Tetons National Park. After miles of Utah and Wyoming (including the west's deadliest mining town), we passed through Jackson and grabbed an early dinner before finding a campsite. We met the resident moose and then hit the sack. We awoke to a gorgeous fall morning. With the huge, craggy Tetons looming as a backdrop, the aspen trees were all dressed in gorgeous sunny-yellow leaves. We spent the morning slowly exploring the park. In the afternoon we took the ferry across Jenny Lake and set out on a hike, mindful that we had to be back before 4pm when the final ferry departed, if we wanted to avoid the two mile hike along the lake to get back to the parking lot. We meandered up the valley enjoying the views and timed our turn-around with a little buffer time to make sure we'd make it back in time. We often like to run on the way out of a hike so we set out at a jog. Jason and Isaac blazed ahead of Aaron and I but it wasn't long before we caught them. We found Jason sprawled out on the trail. He had tripped on a rock which brought him down on his knee, solidly on a nice solid chunk of granite. Sad, sad, sad. So much for having enough time to make it to the ferry. I helped poor Jason hobble along as long as I could before we decided that Aaron and I needed to run ahead to hold the ferry. We got there with ten minutes to spare and the ferry folks said that they couldn't delay for him so we waited and sweated and hoped Jason and Isaac would make it in time so we didn't have to call a park ranger to bring us back across the lake. Just before the final ferry arrived Isaac and Jason hobbled in. Phew! We had intended on spending a couple of days hiking in the Tetons and Yellowstone on the way home but hiking wasn't really in the picture after Jason hurt his knee so we decided to head home. The next morning we said farewell to the Tetons, buzzed through Yellowstone and arrived safely home after four weeks on the road.

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Happy 15th Birthday Isaac!

When I really think about it, it really is a strange transition to go from the camper van in the desert to life on the boat. They're about as opposite as you can get but somehow we all settled in without skipping a beat. We spent our time in Seattle catching up on school and visiting favorite haunts and restaurants. We enjoyed a couple of evening sails after Jason got off work and even squeezed an overnight to Blake Island. We had lovely wind both to and from the island and since we didn't have long distances to cover, we had a chance to work on our light wind sailing skills a bit. We also celebrated Isaac's birthday on the boat, third year running on Marinero (fourth year on a boat, if you include the Bermuda 40 we chartered in Maine four years ago). Isaac being a board game junkie, we celebrated the day playing crazy board games (such as Paths of Glory) on the boat. We emerged in the evening for dinner at a Thai restaurant before snuggling back into the boat where we sung happy birthday and then enjoyed a decadent chocolate pot o' cream I had made the day earlier. Happy birthday Isaac! I'm so happy both boys got their birthday wish locations and that we have such a flexible lifestyle that allows for such big changes in scenery in the eleven days between their birthdays. After ten days in Seattle we climbed back onto an airplane and flew to Salt Lake City where Sylvia and the rest of our road trip awaited us.

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Desert to Seattle

The day after Aaron's birthday we squeezed in a quick hike up to Emerald Pools before bidding farewell to Zion. As we headed north we made a side trip up to Kolob Canyon, the remote northern region of Zion. At the end of the road we took a short hike out to a spectacular view point before pushing on to Cedar City. After dinner at a very tasty pizza restaurant we pulled into a KOA for the night where I did laundry while Aaron played with his remote control tank. Our destination for the following day was Salt Lake where a vet appointment along with hotel and plane reservations were awaiting us. We had to take poor Pika to the vet for a health certificate as a part of the never-ending hoops to jump through to get her on a plane. Next it was dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, Takashi. Lastly we checked into our airport hotel where we all took turns showering. Squeaky clean, we climbed into bed at 11pm. The following morning we awoke at 6am and were off the airport by 7am for our 8:30 flight to Seattle so that we could make it to our 2pm wedding that afternoon. Luckily everything ran smoothly and we arrived in Seattle with enough time to eat lunch at Serious Biscuit, grab seriously delicious coffee at Kakao, get groceries at Whole Foods and drop them, along with Pika, at the boat. The wedding was an hour drive away at a lovely farm and, uncharacteristically, we arrived on time. The wedding was beautiful and we spent the afternoon into the evening socializing with friends. At last we pulled ourselves away at 10pm (11pm our time) and drove back to the boat, bleary-eyed and exhausted.

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Happy Thirteenth Birthday Aaron! Zion Style!

After Bryce we headed to Zion, one of our favorite national parks. Somehow we managed to get our favorite campsite and the boys spent the first afternoon there having epic sword-fighting duels among the cottonwoods and towering red cliffs. The next morning we hopped on the up-canyon shuttle with our eye on the Hidden Canyon hike. Unfortunately it was closed so we changed gears and hiked up to Scout's Landing just below the infamous Angel's Landing. At Scout's Landing we enjoyed a snack as we took in the views and watched throngs of people start up the epically steep scramble to Angel's Landing. The trail is insanely steep and exposed and makes even our climbers' stomachs turn. I couldn't believe the crowds of normal-tourist people heading up the chain-assisted trail. They looked like ants swarming an ant hill. We ventured up the first set of chains and sat on the scariest rock platform we have ever sat on with the kids. It still makes my mom-stomach turn to think about or to look at photos of it. Given the number of people on the trail and the scariness factor we opted to turn around and come back another time when the crowds cleared. We spent the afternoon swimming in the Virgin River at the campground. It was delightful to get fully clean. In the evening we ate dinner at our favorite Zion restaurant, Oscar's Cafe. On the covered patio we watched as a storm rolled through and pounded us with rain. Back at the campsite we walked over to the river to see it swollen and angry in the twilight.

The next morning we were awoken by a very excited, now thirteen-year-old birthday boy, Aaron. We snuggled in our bed while he opened his presents. Mother Nature had quite the celebration in store for Aaron's birthday. She dumped what was left of Hurricane Norbert on us. Throughout the day we watched as the Virgin River flash flooded and raged outside of its banks. It was super cool to watch it flood so insanely fast, become clogged with logs and then drop slowly as the day went on. Mudslides closed the national park for part of the day and south of us, an entire section of I-15 collapsed. We spent the morning deluge in a coffee shop where the boys amused themselves with a tank game. In the afternoon, the clouds parted, the sunshine came out and we went for a walk along the river surveying the changes. We then went for a walk with Aaron's new remote control tank. Very cool. In the evening it was back to Oscar's for dinner where we sang happy birthday to Aaron over a brownie sunday. We had no candles so we substituted straws instead and Aaron sucked in brownie and ice cream instead of blowing out flames after he made his careful birthday wish. Happy thirteenth birthday Aaron!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Sylvia's battery went dead the day before Aaron's birthday so after a jump start from the park ranger we bought a battery that's just a little too big for the battery compartment which Jason and a mechanic grunted and sweated into place. Fingers crossed....here's hoping it gets us home.

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