Dry Canyon

Speaking of cold and snow—which I've done recently—some people seem not to mind either of them.  I made this picture of VSO after a two mile slog up Dry Canyon in 15F temps.  Maybe I need to have her break the trail, she seems to be enjoying herself too much.

Not Just Cold

It is currently cold in southern Utah.  But it is not just cold.  (By which I mean it is not "only" cold.)  It is also snowy.  We nearly missed Christmas dinner because I didn't want to drive through a blizzard.  The blizzard quit with thirty minutes to spare, but it still took two hours to dig the car out of the yard.  (Not the car in this picture, that one is too nice for us, even if it is in the snow bank.)

Another Cold Snap

We sometimes joke about placing items that we'd like to keep from freezing into the refrigerator.  The fridge—set at 44F—can sometimes be warmer than the kitchen itself.  We actually made this joke late last week when Reader Three was in the house.  (Sorry R3.)  Well.  It wasn't funny this morning:  When I reached in for the half and half, I felt a wash of warm air spill out of the fridge.  I wondered if I should keep the door open to heat the house.  With the outdoor thermometer standing at minus three, the interior temperature was quite a bit south of 40F.  Anyway.  Instead of crawling into the fridge, I opened both burners on the gas heater in the kitchen, and went to the living room to start the stove.  By the time the sun got to work, most of the house was at least 50F.  Good enough.

Solstice

Unusually for southern Utah, the sky has been stubbornly overcast for three or four days.  One of those days—yesterday—was the winter solstice.  It was gloomy.  While I was working down a ridge by The Gap, I was pelted by rain.  Kind of depressing.  It made the lake—the LSL—look like a real lake, though.  And, on my way back to town, in the middle of the PV, the sun slanted through between the gloom and the ground.  It was a remarkably colorful shaft of light, making everything in the landscape beautiful.  It was, on the other hand, almost more depressing than the gloom.  It was one of those moments when, if you're paying attention, you realize that you are on the outside looking in, and that you haven't been invited to the planning meeting.

Bridging It

VSO has been on a bit of a fitness binge.  She has been reading a book that teaches you how to feel younger.  Mostly, it turns out, you feel younger by getting off your arse.  Not that she's ever been a couch potato, but she has been recently inspired to put a few extra miles under her belt.  So, she's been hitting the trail with me a little bit.  Which is kind of fun.  We've been logging some miles in the snow.

We wanted to ski in Center Creek, but couldn't get across the water.  So later this afternoon we went up there and I dragged a couple of old studs to the creek for a bridge.  No one else had been over, so I broke trail to the upper meadow and we had the whole place to ourselves.  When we got back, VSO was still kind of complaining about wanting to be fit.  I told her, "Hey, I don't think there are very many women in this town who could, or would, do what you were doing this evening (or men, for that matter).  I don't think you are very far away from being fit."