Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
We got one more leaf hike in Friday, before wind and rain rolled in and blew everything off the trees. This time we went up Little Cottonwood–we were just going to hike some of the way to Red Pine Lake, but we saw a marker for Gloria Falls and detoured there. Neither of us had heard of it, but it was lovely.
There are Bob Rosses everywhere for those with eyes to see.
Going on a hike three times a week is the type of unemployed thing you can do when you’re waiting on some freelance stuff and your partner has a random day off. Monday we went up to Willow Heights for the aspens and they were putting everything into it. (So was that blue sky.)
Doc took a new favorite picture of me and I took…a picture of his back! This might be our relationship in a nutshell. 😂
Being unemployed means I can drag Doc into the mountains with me whenever he has a day off, which was both Thursday and Sunday this past week. We went up around Lake Solitude/Silver Lake on Thursday to beat the crowds and the aspens were near their peak–just a gorgeous day:
Sunday was 15 degrees above normal so we decided to hang by the stream in Millcreek, but things are starting to turn there too:
Doc has Tuesdays off and I don’t have anything to do (yet–I do have some freelance starting next week, hooray!) so we went up to the Uintas yesterday. Nothing like some vast distances and being surprised by four deer bounding across the trail (not pictured) for some perspective.
I made a lot of progress on the garage over the long weekend! I finished mudding and then sanded and even started with primer in one corner. My dad told me about “dust control” drywall compound and it was definitely worth the extra money: It’s still dusty but the particulates want to fall to the ground faster, so at least it’s not floating in the air.
My walls aren’t the smoothest in the world but they’re also not the most textured either. I can tell I got better!
I took a little break from everything to go on a hike Friday afternoon up Big Cottonwood. The clouds were doing the most and it was just lovely.
We had a really hot day with wind over the weekend so the valley is starting to get a little crispy, but the mountains are still green and still doing their “enchanted forest in bloom” thing.
When you get an overcast day in the first flush of spring in the mountains, everything looks the way you imagined the England you read about as a kid did–green and gray and maybe filled with unicorns?
Whatever little bit of snow the mountains got is long gone and everything is sprouting and leafing out. Even with some wet weather moving in, it was nice to see it all yesterday.
We got a big storm last week and some of it was still around even in the lower elevations, which made the hike yesterday feel much more right. (This is the worst snow year since Utah started keeping records in 1980.) The sun was warm, though; I bet the snow will be mostly melted by next Sunday.
Let’s ignore the fact that we’re seeing green because there hasn’t been any snow this winter and yesterday was 50 degrees in the mountains and instead just enjoy some growing things:
