Monday, June 11, 2012

Dinosaurs and Petroglyphs - a mini vacation

The Adventures have begun again.  I decided late last week based on a suggestion from a co-worker to head down to Price, Utah.  The main reason was to go to the Prehistoric Museum in Price and then visit the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry.  As you all know, the rugrat LOVES dinosaurs, and wants to be a Paleontologist when she grows up.  I try to get her as much exposure as possible because she loves it so much.  This is going to be a really long post and the pictures are all in Google albums so this is going to look like a big old wall of text. 

So, a couple days before we were leaving, I told her we were going to Price, but not exactly what we were doing.  She didn't know until we started seeing signs for the Prehistoric Museum as we got into Price.  She was even more excited when she found out we were going to the C-L Quarry.  There is a huge exhibit at NHMU about the quarry and the mystery of how all the bones got there.  She is fascinated by it and they discussed it quite a bit during her Spring Break Camp back in March.

The Prehistoric Museum isn't huge so it only took about an hour to wander through, but we learned about Nine Mile Canyon.  I had no idea it was by Price, nor did I know exactly what was there.  Well, after we were done at the Museum and we'd gotten checked into the hotel and had lunch, we headed to Nine Mile Canyon.  It is here that I must declare that the BLM and I have far differing views on what constitutes a paved road.  Remnants of blacktop that are decades old does not count as paved in my book.  The packed dirt road portions were SO nice to drive on.  It got so I dreaded the "paved" parts.

The first part of NMC was the Daddy Canyon Complex.  This featured quite a few different petroglyphs and a short hiking trip back up into the canyon a bit.  We only hiked up about a half mile because the wind was whistling through the canyon so hard I had to hold on to Malia because it was tipping her over.  It was really pretty and there may or may not be a picture of a lizard.  Daddy Canyon Complex Petroglyphs

The end of the canyon where it changes from "paved" to "no longer maintained" was The Great Hunt Panel.  It's one really huge petroglyph and there were some other smaller ones nearby.  This one had a really short hike but I really liked that the wind wasn't blowing so hard through here.  Great Hunt Panel - Petroglyphs

By the time we got back to Price, even though it was only around 6:30, we were done.  We had some dinner and just crashed/hung out in the hotel room.  We got up bright and early the next morning and had a lovely continental breakfast.  We were up, fed, packed, and checked out by 8:30.  Knowing that we had time to kill because the quarry isn't open until noon on Sunday, we took at look at the maps we'd picked up at the museum.  I'd heard of the San Rafael Swell, but I'd never been and I really wasn't sure what it was. We noticed that there were more pictographs and an overlook so we figured we'd check it out.

First we drove down to "The Wedge" overlook.  I don't think I expected that kind of vista.  I mean it was just fantastic.  Malia told me it was so awesome that it took her breath away.  I'll let these pictures speak for themselves.  San Rafael Swell - "The Wedge"

Next we drove down Buckhorn Draw to the Buckhorn Wash Pictographs.  We learned, by reading all the signs, that they are slowly fading because of wind, rain and sun.  I'm glad we were able to see them while you can still actually see the figures.   There were some petroglyphs as well.  San Rafael Swell - Buckhorn Wash Pictographs

Finally, after hunting down some lunch at Maverick, we headed out to the quarry.  You read that correctly, we had to lunch at Maverick.  There wasn't anything within 15 miles that was open other than gas stations.  By this point in time, Malia was tired, but she was getting so stinking excited.  We got there and she impressed the girl working with her knowledge of the quarry and the mystery.  It wasn't until this point in time that it really clicked in my head that this was the quarry talked about at the Natural History Museum.  Malia would have been happy to chat for hours about it, but I wanted to see the other stuff so we wandered around and checked out all the fossils and such.  There are several different trails around so you can see some of the views around the place.  Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry

Once we were done at the quarry we headed for home.  Malia enjoyed it so much we are looking at doing another trip later this summer only we will go a little further south and hit up Arches and Goblin Valley.  Maybe we'll even get to Castle Rock and Dead Horse Point.  I will have to bake in a recovery day though because all I've wanted to do today was go back to bed. =)

Monday, October 24, 2011

Weekend Projects

I'm not going to bother with a lot of chit chat today. I had a couple of projects to get sewed this weekend and I'm going to show off the pictures.

