Addendum to the Golden Cathedral Trip

Another wonderful souvenir I acquired on the Golden Cathedral Trip (besides the hundreds of bug bites and terrifying memories of being stuck 50 feet in the air)...Giardia. Yup, that's right, the parasite that lives in your intestines.


This is an artist's interpretation of a parasite in my small instestine

**Giardia is also known as beaver fever. Strangely you don't usually get a fever and beavers have little to do with it.**
Courtesy of www.ceoblues.com/archive/2006/june/giardiabeaver

MOBA - Is this for real?

Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, Massachusetts.


"Lucy in the field with flowers"
"Acquired from trash in Boston, this single painting planted the seed that grew into MOBA. The motion, the chair, the sway of her breast, the subtle hues of the sky, the expression on her face -- every detail combines to create this transcendent and compelling portrait, every detail cries out "masterpiece."


"Mama and Babe"
"The flesh tones bring to mind the top shelf liqueurs of a border bistro. With an astonishing emphasis on facial bone structure, the artist flirts with caricature and captures features of Mamma's face which remind us of a Presidential candidate. The upright marionettish pose of the babe hints that the early bond between mother and child is as formal as it is familiar. Good old fashioned parental respect is at the center of this celebration of color and contour."


"Sunday on the Pot With George"
"an the swirling steam melt away the huge weight of George's corporate responsibilities? This pointillist piece is curious for meticulous attention to fine detail, such as the stitching around the edge of the towel, in contrast to the almost careless disregard for the subject's feet."


"Think Again"
Acrylic on canvas by Unknown
Acquired by Scott Wilson from trash

This disturbing work "makes an offer you can't refuse". The chilling, matter-of-fact manner in which the subject presents the severed head to us is a poignant reminder of just how numb we have become. The understated violence implicit in the scene speaks volumes on our own desensitization, our society's reflexive use of force, and the artist's inability to deal with the hindquarters of the animal.

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

The Golden Cathedral

On the fourth of July, Chase and I, and Chase's dad, Mike, took off for Escalante Grand Staircase to hike Neon Canyon and see the Golden Cathedral. It was quite an eventful trip. After the 6 hour drive down, we started the 4 mile hike down into Escalante. It was blazing hot when we started, and even the water in our water bottles was actually HOT after the first 45 minutes or so. Luckily, a great big cloud came over and shaded us for most of the hike.



The trailhead where we started was called Egypt, which I thought was kind of funny because it was nothing but sand and barren desert, and I guess I have always kind of pictured Egypt to be like that. I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was amusing. There actually turned out to be great desert scenery, and we even found those pretty little flowers growing right out of the sand!




After we made the hike in and set up camp, we swam in the river for a bit, cooked our dinner, and went to bed. Not that we actually slept...the mosquitoes, wind, and rock-hard ground kept us awake most of the night. The next morning we set out for the top of Neon Canyon, then dropped in by rappel and enjoyed hiking through the beautiful slot canyon. We knew there would be a couple tricky spots, such as this "keeper pothole" (meaning if you fall in and you're alone, it will keep you there - the odds of you ever getting out are almost none). But we didn't count on the trouble we were going to have coming down the last rappel, on the Golden Cathedral itself.


Chase in the keeper pothole...luckily we all got out!

The Golden Cathedral is beautiful...at least in these pictures. I didn't really take time to look at it while we were in there because of what happened...I was a little nervous about the 80' rappel down because you couldn't see over the edge, and I knew there was a pool of water at the bottom. I just don't like not being able to see what I'm getting into! So I made Chase say a prayer for us before I dropped down, and I'm glad we did. When I got to the end of the wall of rock, just before the free fall, my prussic knot got stuck on a piece of tape that was around the rappel rope, marking the middle. I couldn't go back up the rope, but the farther the prussic slid down, the tighter it held around the rope and wouldn't let me go down either. I was stuck, dangling about 60' in the air. It was one of the scariest things that's happened to me, because we knew there were no other people out there in the event we needed to be rescued, and there was no way I was going to be able to make that knot move. I didn't have anything to cut it off with, and I had no way to move anywhere. Chase eventually had to descend the same rope to where I was and try to rescue me. We tried a few things that didn't work, and after about an hour of hanging there we were able to get me free and we slid down. He had left his pack at the top, so he ended up having to hike back around to the top of the canyon and drop down again to get it. Meanwhile, Chase's dad and I hiked back to camp through the river (and got about 150 horsefly bites on the way - not joking). We were all exhausted after that, but still had to make the 4 mile hike back to the top of Egypt trailhead. Then we still had a 6 hour drive back to Woodland Hills, and another hour to our house. We didn't get home until after 4 in the morning! I told Chase I think I'd need a break before doing any serious rappelling again for a while.


Me as I was getting stuck on my descent


Chase on his way down to rescue me



Us, trying to untie the knot. So glad we finally got it free! Thanks for saving me, Chase! And thanks to Mike for driving us down there, and taking these pictures!

Stewart Falls, SLC Arts Festival, and LOST Marathons

So the events from this post are 2 weeks old, but my life is too crazy to be able to blog more often. So I'm writing this as if it were still the weekend of June 28. We caught up with the Raymond family to hike to Stewart Falls near Sundance. It was a beautiful hike but totally crowded. Of course, Chase plunged himself into the waterfall at the end but it was so hot he was probably dry by the time we got back to the car.

We had a picnic first






Beautiful scenery on the hike. Some parts of it looked almost tropical, they were all green and covered with ferns...then of course there were the mountains and the waterfall.


Chase and his dad considering getting under the waterfall after his dad taunted him, "Come on, aren't you going to get wet with me?"


Chase actually getting wet while his dad decided not to get in


Both of them running away from the FREEZING waterfall - notice how Mike is still dry :)

Moving on to later that evening...we got free tickets to the SLC Arts Festival from Chase's work. So we rode our bikes on over to the library to check it out. We saw some cool performers and lots of awesome paintings, photography, etc. in the artists' booths. It's nice to go to something like that and see that our downtown isn't always dead with no people walking around...I hope this is a sign of how our city will be in a few years when they finish all the downtown projects.




Cool Brazilian fire dancers

So, each night of the weekend after we'd tired ourselves out all day, we settled in to watch LOST on DVD, which Adam & Kim were nice enough to lend us. Now, I realize I'm about 4 years behind everyone else, but we're still on the first season, and I'm hooked. They really do a good job of making you want to know what happens next. I don't know how people watched it on TV, once a week, with commercials and stuff. I do, however, have a few comments to make/questions to raise about LOST:

Okay. I'm sorry, but the whole Jack/Kate connection isn't that convincing to me. I know there's supposed to be all this tension/desire, etc. between them, but it's just not quite working for me. I don't feel like it'd been developed enough to make me root for them just yet.

Also - I like Sawyer. I think you're kind of supposed to hate Sawyer, but I like him.

There are a few too many close calls, I think. I know, I know, it's a TV show and you're supposed to suspend your belief, and if all the characters died off there wouldn't be a show. But seriously...

Finally, how do all these people stay so clean shaven on this island? Did someone bring along a waxing kit that they're all using? I think after a month on an island with no razor I'd be embarrassed to strip down to my bikini.

But, after watching the show, it leaves me with a strange desire to be stranded on a tropical island...

Anyway, we had a great, relaxing weekend!