State Fair

After two years of intentions, I finally entered some items into the Arizona State Fair. Below are the items I entered. I never intended to enter my quilt, because the ones I saw last year were so spectacular, then I saw a category called my first quilt. I figured that is a good category for me; although, it means I don't have it on my bed for the next two months.

This belt I just finished on my inkle loom and they actually had a category for that.

My knife sheath went into the beadwork category.

The blue basket went under "natural matierials" while the red basket went under "my first basket."

Finally some photos of my house

I am going to show some before and after shots. The first two photos were taken looking into my tv room from the front door. Here is a closeup of the paintings Grandma June did of mom and dad. Thats me in the painting of dad when I was 11 or 12.

The hall bathroom.

The second bedroom without any artwork up yet. I'm still figuring out how much work I want to put into it since I haven't decided whether to get a roommate or not.

Below is the kitchen before and after.

My dream to have a project room where I can have all my tools and a work table always at the ready has been realized. You can see I hung mom's tapestry, stained glass quilt and the girls dress for which she won first place ribbons at the Utah state fair and Nevada state fair. In the lower right hand corner of the second picture is one of mom's hardangers resting on a wooden towel rack that dad made which I haven't hung up yet. The red and blue wall hanging is an amish piece. Maybe they will give me inspiration.

photos from the Trail

The trailwalkers on my rotation at the start of the week.a double rainbow I saw after a monsoon storm.the sunrise one morning.

To finish the week off, I finally got some decent lightening photos.

when will the crazy end?

Wednesday: monstrous monsoon storm which made the roads to muddy to get the van down the road. We tried to get it up just a little hill and got stuck. Good thing we had a few Trailwalkers to push the van out of the mud. We had to shuttle the TWs in for switchouts using the suburban with its off-road tires and 4-wheel drive. It still took a couple hours to get everyone where they needed to be.

Thursday: two trips to the hospital. The first was to get a youngwalkers hand set that had punched a tree and broken his hand. The second was for a knife cut on a thumb which required stitches. The second trip took much longer than necessary for a few reasons and we did not get the youngwalker back into the band until 2:30am, then I had to hike back out to my vehicle which meant I did not get to bed until after 3am.

Friday: James and I spent the afternoon scouting a drop-off spot for rabbitstick. As we were waiting for them to arrive, we got a call saying they had broken down about 15 miles east of Payson. Yet another trip for me back to town. Thankfully there were only two YWs and we were able to get seven people plus all of the rabbitstick gear on top of my gear to fit in the suburban.

Saturday: I thought I would take this morning to drop off a much needed satelite phone battery to the walkabout band that wasn't hiking. On my mile and a half journey into them, I got a call saying a YW had walked away from his band and wasn't talking to anyone. I was already feeling incredibly stressed because I had bands strewn out over miles and then this call put me over the top. I walked into the walkabout band, found Sam and lost it. I just broke down and cried. I could barely tell her what was going on because of how hard I was crying. For the first time since becoming Ridge, I hated my job. I could feel myself becoming cynical because all I got to deal with was all the problems but I never get to see the good aspects anymore. Sam listened and gave me a hug. I ended up spending about two hours with her and Jeremy just laughing and talking. They even taught me how to make a split twig figure (I've made them before out of wire but never been successful out of plants until now). I did pamper myself that evening and went out to dinner at a local restaurant in Young called the antler cafe.

Sunday: pulled James from one band and we split one of the boys bands becaus they had a sitter that was preventing the other boys from hiking to final D. I did get to have a great conversation with James, Brittany and Matt O. over the radio. They happened to be all trying to check-in at the same time so we just chatted with each other while we watched the sunset. I was lucky enough to get a picture of it.

Monday: the car battery died after morning check-ins so I hiked two miles to a ranch to see if they had jumper cables. Of course no one was home, so I sat on the road until a nice retired couple showed up and gave me a ride into Young. I went to the ranger station and someone there was nice enough to give me a ride back out. He had a jumper box with him which we discovered was not charged. So off he went back to town and found some cables. It took a total of four hours to get the car finally going again from the time I began hiking. Then I picked up the other boys band, that was so behind in hiking they were never going to make it up, and drove them to Final D.

Tuesday: made another trip to the hospital with the same YW who had broken his hand because he had to get a pin put in it to hold the bone in place. That night the suburband battery died again and a Shadow was unable to leave the Trail.

Wednesday: got up early and drove to Payson to buy a jumper box for the red sub. Got the vehicle jumped and the Shadow was on her way. When I went into the bands, to give them fresh radio batteries, one YW said I looked like I hadn't slept in over a week. I certainly felt like it. I did not have any mental energy left.

This photo is of Haigler Creek which was our Final D. Its up in the ponderosa pines and manzanitas. There are blue jays and when the wind blows through the pines, I feel like I am back in Tahoe.

