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Last I heard, Jackson, Wyoming is enjoying a lovely 10-degree low and taking on an inch or two of fluff during some awfully pleasant snow flurries. They say the skiing's not that great this year, either. So prepare yourself. Corners of the American Sonoran Desert are invoking cliché lyrics to Jimmy Buffet songs at 74 degrees during the day and chilling the bones at night around 45. Those are facts, so pack the bikes and come on down. 38 Photos . . .
Place a wager for best description of a desert rain on chapter twelve of Barbara Kingsolver's book The Bean Trees and there's a good chance you'd win. She crescendos over the course of some 800 words just to build up to her description of the subtle and therefore easily dismissed scent that rises in the air before a desert summer rain. It's a remarkable and realistic chapter. So why would I bother writing about it?
To hear my wife tell it, I present no shortage of difficulty when it comes to Christmas trees. She's probably right. Before our second Christmas I barnstormed with fury that we forget a tree and get a cactus instead, because that was something we could plant in the yard after making a spectacle of it. Well, that unfestive suggestion grew no wings and did not fly. We still found ourselves at a tree lot, looking for something perfectly triangular and uniform and just tall enough and something more or less out of a storybook and everything else that just doesn't come naturally to things that are, well, natural. We bought one. Probably for 60 bucks. The whole experience left me dissatisfied . . .
Somewhere along the road to progress, civilized automotive manufacturers decided the "gas light" was a good thing to add to the dashboard. In most cases when that little red orb illuminates, you're supposed to feel some gratitude but you don't, do you? It's really like getting your final warning. Under the best of situations running out of gas is a downright drag, so a little hey-bro-put-somthing-in-the-tank ought to be a nice reminder; instead it's more of a bummer, the jig is up. Well. As far as running out of gas is concerned, this was not the best of situations . . .
Last school year, we hosted and became family with a 16-year old girl from Ukraine who wanted nothing more than to see Grand Canyon. I've written about her a few times already, but because this website increasingly gets more readers every day (and we're grateful for it), I feel like I need to preface this properly. Her name is Ania and she lived with us for almost a year (more). Today, Ania attends a university in Lithuania studying English and business. During her spring semester here, she took a guitar class and a photography class. Truthfully, she taught me a lot about photography. And I taught tried to teach her how to rock a C7 chord, but she resisted trimming her fingernails. Photography class started with the history of image making, so it was weeks before she came home with a pinhole camera and a project to shoot. When the class moved on to 35mm cameras . . .
Around the middle of the summer, my wife left for a weekend in Austin, Texas so I took my daughter on a two-day adventure road trip. It was our first trip together as a duo. And it's surprising how the dynamics and vibes are so different when it's just the two of us on an adventure. Here's what happened.
My family went to Yosemite National Park for the first time during the summer of 1985 when I was 9 years old. The entire gripping tale, down to every last detail, can be endured read above. Luckily I dated this puppy. I don't know why I wrote it on February 28 the following year, but it must have been a school project. Revisit the second sentence: ". . . we saw a mountain that looked like it had a nose."
It's not too frequent that I take a fellas-only trip, and that's either a bummer or something my doctor would applaud. For instance, three days of living on hotdogs, cheeze puffs, and mediocre-at-best canned light beer (vented wide mouth!) doesn't do a body good. I'm not letting out any deep secrets about trips with the boys. That's the menu - likely all across the land, give or take an ingredient. Everyone knows it's an unusual dude who cooks in favor of nutritional value, balance, and class when there are no lovely blondes, brunettes, or red heads nearby to impress.
Anyone who's pulled off a long term camping road trip with the family understands that it's not always high on stoke and low on tantrums. Thankfully, the most thrilling parts of a trip actually come decidedly as the answer to a problem. Believing we had more choices and time than possible, last summer in Baja we tinkered around far too long one day before looking for a beach to camp on. That's kind of typical in the Stephens Family, which is probably why our friends get headaches when we invite them on a trip with us. A few days before, a pair of surfers grabbed us by the shoulders and peered square into our eyes and declared "You like fish tacos, bra? Let me tell you where the best fish tacos in Baja are . . ."
The two little girls hiking in front of me are far from bumming. They're beaming. For the moment, I'm just here to silently supervise and swat the flies and watch for snakes. My own flesh-and-blood daughter has discovered a short piece of a cottonwood branch and declares that this new hiking stick makes her the leader. She's 3 years old, jamming down a footpath trail next to a desert river with a stick in her hand. She's unstoppable. Of course she's the leader. Even her 8-year-old cousin yields to the demands, looks at me and . . . 29 photos
There's a reason why I came up with 3 Adventure Facts about Utah last week. That's where we went for six days, just for fun. Here is a sample of photos for you.
On my way home from the Mojave National Preserve, not one, not two, but three strangers eyed my truck, slid their sunglasses down their noses, grinned in a funny way, and said, "Well, it looks like you had some fun." Each one, word for word. Must I say it? Yes. Road trips are all about weird encounters. Take the scenes in My Cousin Vinny - a New Jersey-Italian pair thrust into the American South with "mud in da tie-yuz."
When a group of dads are left to their own devices for a weekend without the family, they buy some ping pong balls, a stack of Solo cups, and guess what? All hell breaks loose. Watch them grasp for their youth in this campsite game of little merit.
There's a 3-year-old boy out there somewhere who's going to get his heart wrung out some time in in adolescence by this girl one day. She has the you're-a-boy-and-I'm-going-to-eat-you-alive torture thing mastered. I can read her books, play a game of tag in the living room, crawl around on all fours while she rides me like a horse, play t-ball in the backyard, tickle her, feed her snacks (oh God! A sure fire path to her little happy heart) and then an afternoon without me goes by and she's all, "Who needs you, mister?" No joke. I came through the front door one day after work recently - sat in traffic for some 45 minutes inching, inching, inching, toward home - and Chloe ran up to me, kicked me in the shin, and yelled, "Get out of here, Papa!" That's a 3-year-old for you. Now that I told you that, you just won't believe what happened last week. She totally ratcheted it up. I left my family for six days to go to Moab, Utah. I spent those days driving the back roads of Beef Basin, looking for good views and Anasazi ruins. The quick gallery: {gallery}blog/Utah-Beef-Basin/gallery{/gallery} I came home late Sunday night, long after Chloe went to bed. In the morning, I entered the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I heard her awake already, so I donned my shin guards and prepared myself for rejection when she saw me . . . She came down the hallway dragging her purple blankey and demanding milk. And then she saw me. She didn't even stop. Not even. Instead, she ran - RAN! - and bellowed, "Papa! I missed you!" Naturally, I took her to lunch later that day and gave her ice cream. Twice. What I'm really hoping for is that one day she'll pick up a guitar and play a little Jim Croce: "Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong. So I'll have to say I love you in a song." |
My daughter is 3. That means that if she spends just six seconds alone with her mother, her Gigi, or her grandma, those moments erase all versions of affection she's ever held for me.