Angel K's Rock

Our last stop on our desert trip was to camp at K's Rock for a few days. We named it "K's Rock" because we discovered this secluded and beautiful campsite on our last trip to the desert with K.

In the desert, this is my image of heaven...

K is on our minds a lot when we're camping in this spot. There will always be a deep sadness and grief in my heart over losing her at a relatively young age to bone cancer. However, with each year, the gratitude for the incredible love she showed all of us grows.

She prepared my heart for a dog like Shyla. This picture is of me and Shyla but, four years ago, it would have been of me and K.

We brought some daffodils with us on the trip. They flourished in the LabMobile until the end of the trip. Then, we put them at the base of K's Rock as a remembrance of our special girl. Shyla lay next to them at sunset the evening before we headed home.

K's Rock would be a favorite desert place for us even if it didn't have such sentimental meaning because it's so beautiful and so quiet. However, the memories of K make it an even better place. We remember our Angel K, we tell stories about her, and we smile. Her huge heart and unquenchable joy for life made her so special.

Our beautiful country

On this Memorial Day, I find myself thankful for the beauty of our country that so many have fought to preserve. During our time in the desert, the song "America, the beautiful" wafted through my mind many times.

You may notice that we often stop at K's Rock first when we go to the Utah desert. The reason is that we love it there, and it's the closest great campsite that we know of. It makes a peaceful and beautiful place for me to recover from the spine pain that traveling always evokes. This past trip was especially hard because the disc just below my lumbar spinal fusion is getting worse and worse. Sitting in a car seat was agonizing.

Movement is key to controlling the pain so Shyla and I mountain biked to a favorite overlook while we stayed at K's Rock.

One of the best parts is being able to share the mountain bike ride and the view with Shyla. I shared it many times with K, but not over the last couple of years of her life. It had become too hard for her to run up to this viewpoint by then. That fact makes me appreciate this phase of Shyla's life even more.

After we girls mountain biked and the boys ran, all of us hung around camp, reclining in our super comfortable La Fuma chairs. We watched a pair of bluebirds working hard raising a brood that seemed to be stashed in a crevice in K's rock. It was warm, sunny, and so quiet.

Each day, clouds rolled in at sunset so I never got true "sunset golden light" while we were there but Shyla and I had fun with mini-photoshoots anyway. In this photo, she was just about to wave at the camera!

After darkness fell, the clouds sometimes cleared out so that I could photograph the stars. The second night at K's Rock was very special because my time lapse photos showed both the stars spinning around Polaris and moonrise. At the start of the series of photo, K's rock was completely dark because the moon hadn't risen yet. By the end of the series of photos, K's Rock glowed red, bathed by moonlight.

Here's a very short time lapse video of the stars spinning and the moon rising that night. You can watch it at Youtube if you have trouble with the embedded version here.

And here was the final photo after an hour and twenty minutes of photos. The moonlight made it look almost like daytime.

The beauty of our natural world astounds me.

Happy Starry Winter Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice. It feels like such a symbolic milestone every year. Now, minute by minute, our days will get longer. The "evening" hike that I take every day with the Duo will get closer to actually being in the "evening"!

While we were in the desert in late November, I took a lot of star photos, partly because the nights were so long. The sky was dark enough to photograph the stars starting at about 6:30 PM!

One of my favorite places to gaze at the sky is K's Rock. Its distinctive shape and red color make a wonderful foreground for the stars. To visualize the stars' movement, I took a series of exposures over more than 2 hours. I made a time lapse video, if you'd like to see how the stars spun over time (actually, the Earth was spinning, but that's not how it looks when you are on Earth!). 

You can watch either here or at Youtube.

This was the final photo, after I stacked together all of the exposures. I love how the North Star barely peeks over K's Rock.

Happy Starry Sunday and Winter Solstice to you!

Our Days in the Desert

One of the things that I was excited to do in the desert was to ride a regular mountain bike, not my monster snow bike, which will be my main steed for the winter.

We never got an early start on any of our rides. It was quite cold at night, falling into the teens at least once. So, we'd laze around in our sleeping bags until the sun warmed the world a little bit. We brought sleeping bags especially for the dogs but they always ended up in ours instead! This was the first time that Shyla was totally comfortable with snuggling all night long with the pack. Previously, she'd retreat to a more solitary sleeping spot after everyone was asleep.

After our slow morning start, Shyla and I went for a mountain bike ride while the boys went for a trail run. Shyla was incredibly well behaved - an amazing mountain biking companion. She just turned three, and I think she's perfect! But, then again, I'm biased!

You perhaps can see the leash on her in the photo above. We rode in an area with BIG cliffs (like 2500' high) so I leashed her whenever we were close to them.

The view from the cliffs was breath-taking. We stayed back from the edge.

Later in the trip, we took a sunset hike down in the desert sculptures below the cliff in the photos. I'll share some photos of that landscape in a future post.

We both kept all feet on the ground the whole time!

After our daily ride, it seemed like sunset snuck up on us almost right away! The days are so short now. The next photo is what we call "K's Rock", glowing in the light of the setting sun. We discovered a hidden campsite below it on K's last trip to the desert.

The rock got warm in the sunshine, and we all reveled in it for the brief afternoons. I love seeing Shyla enjoy the desert like I do.

All of us relaxed and even snoozed at the base of K's Rock at one time or another.

And then, before we were ready for it, the sun would sink to the western horizon, and I'd snap some warm sunset photos of our chocolate girl.

As soon as the sun set, the air would become truly cold, and we'd retreat to the LabMobile. I'd set up my tripod just outside it, and I'd quickly go out to capture photos as night fell. I loved being able to see a few stars twinkling in the sky still painted bright colors by the sunset.

As much as I love the mountains, I love the red rock desert too. It is such an alien landscape that reminds me, time after time, that I am a tiny speck in the history of the world.

Desert Beauties

I love the colorful Collared Lizards that live in the desert. I remembered where I'd seen a pair at this time last year so I made that my bike ride destination one day. Believe it or not, a male and female Collared Lizard pair was in that spot!

The male is more blue than the female. This guy was pretty shy and hid soon after I arrived. Both of them were big, perhaps about 10" long, including their tails.

To my surprise, the female seemed curious about me. She kept walking so close to my feet that I couldn't even focus my camera on her at times.

Finally, she perched on some rocks near me to keep an eye on me.

She really did keep track of me.

It was fun to see her so closeup. You can see her nostrils, her ear holes, and the details around her eyes that almost look like eyelashes.

Apparently, this species is among the longest lived wild lizard species. They don't reproduce until they're 2-3 years old, and then they produce two clutches of eggs each year. I'm guessing that this male-female pair was together at the same time and same place as last year for a reason!

Finally, I feared that I was stressing out the female so I took off to finish my ride, leaving her on her rocky perch.

That was our last full day at K's Rock, playing around in the sunshine. Do you see the Runner peeking at me from the top of K's Rock? Apparently, it's a fairly easy scramble to get to the top when you start from the other side... but even easy scrambling was too much for my spine so I stayed on the ground.

In fact, I get scared when the Runner is up there so I distract myself by looking at other things like flowers. A Prickly Pear cactus...

And, taking pictures of our canines is another good distraction.

That evening, the clouds rolled in, looking very threatening but it didn't rain.

We gave thanks for a wonderful time in this familiar and gorgeous spot as we mentally prepared to leave the next day.

It was a peaceful and healing stay at K's Rock but it was time to move along to a new place in the desert. My back was feeling substantially better after our days of lazing around in this idyllic campsite.

We'll be back at K's Rock after the summer!

Desert winter, Mountain winter

I told you about our unexpected 2 day stay in town while our LabMobile was being repaired. When it was fixed, we were thrilled to be out of the "city" and back in the desert. However, the weather really wasn't desert-like.

We awakened to this sight one morning.

We had two full days left for camping after the LabMobile repair but the desert world was socked in by freezing fog and even snow for the entire two days. We didn't sit in those chairs again after returning to camp. It was too cold and damp.

It was bizarre to see the desert coated in rime ice. I know that the high desert has a real winter every year but I've never seen it before.

We didn't see the sun or stars at all in those last two days. This was the brightest picture of Shyla that I captured!

At night, the world was so dark that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. And, the world was completely silent. The low clouds and fog muffled every sound. Living in our campsite at night was like being in a sensory deprivation chamber.

I have to say that I still felt that the trip was fun and relaxing. By the time we drove up to our house after the trip, I felt like we'd been away for a very long time. That's a sign that it was a good vacation in my estimation. We thanked our lucky stars that we had the LabMobile which has a propane heater in it. Without that, we would have been very cold at K's Rock on those last two days.

We came home to one of the longest snaps of incredibly cold weather that I've experienced here. In the past, we've had a couple of days here or there of temperatures below 0°F. However, over the past week, it has been below zero almost all the time.

Fortunately, Shyla is enthusiastic about getting out into the world regardless of the temperature. She and I just need to keep moving to stave off the cold. I believe it was -15°F when I took the photo below.

 It's undeniably winter here. It's a tough season, very tough, but it's also beautiful.

Now, in my mind, I just need to make to the Winter Solstice - after that, the world will get brighter and brighter!

The Unexpected

We awakened on our third day in the desert to fog everywhere. Fog in the desert? Very odd.

It would creep up the canyons toward us and then retreat.

By that point in our trip, we'd decided to stay at K's Rock for the duration of our time in Utah. We reasoned that it would be more relaxing if we didn't move around. We also were leery of how much snow and mud we'd seen in other areas.

However, we didn't have enough water and food to last an entire week without resupplying. So, we decided to spend the daylight hours in camp and then to drive the 30+ miles to Moab for a resupply run.

The sun didn't fully shine all day but I took some photos of the Duo. R looked so handsome against the red rock.

He and his sister focused on sometime behind me. I don't know what.

Then, Shyla turned toward me, just before the Duo bolted away and started playing wildly.

Dusk fell shortly after that, and we hopped in the Labmobile to drive to Moab. We left a tent, a couple of chairs, a camp stove and a few other small items to "claim" the campsite.

We drove along the Colorado River, enjoying the foggy dusk light on the cliffs and water. Then, I smelled something funny. Just as I mentioned it, the LabMobile lost power. The Runner managed to coast until he could pull into one of the extremely rare pull-outs along that tortuous road.

The engine had conked out and refused to restart. The Runner tried to figure out what was wrong, and a nice couple stopped to try to help us. However, it seemed to be something very major - not within the realm of a roadside repair.

That canyon has almost no cell reception so we assumed that we couldn't call anyone and would have to spend the night in that pull-out. Then, just in case, we decided to walk around outside the LabMobile to see if we could get even a single bar of cell reception, and we did!!! We called 911, who sent a "wrecker" to transport the LabMobile and us to Moab.

Let me tell you - that was a very scary ride. The van was anchored down atop a platform behind a strong truck. We rode in the van. At first, I closed my eyes because the sight of the big Colorado River down below us as we wound along this crazy road from such a high perch was terrifying. Then, I realized I was going to get carsick if I kept my eyes closed so I spent the rest of the time rambling on and on about how much experience I was "certain" that the driver had. Indeed, he drove very safely, and we made it to Moab fine.

He towed us to his repair shop, and he rented us a Honda Civic so we could get around. However, it was late at night so we just went to sleep in the repair shop parking lot (inside the LabMobile). That was not a great night, let me tell you!

The next day was Thanksgiving so the mechanic wasn't working. We found a dog-friendly hotel, and we checked in. That was challenging for Shyla because everything about staying in a hotel was new. And, it wasn't a quiet hotel. The sounds of loud kids' voices in the hallways seemed to spook her. But, she gradually settled in, realizing that we'd keep her safe. We even managed to go a short distance outside of Moab (in the rented Civic) for a short bike ride/run in the foggy winter air, and that was fun.

Amazingly, the repair guy diagnosed the problem as a blown alternator by 9AM on Black Friday. And, he found the necessary part in Moab that morning. We had our LabMobile back by that afternoon!!! We were so impressed with the mechanic. He was honest, polite, and very good at his job.

As we drove out of Moab (Yay!), we started wondering if our "stuff" would still be at K's Rock when we returned. Much to our delight, no one had touched our camp (in fact, I don't think anyone had even been near it). It felt so good to be "home", even if our resupply trip to town had taken 2 days longer than expected and winter had arrived at K's Rock while we were gone!

Idyllic Desert Days

Because it's -10°F here right now with fresh snow on the ground, I'm going to reminisce about our desert trip to help me stay warm. The first few days at K's Rock were beautiful - sunshine, clear skies, and relaxation. It was cold at night but the warm sun on our faces during the daytime more than made up for it.

R relaxed in the sun at the base of K's Rock, in a spot where K herself basked.

The hardest part of each day was dragging ourselves out of the warm cocoons of our sleeping bags, where we slept cuddled with the dogs. And, yes, the dogs had sleeping bags too!

Then, we'd enjoy a quick breakfast before the boys would go for a trail run and we girls would go for a mountain bike ride. Later, we'd all relax in camp, during the all-too-short daylight hours. The long dark hours are one drawback of "winter" camping - but it does allow for lots of star photos.

One of my favorite parts of the sunny days was sunset or the "magic hour" when the sunlight is so warm and glowing.

As sunset approached, I'd take Shyla to the base of K's Rock for photos. Shyla has come to love her role as my photography model. R is not as crazy about having a camera pointed at him, which is part of why he isn't in as many photos as Shyla. R tends to start barking crazily at the camera!

Yes, I still miss K, and I always will. But, this girl, Shyla, has won my heart.

I love seeing her at home on K's Rock.

Her favorite "trick" for the camera is to rest her chin between her paws. She does this on her own with no cue from me.

Her fur turns redder and redder as the sun sinks to the horizon.

K's Rock itself also becomes a glorious honey and red color as the last rays of sunshine touch it. I wonder how long this rock has stood tall and how many sunsets it has seen. The desert landscape makes me think about the history of the Earth because its layers are exposed for me to see.

K's Rock sits on a high spot in the desert landscape. We could see the sunset line creeping to the east from the back of K's Rock. Look at that river canyon in the distance, with glowing red cliffs. The sunset line had almost reached it.

The desert is so different from the alpine world where I usually live. After a week there, I feel as if I've been gone from the mountains for a very long time. I think that's part of why I love the desert - it's so alien. I adore its landscape for the stark glowing beauty that flows from it.