First up, we have a changing table pad cover for my sister Kami who is expecting her third child (first boy!) in December. I just want to say that the minkee material that she wanted was a pain in the behind to hem, but through much gnashing of teeth and not a few curse words, I got it to work.

Picture one is the finished product before she picked it up.













Picture two is the finished product placed on the change table pad.




















The next project was a little more difficult. Why, you ask? Because I had no patterns. That's right, I had to wing it. My niece (from my other sister) wants to be Jasmine for Halloween and my nephew is going to be a penguin. You'll note that I didn't say he wanted to be a penguin. He's two, he doesn't really care all that much. But he does a FANTASTIC impression of a penguin walking around so it'll be good. I didn't take pictures of the little feet and beak that I made, but take my word for it, they are great.

Anyway, for the Jasmine costume, I used a pair of Haylee's pants and a shirt I bought in her size to trace to get a feel for the size. I would like to apologize to my mom, but I used a bit of wrapping paper for this because I couldn't find any other paper that would fit. It worked, but those "patterns" had to be tossed afterwards. I made a vest and a pair of harem pants. It's hard to see in the pics but the vest is a lavender corduroy with sparkles in it, and the pants are a rayon blend so they are kind of silky. First picture, just the vest with it's beautifully crafted detailing around the edges.














Second pictures, the vest and the harem pants.




















Not pictured, the purple long sleeved t-shirt I found for her to wear under the vest, the veil/crown thing my sister is going to make, and the black wig that she's going to borrow from her mother-in-law.

So, that was my weekend, in between wrestling niece, nephew and rugrat for brief periods of time. Oh and I snuck in a book or two because it's not a weekend without having read a couple of books.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Bedtime Negotiations

Last night Malia sat me down because she had something really important to discuss with me. I had a hard time keeping a straight face because she was so serious about it. I kinda felt like when I was little and my parents (usually my dad) would sit me down to talk about something bad I'd done. It was a weird feeling to get when hearing "We need to talk about something important" from the rugrat.

The conversation went something like this:

Malia: I've been doing some calculating (Yes, she said it) and I want to talk to you about my bedtime.
Me: Oh yeah? What have you been calculating?
Malia: I figured out that with my current bedtime (8:30) I get XX amount of time with you each weekday if I add in the time we spend driving to daycare and the time we spend driving home from daycare and XX amount of time with you on the weekends. That's a total of XX time each week.
Me: Really? That much time?
Malia: Yes, but I am thinking that if you move my bedtime to 9:00 I would then get an extra 30 minutes a day and then it would be a total of XX time each week.
Me: When did you figure this out?
Malia: Oh, I did it in my head while I was in the shower. So, what do you think? Do you think I could switch my bedtime?
Me: Well, I think it's a possibility. How about this? Bedtime stays 8:30 during the week until school is out, but we can change it to 9:00 for the weekends. When school is out you can have 9:00 during the week, and I'll let you have 9:30 on the weekends.
Malia: Really? 9:30?
Me: Yes, but all of this is dependent on attitude and behavior. So, if you don't do your chores and you don't listen to me and do what I ask, then we'll change it back.
Malia: Sweet!!

I left out the actual time measurements because I can't for the life of me remember. Also, she doesn't know that the "concessions" I made were what I already had planned except for changing current weekends to 9:00. I just hadn't planned on telling her anything until after school was out. The fact that she spent the time to figure it all out and that she put it in terms of time spent with me impressed me so I gave her the 9:00 weekends. Oh, and yes, she did indeed use words like calculate and totaled not on the daily, but the weekly time differences. She cracks me up!

Monday, May 2, 2011

Mexico - April 2011

I made it back! Mexico was fantastic. I am pretty sure I ate my weight in guacamole and cheese, but managed to lose 5 pounds because of all the climbing and wandering of ruins. Each of the last 6 posts is just a slide show of a specific Maya ruin site that we visited. I feel they can speak for themselves. It was freaking amazing to see all the pyramids and especially finally getting to Chichen Itza. Just wow!

If you click on the slideshows you can see the photos in Picasa either in a slideshow or individual pictures. Also, for those that have my Facebook, I have them all posted there as well. Enjoy!




Tulum Ruins

Muyil Ruins

Coba Ruins

Chacchoben Ruins

Oxtankah Ruins

Chichen Itza Ruins - slideshow