Happy 4th of July

Drew miraculously had a holiday off. This has not happened in at least 3 years. It was time to put aside the house projects and enjoy the day.  

We celebrated our U.S.A. Independence by a 7 AM start to a great 2 hour bike ride with the team

after which Drew and I continued up the mountains for another 2+ hours.

Later, we went to a barbeque at the Hypios', for which I made this patriotic and delicious cheesecake dessert.

and I got to wear my hat and flag jewelry. 

It was a good party, plus, in the name of tax revenue, the Utah legislature changed our fireworks laws this year so that we can now blow up bigger stuff.  I was tickled to be able to light off some fireworks I had stored in the garage for a couple of years.  They were big and went boom!  I love this country.

Fireworks are grand, but they don't do good things to our air quality. Check out the spikes in the PM2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller) chart below (top chart) at about 10 PM each night surrounding the 4th.  We could almost taste it.

Later in the week Drew and I made our first accent of Thaynes Canyon up to Shadow Lake.

There is SO much runoff water high this year but the trails are now open and in great condition.  It is sweet!

Birthweek Activities

Mid-June is a fabulous time to have a birthday. I used to think it was a rotten time, because all the other kids got to bring treats to school and hand them out on their birthdays, thereby getting lots of attention and well wishes. Summer birthday kids didn't get that treatment.  But now I make up for it with lots of fun summer activities around my birthday, so I think June is a great time for birthweek.  Now that I am officially over 40, I have earned an entire week of celebration instead of a single birth day.
 
I started off birthweek by playing in my backyard to my heart's content. I would not allow myself to feel guilty that I should be training for that little race coming up on August 6.  I worked all day Saturday moving rocks around, fixing sprinklers (yes, the ones we just installed), weeding, and generally producing massive quantities of vitamin D.


Saturday night, Drew came home.  Sunday morning I made a fabulous jalapeno potato salad, edamame succotash, and strawberry rhubarb pie

in preparation for our picnic at Red Butte Garden's summer concert series later that evening featuring Big Head Todd and the Monsters.  Sunday afternoon we went for a short ride, and then cleaned up for the concert.

Even though we got to the waiting line for the concert later than I would have liked, I weaseled us down in between some large groups with big blankets, since we were only 2 bodies.  We set up our lawn chairs about 8 rows back from the center of the stage - -PERFECT.  To make it extra perfect, the two people directly in front of us were young boys that were (a) small, and (b) more interested in their Gameboys than the music and therefore content to sit down quietly. Plus they left early. Score. Here is our view of the stage.

 

What a beautiful venue.  There was plenty of time before the music started to enjoy those salads, pies, and wine.

The opening act was Toots and the Maytals; they were excellent.

Really got the crowd fired up. Here is a video of one of their last songs.  

Time for the main act: Big Head Todd and the Monsters. They were even better! 

I had not been to a live concert in a couple of years and not to a rock concert for many more. I forgot how good and loud concerts feel.  We showed our age by wearing ear plugs!  Here is a little clip of the concert. Check out the wild drummer Brian Nevin. He was on fire.

Birthweek took a hiatus on Monday for me to get a dental filling and work half a day, but birthday Tuesday we were in full form starting with breakfast at Eggs in the City.  I ordered the crepes as a special treat because I had never had them.  They were so good and I said as much to the waiter. He said, "if you come in on your birthday they are free." Hey, what a coincidence!  Free crepes for Lucy.

Breakfast was followed by a bike ride on recently snow-free Park City trails,

and then a drive in my freshly detailed truck

Later we were joined by our kitties while we enjoyed a before-dinner drink our new high deck off the master bedroom,

Birthday dinner was at a restaurant I'd been wanting to try for some time.  Meditrina serves small plates, so we ordered a bunch and they came out one after the other.  I tried to take a picture of each plate:

BRUSCHETTA OF THE DAY

The SCALLOPS PICATTA — sea scallops in a lemon caper butter sauce over squid-ink spaghetti, was really great but I didn't get a picture of it, because I was still laughing at this

.
which is Drew eating PICKLED BEETS

 But I thought they were wonderful

We had STUFFED PIQUILLO PEPPERS — Maryland blue crab, marscapone, with a lemon-almond cream sauce.

and I think this was seared TUNA

There was BEEF TENDERLOIN CARPACCIO — with arugula, artichoke heart, red onion, and a whole grain mustard viniagrettem and
CAJUN HOT AND SOUR GREEN BEANS — sautéed with cajun spices, garlic and lemon. 

BACON CRUSTED PORK TENDERLOIN — over corn, butterbean, and turnip purée with candied pecans.

and one of my favorites was PATATAS BRAVAS — grilled red potatoes with caramelized shallots, spicy tomato aioli, and chili oil, which I did not get a picture of. 

Coupled with two glasses of sangria, it was all good! 

We came home to devour birthday carrot cake from Carlucci's Bakery (they made our wedding cake) before turning out the lights on the pinnacle day of birthweek.

But birthweek was not over.  Wednesday night my teammate Ellen hosted a get together for women on the Revolution road bike racing team and mountain bike racing team. We are the same team with almost the same sponsors, but because of the differences in training and riding requirements for the different types of racing, we hardly know each other.  It was a great way to meet some of the ladies and we got to eat our sponsor Cafe Rio's chow.

Thursday night Drew and I hosted the No-Guilt Book and Dinner Club.  It is a book club but you don't need to read the book (that's the no-guilt part of it). We have dinner before the discussion so the host makes the main entree and others bring sides and drinks.  I chose a Mexican menu and made both chicken and spinach enchiladas.  Oh, and another strawberry rhubarb pie, because that is a Mexican favorite, of course.  Heather made flan. I love flan.

