National Park Madness!

FYI: Yellowstone was the first USA National Park, and it may or may not be the largest one we have!  It spans over 3 different states!

Dale and my most recent road trip was to Yellowstone park!  Only 5.5 hours away from our apartment, Dale's parents had arranged to meet us in the mansion/cabin of a family friend.  It looks like this:

What you do see is a two story log cabin with vaulted ceilings, well furnished, decorated, and nicknacked to appear welcoming and comfortable.  What you don't see are the 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, supply stocked garage, and all conveniences exactly where they might be easily found.  Example:  I was being a girl scout and lighting a fire in the fireplace--with kindling and tinder and everything!--and matches could be found exactly where one might expect them, in a nicknack jar on the mantlepiece.  The place was AMAZING.

Buffalo (20 feet away!)

With Dale's Dad's help I cut up some firewood (with an axe!), and in the picture above, we're enjoying the warmness of the fire while watching the BYU football game that night.

The next morning we headed out to Yellowstone (a mere 15 minute drive up the highway!).  We saw:




GEORGEOUS VISTAS

   

Elk (25 feet away!)





Hot pits that appear to go
to the center of the earth

 Those are my favorite things about a national park: the wildlife, rivers, and forrests.  But Yellowstone has other cool stuff:



Constantly erupting geysers and
little puddles that boil from lava

 

Cool geological features that form due
to the constantly flowing water



 

And me and Dale, of course


 

And this amazing waterfall you can't quite see
in the back ground of the picture Dale and I are posing in.

Hurrah for Dale for planning stuff!  I can't wait another 2 weeks until our next trip!

Zoo

Have you been to the zoo recently?  I think I went once to the San Diego Zoo with my Junior Girl Scout troop in elementary school.  If you, like me, have forgotten the awesomeness that is the zoo, I highly recommend that you take a refresher course. 

Salt Lake may not have everything I'd like in a city, but the Hogle Zoo is--in a word--freaking-awesome-fantastic!  (I couldn't choose just one, so I strung a whole bunch of them together.  Pretty proud of myself for that solution.)  Dale and I had been intending to go to the zoo for an afternoon ever since we moved up to Salt Lake a year or so ago.  We finally got the gumption to do it when one of our friends from BYU invited us to their son's 1st birthday party there.  After the party, Dale and I broke off and saw EVERYTHING the place had to offer. 

I loved the groupings of "wild" animals that looked a lot like common household pets, including:

A sand cat, ie: fluffy kitten,

A wolf, ie. "sleeping puppy,"



And rock cavy, ie "wild guinea pig." (these were pretty sweet, though.  They mate for life.)



We also saw reptiles

I was, seriously THAT far away from that thing.  A real crocodle, just waiting with it's mouth open, as if a bird would just fly between his jaws and he could catch a lunch real quick.  It was TOTALLY real.  I could see it's tounge move as it breathed.

Yet again, THAT far away.  There were 4 tigers that we saw, but this one was pacing at the edge of it's territory, warning all of us onlookers that we weren't to cross the chain-link fense!

Girraffes are always cool too.  In real life, their knecks are SO WEIRD!! WAY skinny, and they actually have antlers!  Little nubby, furry ones!

But I must say, my favorite was the large primate exhibit.  I had gone through the small primate/reptile/mammal/amphibian exhibit with EXACTLY what feels like child-like glee!  I was absolutely IN LOVE with every new creature I met, unless I was severely disturbed by the creepy ones, and therefore bizzarely drawn to stare (bats, snakes, turantulas, etc).  Dale loved how I ran from glass to glass, staring at the creatures inside.  Each one was absolutely amazing.

This guy was the dad of a little orangutang family.  When he walked he looked like a sasquach!  There was a mom and a little daughter too, and it was totally gross, but the daughter kept throwing up and playing with it until the mother would take the piles of canvass laying around the exhibit and whipe up her mess.  It was comically humanesque!

The one that Dale couldn't wat to see was the apes, and we got to spend the most time there.  This fellow is a large silver back ape and he is SO SMART!!!  His movements were so human, and when he grabbed that orange ball, he leaned back on his knees and his eyes had THOUGHTS in them!   With others, the tiger and giraffe, etc, their eyes had instinct in them, but not intelligent thought.  This fellow sat back on his haunches and looked absolutely bored.  He made eye contact with the people behind the glass (us), as if to say "Seriously, guys?  This is what you do for fun?"  He then looked around his room and the lady next to me spoke his thoughts alloud "I really need to paint that wall."  It was AWESOME.

Home making peer pressure

So, apparently being one of 2 social workers in my building means I'm a "co-department head."  And apparently being a "co-department head" means I am part of an "executive team."  As a member of the "executive team" I get lots of perks like free breakfast on Mondays and Thursdays, and I am privy to the financial performance of our facility. 

This last month marked 13 months of profitability, "in the black," or "not spending more than we earn," which for a hospital is pretty amazing. 