I think this week is tied with the week where transfers got screwed up as the craziest week I have had as Ridge. I made six trips to Payson during the week (usually I only go through Payson as we are heading to or from the Trail)

Epic Storm

This week I was able to experience the craziest monsoon storm I have ever seen on the Trail. It came in two parts. The first part, Jeremy my windwalk, and I were trying to out run while trying to move vehicles from drop points to Final D. Jeremy was driving behind me and said he wished he could have gotten a picture of me driving into the storm as lightening is flashing down in front of us. I must admit it was a little terrifying driving towards the lightening, but I had to get back to where the bands could reach me. As the rain began, we picked up the pace just in case the creek flash flooded and we were not yet across it. Despite the roads being little rivers of their own, we were able to get to the top of a hill for check-ins just as the rain let up. The second part of the storm came very suddenly. One minute it was pleasant and looking like a quiet evening and then the trees were whipping around us, the rain was pouring in sideways and lightening was exploding every couple seconds. It looked like a hurricane mixed with mother nature's strobe light. Jeremy and I were able to get off the top of the hill just in time, good thing becase I'm pretty sure lightening hit the hill we had been on, but we still had to stay up high in case the bands needed to radio us. At one point, I had to look down because the flashes were coming so quickly it began to make me sick. It was pretty terrifying. During the storm I made a call to Hillary, the field team member on-call, for the evening check-in. I couln't even have a conversation with her because Jeremy and I kept yelling things like "Holy crap" and "did you see that one" and "I felt the explosion." Needless to say everyone back in town was worried about all of us on the Trail.

I'm glad Jeremy and I were able to get across Cherry Creek when we did because we got a radio call from one of the girls bands telling us the creek had risen by several feet. Those poor bands got drenched. Normally everyone has to sleep under their own shelters, but some people were so cold from being wet that two or three huddled under one shelter to stay warm through the night since no one could get a fire started. Once again we were watched over by the Creator and everyone was safe.

Yes being the crazy person I am, I had to get a photo of the lightening. I have wanted a good lightening picture since I moved to Arizona 7 years ago. I did wait until the storm had moved a couple miles to the west and the rain let up before I tried getting any shots (mostly because I didn't want to stick my head out of the suburban while it was pouring).

Dust Storm

I got to see the coolest dust storm yesterday evening. It was a massive haboob, arabic name for such storms, that was 50 miles wide. I watched it from my house as it come up from the south. It was a wall of dirt and dust probably close to a thousand feet high. It was a little creepy because it was silent as it moved towards me and then it hit. There was so much dust; I could feel it in my mouth and all my clothes were covered. It got so dark that the street lights turned on. It was awesome!

How I spent my july 4th weekend

Yesterday Sam, Devin and I hiked to the highest point in Arizona. It is a mountain called Humphrey's Peak in the San Francisco Mountains above Flagstaff. It is part of an old volcano that was almost 16,000 feet high before it blew its top a few thousand years ago.

We left Tempe at 6 am and was hiking by 9 am. It is 4.5 miles one way and you gain 3500 feet in elevation. That is more elevation gain per mile than when I hiked out of the Grand Canyon. Even though its just a steady uphill climb, my knees felt it on the way back down, but I feel great today. The peak is at 12,633 feet. This means I have broken my personal highest elevation mark by over 1,000 feet which was set previously when I was backpacking in the Uintah mountains in college. I did get some altitude sickness but when it began to go from a headache to feeling neauseated, I was only a quarter mile from the top. If I was that close, I was going to summit. While at the top, we watched the monsoon clouds bring rain to the dry forests along the mogollon rim and around the mountain. Normally it is always chilly and windy at the summit, but we could not have had a better day for hiking. It was probably 75 at the summit and barely a breeze but when it did blow it felt wonderful. The thunder clouds of monsoons came in just as the sun was becoming uncomfortable but it only sprinkled on us just as we were beginning our descent and there was no lightening.

Sam, who is starting her first week as a trailwalker on wednesday, asked me to do her fire stepping and I was happy to oblige. We had the stepping at the top of the mountain. It was awesome to do that for her while looking over Arizona. I would have done her rabbitstick stepping up there as well but there were no trees for her to throw her rabbitstick at. There was alpine tundra with beautiful little wildflowers. This means the life zones of Arizona go all the way from sand dunes through the chapparal flats to juniper/pinon to ponderosa to tundra. Along the hike, I even saw fireweed and bluebells which grow in Alaska.

After the hike, we drove to Snowflake to attend the Taylor rodeo. I wore my pearl snap shirt, jeans and leather belt complete with belt buckle. I would have worn my new cowboy hat but it was already dark by the time we arrived so I didn't have a need. You could tell we were in mormon ranching country when they announced that one of the bullriders was one of the local bishops. The rodeo clown compared Obama to one of the bulls that wouldn't get out of arena. He said we got him in there but now we can't get him out. The announcer responded that we'd get him out by roping him just like the cowboys had to do to the bull. They also had fireworks before the bullriding and many people sang along with the patriotic songs including myself. I had so much fun! I wish I could go to the one on July 24 because they have a lot more silly events as well as the usual ones but unfortunately I will be on the Trail.

After the rodeo we headed home and I got back to my house about 1:30 am. It had been an eventful day and we had driven across quite a bit of the state but it was worth it. I love that places seem to be so accesible in Arizona.