Can’t believe it’s been a week already since my brother, Joel, and I went snow-shoeing in the mountains of Utah near SLC where he lives. We had the perfect day-sunny, 30 degrees or so, fresh-fallen snow on top of 5-6 feet of base snow. Exquisite conditions that delighted us for over 3 hours as we trekked up a mountain on a ski trail and then back down the mountain off-trail. We stopped often to rest and catch our breath, but most of all to listen to the silence, to chat for abit, and to watch mini-avalanches of tiny snow pieces loosened by our snow-shoes as they would trickle quietly down the mountain leaving skinny pencil trails.
Joel, with snow shoes on and ready to start
Luckily, he had an extra pair of snow-shoes for me and gaters to spare. I'm still not sure if the snow-shoes he borrowed me were the "easier" ones or the "harder" ones. I'd like to think that I had to work harder than he did, but maybe not:)
This picture is here for Jess, because I thought of her often as we passed many aspen trees.
Some of the shadows we saw were quite detailed
We shared some oranges and power-bars at the top before heading back down
The day before, we drove to a shooting range and did something much noiser. It was my very first time in a gun shop/shooting range, so my anxiety was up abit. In the back of my mind, I kept hoping that everyone in the place was in touch with reality.
We signed in here at the counter and bought a couple of targets and earplugs before heading downstairs
Joel became my instructor, since he's already a very good shot. We both wore head-phones on top of our earplugs to block the noise of ourselves and others who were also shooting. Joel had to shout instructions and I could barely hear his voice. Lip-reading helped just abit. He wore safety glasses and I just used my regular glasses for eye protection. Wearing tri-focals makes for an interesting shooting experience. Hmmm......how far is the target away now? Should I use the upper, middle, or lower section of the glass to sight/aim?
With all the stimuli and initial anxiety about using a real gun and being around other un-known people who were also using real guns, my hands were shaking at first. Once I got the hang of it though, my appetite for this sport started growing. Joel was surprized, I think, to discover that his instructions resulted in a big sis sharp shooter
A close-up of one of the targets we used. We each nailed a few good shots on this one
An unexpected part of this trip to SLC was getting to see Derek. He came through SLC on his way from San Diego to the Portland area. He arrived in time for supper, stayed overnight and left the same morning I did, only a few hours earlier.
During the time I was in SLC, Lloyd was at a conference in Atlanta, GA. We synced our flights so that we departed DSM on Wednesday AM, and arrived back to DSM Saturday evening at nearly the same times. His flight to Atlanta was via St. Louis, and his flight back to DSM was via Dallas. My flight to SLC was via Dallas, and back to DSM was via Denver. So we were all over the country and kept in touch by texting as we hoped our flights would sync like we had planned. As it turns out, my flight back to DSM was 5 minutes late, and his flight back to DSM was 10 minutes early, which crunched our “wait for each other time” to only 12 minutes. Wow. Perfect timing……….
The mountains in Des Moines are just abit dirtier than the ones in Utah. This giant snow pile is at the base of our neighbor's driveway. Ours hadn't been shoveled yet.
As of yesterday, all of the snow and ice that was on our driveway is chipped away and melted. No more crunchy tire sounds. Unless, that is, winter isn’t finished.
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