Workin' Man

Today I rose and showered before 7 AM. I wore pleated pants and a belt. In my minivan, I fought the morning traffic to downtown. I wore a tie. I sat in a cubicle and attended an office meeting. I drove home through rushour traffic, in a minivan.

These are new things to me.

Quick recap because I'm too tired to go into details, although I'll probably post some pics soon.
Where was I? Ah yes, the Badlands of Utah.

FRIDAY we drove to the san rafael reef. The hiking is pretty flat except for sudden dryfalls which take some climbing to do. The canyon is amazing, many parts of it so narrow that my pack scraped both sides of the wall simultanously. These slot canyons are carved by water and refined by wind and sand. It's really amazing to be in there, with both walls shooting up over your head like you're walking on the bottom of a cravasse. This area is incredibly dry. The sand flows through your fingers like in an hourglass. We brought our own water since there was none to be had. Our route was to take us up one canyon, around the base of the uplift, and down another canyon. Roundtrip its 8.8 miles. We made it up the first canyon, stopped under a tree in the exposed uplift zone around noon for lunch and rest, and then pressed on as the uplift zone was pretty barren and open. We entered the other canyon looking for a good campsite to spend the night. We thought we'd found one on the topo maps that Uncle David had brought, and we were hiking towards it when we realized that we were at the fork in the trail where we had split off that morning. The cars were literally ten minutes away. We were still looking to camp, so we headed back and I scouted around, eventually finding an amazing spot atop the swell separating the two canyons. We had great weather, a small fire, and a constant breeze.

SATURDAY we packed up and were back at the car in twenty minutes. We drove back to Salt Lake city, admiring the strange and barren landscape, which was the source of most of the alien planets in Calvin and Hobbes. Got back to town around noon. Brenda and Carrie had already left for the day and so we got showered, cleaned up, and hit the town again as it was mother's day. We started at the department store first, then headed over to Centerpoint i.e. Little Scottsdale. Found a nice shirt at the Gap and talked Uncle David into keeping his aviator glasses instead of buying some new ones. Then we hit deserert industries, which is essentially a Penny's made of thrift donations. Lots of high quality clothes in good condition. I grabbed a linen blend cream sportcoat from Nordstroms and a more classic Haggar cord jacket. Afterwards, hit the State Wine Store and picked up a bottle of wine. After dinner we went out for ice cream.

SUNDAY I took a bike ride up the canyon behind thier house. Five miles, a mild incline all the way up. At the end of the bike raod, there were patches of snow on the ground and pine forrest. Five miles, I zoomed down in about twenty minutes, hardly pedaling at all. Nearly clipped a rattlesnake while I was at it. For dinner, my last one in town, we went out for barbeque.

MONDAY Uncle David drove me to the airport and I flew home. I realized that even with the waiting in line and the hassle, I get a high out of traveling through airports. Especailly with the ipod providing a suitably cool soundtrack. Sally and Gabriel met me at the airport and took me home. I'm looking forward to dinner with them Sunday. After I got home, I unpacked my gear and took a nap. Paid some attention to Suki, gave her a brush, took a shower, Then I drove down to Tuscon. I got down there in the early evening and hunted down Rick Joy's studio. Rick joy is an architect who does a lot of work with rammed earth, and I'd gone through a Rick Joy adolation phase. I found his studio down a dirt alley in a barrio near the downtown. I parked by a crumbling adobe warehouse. The gate to the studio was open, so I walked in. The studio has a large glass wall which looks right out to the courtyard, so two young architects looked up at me when I came in the courtyard. Feeling slightly awkward, I tried the glass door and poked my head in. I told them I was an archtiecture student and if I could look around a bit. One of the guys gave a kind of resigned sigh and got up, and gave me a great tour of the studio, showing me everything from the bathrooms, to the rental apartments around the back, answeing my questions and talking about the architecture. It was very surreal as he had an Austrian accent and was a good six inches taller than me, showing me around distinctive critical regionalism architecture in Tucson. Told me he'd met Rick Joy while he was teaching at Harvard. After the tour, I thanked him and continued on to Cassie's apartment. Cassie was still at work, but Julie and some of her friends were there watching the season finale of Gray's Anatomy.

This is really dragging, and I'm still only on MONDAY. I sincerely apologize to you, my dear reader. Myself, I'm going to bed because I have to get up at 6 AM tomorrow for work.