2 down 8 Grand trips to go! I did these two back to back, with only 10 hours in between and it was rough doing a quick turn around but they were good trips to start out the season. It's always awesome to wake up at Lee's Ferry for the first time of the season! It's so beautiful there and it's a slightly less frantic morning than the rest of the trip and it's just awesome there. It's already over 100 degrees especially in the lower part of the canyon and I don't know if I'm ready for what that means about the rest of the summer! I think I'm probably going to be baking my brains out. There wasn't any wild flowers, they were all too confused by the lack of water and early heat that accompanied this spring.
I did have some people who were stoked to hear about the geology and I even had a geologist on one trip (that actually makes me pretty nervous but I love geeking out and rock talking with them!)
But the point of this entry is to say how awesome it is to come home! I love our house! it's so much better than some of the other houses Kristina and I looked at to rent. I've even been fixing it up a little. I know it's just a rental and who knows how long we'll be here, but even though I am soooo happy that I it didn't work out to buy a house bc I had my accident and it would have been a lot to handle right then, I still do have that nesting feeling creeping in I think. And this is longer than I lived anywhere since living with my parents. I painted the kitchen the week before the river, and it was awesome to come home to.
We also planted a garden! I've wanted to for a while because this house has THE perfect spot for it but I'm not around to take care of it so I said I'd do all the work at the beginning if Kate and Kristina take care of it. It (of course) was a bigger project than planned, but felt great to get it done. The whole section was covered in 5 inches of pine needles, grass clippings and weeds from like 10 years of not being used, so that had to be covered first. Here's Kristina working hard on her tan, wearing her sweet Mexican visor watching me slave away :)
This is Utah after all, so after 6 hours of jumping on the shovel to turn the soil we went to the dump and got compost which was great and seemed like it will be so good for our garden!
It doesn't look like much yet, but here's the finished product! We've got tomatoes, peppers, squash, watermelon, basil and a couple other things that I can't wait to eat! it was great to come home to see some of them sprouting!
Now all I need is chickens! I really do want some, but that might have to wait until I'm around in the summers.
OK, so back to my point, I loved coming home yesterday! I hung out with Kate for a while and we went to a movie (I love movies in the summer! Cold, dark, someone else is entertaining me... it's perfect!) and it started raining as we were going to sleep. I slept with my window open and when I woke up at 6:45 (which is sleeping in for my usual 4:30 or 5 wake up time) I could smell an beautiful morning and I grabbed my house coat and went for a walk. I was a little late for the real beautiful colors of the sunrise, but the clouds were still a little pink and it was a little chilly and smelled like rain and felt like the mountains. It was just what I needed! Now I'm sitting on our porch drinking tea, looking at Mt. Olympus, still in my house coat, appreciating my life! What a lucky girl I am! I love the dichotomy of my life: not working, skiing and traveling all winter, now working, and working hard in a beautiful, amazing, hot place. It makes me realize how much I love my time off and want to take advantage of it, weather it's climbing or biking or just relaxing and watching a movie, I am a pro at enjoying time off! And this morning has been a great welcome home!