Friday Drew left again so that was the official end of the celebrations.  It was a busy and delicious birthweek that I got to spend mostly with Drew.  What a great way to end #40.

First zucchini from the garden. Three days ago this guy was an inch and a half long!

Home addition: sprinklers part II

Last fall we put in the guts of an automatic sprinkler system in the backyard.  June 3rd we finished the job. Well, OK, not we meaning Drew and me, but we meaning Aaron Schoenberg, owner of Wasatch Sprinkler and his helper Todd.  I just mostly got in the way and Drew mostly did stuff inside the house.

 Anyway, before Aaron came, I had to clean up some of my mess. This is the highly organized pile of rocks we have in the outdoor room for the time being. I am a bit obsessive about moving rocks around in the backyard. Can you guess how many categories of rocks I have piled here?  The answer will be at the end of this post.

We also had a tree stump ground out from the garden area. Then we were ready.  The guys got to work putting in the lines for the lawn area.

 Here is a bird's eye view of the network. It will have pop-up spray heads for the lawn and drip for everything else.  There are two drip zones: one for the landscaped area (trees and perennials that need less water) and one for the veggie garden that needs water every day in the summer.  The amount of water each plant gets is controlled by the flow rate of the individual emmitter at each plant and/or the number of emitters at each plant.  I also have some soaker line for tightly spaced veggies like lettuce or onions.

 So I wouldn't forget once we covered everything up, I annotated a photograph of the valve box.

It is a pretty sweet system and will save mucho time and thousands of gallons of water as compared to hand watering.

Oh, and I'm working on another project too.  Through a geology connection and a trade for some bike parts I got the these granite boulders we had in the backyard drilled out for a future fountain.   It'll be wicked cool.

So it has been a productive late spring in the backyard. Here is a picture from May 13 showing my affinity for junk piles and weeds.

Here is after I cleaned up somewhat and moved the wood pile and composters.

And here is after the drip system is installed and the garden is planted!!!!!!

It isn't a huge garden this year because I still have to install the pathways, but we'll get some organic veggies out of it. So things are coming along outside (at the expense of finishing the work inside!)


Answer to the quiz: Eight.  Wonderstone flagstone, small angular cobble, large angular pebble, slate, junk rocks from digging, granite boulders, leftover granite countertop, and sandstone top cap we were going to use for a mantel.  If you said 10 because you counted the brick and concrete paver, you're wrong because they are not rocks.

Moab wind and work

It has been a very busy rental season at our place in Moab this spring.  We had renters in for 24 nights in April and 30 nights in May.  Last week there was an opening so we bombed down for a couple of nights to assess the damage a few months of vacationing families can do to a place. 

The trip did not start out smoothly.  We left the house at noon on Sunday, a truck full of bikes, tools, supplies, and cats, but on this first warm day of the year (85 degrees), before we even made it to the freeway, we discovered the AC did not work.  It has been such a cold spring that I haven't needed the AC.  Rough finding out it doesn't work with a packed truck on a Sunday!  So after running around to 3 or 4 different Firestone stations, we found one that could work on the truck.  We settled in for an hour or so to the lobby of the service station, cats in their carriers and us on vinyl seats. 

Things looked good at first, but by 2:30 the technician discovered a puncture in the compressor.  That is no bueno!  A parts store was open and the technician agreed to stay after closing time to work on it (see, family, there are advantages to living in a big city), so we bunkered down in the waiting room and wasted away a gorgeous June afternoon. We used the time to do some computing, sewing, reading, and bike maintenance. The cats slept through it all.

Finally at 6 PM and $700 later, we were on our way.  We used the AC even though we didn't need it anymore. :-(

For all the people through the condo, it was in pretty decent shape.  We spent Monday patching paint and deep cleaning.  The new trail we wanted to try was on the agenda for the afternoon, but vicious winds prevented any cycling activity and closed the pool to boot. Bummer! 

Instead, we waited until the wind died down a bit and hiked Mill Creek Canyon, just on the edge of town.  Neither of us had been up this canyon, and we get asked for hiking suggestions all the time from our renters, so we were doing necessary reconnaissance.  It was a fabulous hike, even though we missed the side canyon reportedly containing a shangi-la waterfall. 

The trail follows Mill Creek very closely,

 
and has many crossings.

The best part about the hike was observing how the course of the stream is dependent on the jointing (geo term) or cracks (non-geo term) in the Navajo Sandstone. 

 The stream tumbles over bedding plane ledges and follows the joints, widening them over time.

There were cool micro things to see too.  These insect creations looked like mini termite mounds or nuclear reactor cooling towers. 

And these rocks were cool stuck like shingles into one of the joints in the streambed.

The evening light on the sandstone and distance view of the La Sals was magnificent.

Tuesday morning we spent cleaning some more and getting a tear in the carpet fixed, but we were both itching for some pedal time, so we managed to ride UPS and LPS as a loop.  Last time I did this trail was on my old Titus. I remember it being at the top of my technical ability.  This time, on a 29er, was a whole different story.  I can't get over how much easier technical trails are on the big wheels. Wow!  It is almost cheating.  Drew shot some video, but it might take a few weeks for him to find time to edit it.  We'll make sure to post it when he does.

Tuesday we packed everything up and headed home really late. Not a great recipe for both of us working the next day, but that's the price ya gotta pay to play.