In order to celebrate and say "thank you" to the staff for all of their hard work in contribution to this success, we had a salmon barbecque for lunch yesterday.  The "executive team" brought all of the food.  I'm the youngest person on the team, and as we all volunteered to bring things, there were entries like "50 lbs of sea salmon," "shrimp and maccaroni salad" etc.  By the time I realized that I was expected to bring something to this event, someone had already signed up for "chinese chicken salad"--the most economical mass quantity dinner one can possibly make. 

PAUSE: I have a problem with bringing things to events with people who are richer than me.  I like my cooking.  My husband likes my cooking.  People who we invite to eat at our home tend to enjoy my cooking.  After that point, I've had bad experiences.  The last time I volunteered to bring a family who had requested help with meals a dinner, I reached their door (in a millionare neighborhood) and all the host could say when he saw my offering was "Well, I guess that works."

I now have performance anxiety.

The only thing I could think to make was a tuna noodle salad that I LOVE but haven't been able to make in the last 2 years because Dale hates both onions and tuna, which this is ripe full of.  It feeds me about 8 times.  And I eat a LOT of this stuff.  As my last experience's poor reception could have been signed off as bad presentation, I decided to break out the fancy presentation ware dishes that I got as a wedding gift and had not yet used, hoping that would make the difference.

I got to work, hoping to put my dish in the fridge somewhere before having to carry it through the building, open to the scrutiny of all who would judge my home making.  I approached our catering manager:

"So it's a cold dish?"

"yup"

"And that's it?" sizing up my blue kitchen bowl and mentally calculating how many people we had to feed.

I held back my blush and pushed out a "yup" before I could feel too embarassed for not making enough and she showed me which fridge was State approved for staff dishes. 

My greatest fear was that no one would eat it, and I would have the shame of being rejected by everyone who came by for the more fancy, expensive ingredient dishes.  I even watched people who dished it up onto their plates to see if they would actually eat it, or just have a taste and then throw it away with the rest of their plate whiped clean.

I definately don't have it in me to be a cateror. 

Social Work: on communication

Here is a common complaint I hear at work:

"I am unhappy with my physcial therapy: (details...details...complaint...complaint).  I might as well just go home!"

My usual response:

"Yeah, I could understand how that would be frustrating.  Have you spoken to your physical therapist about it?"

Answer:

"No."

Me:

(waits for elaboration)..."Well, you should do that then."

A weekend away

Rather than stay home and effectively waste the 3 day weekend, as I do all too often, Dale and I had a double date down in Vegas.  A fellow married couple we met in college came with us to the most laid back Vegas trip I'd ever been on.
We drove on Friday.

Saturday was exploring the Strip, focusing specifically on Caesar's Palace, the Bellagio, and a short tour of Paris.

Sunday was a trip to Hoover Dam.  I'd never been there before, so the walk  across the Dam and the newly built bridge diverting traffic were pretty marvelous to behold.  

We learn from Wikipedia that

"There were 112 deaths associated with the construction of the dam.^[68] Included in that total was J. G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned on December 20, 1922, while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. He is generally counted as the first man to die in the construction of Hoover Dam. His son, Patrick W. Tierney, was the last man to die working on the dam's construction, 13 years to the day later.^["

and

"Not included in the official fatalities number were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning, brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels, and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims.^[70]  The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases.^[71] A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning."

I have a hazy memory of a video in high school talking about how men died from falling into the concrete while it was being poured, as there was no way to stop it once it had started due to the drying rate--if the pouring was stopped, the dam would be ruined.  I wanted to learn more about these haunting details, but opted against spending $30 per person for a tour of the power plant which may have continued to propogate the cover up!  Still awesome to see.

On Sunday evening, we hit Fremont Street, which was even nicer on my second time around.  The first time we went, there had been a protest parade scheduled for the evening, so it was overcrowded and Dale had been uncomfortable.  This time, we had lots of space, and it just seemed like we walked into a really great party!  There were 3 bands performing, one for each block that the Fremont Street Experience covered, in addition to other street performers and shops.  We had a great time watching one of those spraypaint artists, who was really the best one I'd ever seen.  I'm glad Dale liked his work so much that it gave us an excuse to buy one!

Lewis and Clark Caverns

...to which Lewis and Clark never really traversed.

Just one of the many interesting facts that I learned last weekend!  Dale and I have all too late realized that summer is ending, and are trying to store up summer fun for the dreary winter months like so much blubber in a bear's belly.  This week it was a 6 hour drive north to Butte, MT to camp with the in-laws!

Dale's parents had just bought a new trailer and wanted to try it out, so they invited us to attend at a half-way point between us and them.  The total attendees included Dale, myself, Dallin (bro-in-law), Warren and Wendy.  5 people snug up in a trailer as wide as a street lane and about 20 feet long.  It ended up being a really good time. 

The camping ground was nestled in a stone quiet valley with a view of the stars like I haven't seen in years.  At Dale's encouragement, I saw three shooting stars just by staring into the same spot for two minutes at a time.  I had the presence of mind to make a wish on one of them.  (Grant my wish, Universe!!!)

We came on Friday night, toured the caverns on Saturday, and left after a Sunday morning hang out.  It was quite awesome.  Great food each day, an excuse to be outside in warm weather, and a campfire each night.

Here is a picture: