Cooking Up a Storm

I found this cute kitchen at a thrift store and couldn't resist bringing it home for Desert Boy. He loves "helping" in the kitchen, and I thought it might be good to let him cook up his own recipes.

He likes all the buttons and knobs.

He also likes cooking different things in his pot, and spicing whatever it is regularly with salt and pepper.

The pie plate works as a mixing bowl.

Time to add something else to the pot. He regularly washes the dishes and puts things in the oven and refrigerator.

The best part was when I was cleaning the real kitchen and he wanted to clean his kitchen.

So far the cuisine from Desert Boy's kitchen has included spaghetti, broccoli soup, cake, and more. He has three plates to serve everything on.

He also gets a bit creative with some of his cooking tools, as you can see in this short video:

Cool Outhouse

When we go touring around old homesteads, we frequently see an old outhouse or two. But this one caught my attention, because it's not built like most outhouses. Most have planed lumber that is nailed together. Take a look at the size of logs on this outhouse--and how they're heald together. Why, it's a Lincoln log outhouse!

The door is slightly askew, but there's still a hole inside.

It's hard to make out the first word on the sign above the outhouse, but the second two words read "Guest Potty."

It looks like a fairly sturdy building even after decades. Good construction lasts. I have to wonder if anyone knows anything more about this outhouse and who went to so much work to put it together.

Mirror Lake Scenic Drive

On the weekend my husband and I visited Midway, Utah and Homestead Crater, we also took a scenic drive to Mirror Lake, located in the Uinta Mountains. To get there, we headed north from Midway and then east along the south edge of Jordanelle Reservoir. This huge reservoir is relatively new, from the 1990s. There have been many water projects in central Utah to transport water from the mountainous areas that receive lots of snow each winter to the Wasatch Front, where the majority of Utah's population lives.

Along the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway, which starts in Kamas, UT, we stopped at a sign denoting the Duchesne Tunnel. This six-mile long tunnel can carry up to 600 cfs of water, although late in the fall it was running less than 20 cfs.

We could just barely see the tunnel from the end of the little walk.

As we traveled further up the road, we passed beautiful meadows, lots of ATV trails, and many campsites with hunters. By late October most of the leaves had fallen off the trees, but we did see a bit of color in the coniferous forest due to insect kill.

We stopped at the overlook for the Provo River Falls, finding an ice-covered cascade. We were the only vehicle in the parking lot, and it was obvious that on a hot summer afternoon, this place would be packed and a lot of fun.

We wandered down the trail and then back up the river to enjoy the many waterfalls.

Needless to say, it was cold!

As we went further up the road, my husband started getting worried because we hadn't seen any other vehicles in a long time. Now out where we live, we take this for granted. And usually we're on valley bottoms. But this time we were up in the mountains, and we started thinking of had all the tales of people getting stranded in similar situations and trying to dig their way out of snow and walking 36 miles in circles and cutting off their big toes to have something to eat.

We knew that even though it was a beautiful day, there was a big storm coming. And so my husband imagined even worse scenarios.

Fortunately, before too long we got to Mirror Lake, a scenic lake with tall Uinta Mountains in the background. A bit of trivia: the Uintas are one of only three east-west trending mountain ranges in the U.S., and they are the longest of the three.

Here we were again the only vehicle in the parking lot. The campground, with over 75 sites, were closed. Ice was building along the shoreline. The lakeside trail was covered with snow. And a cold breeze kept us from venturing too far. But we figured we had come this far, we had better get out and see a little of it.

I'm trying to keep my hair out of my face in this photo. This would be a fun place to go back to and spend a couple nights camping. There are some great mountains nearby that wouldn't be too hard to climb, along with fishing, hiking, and just generally enjoying the outdoors.

But for now, the Mirror Lake area is coated in deep snow. The storm that arrived not too long after our visit dumped many feet of snow. I'm sure the lakes have nearly frozen over as the cold chill takes hold on the high terrain. But next spring, as the days get longer and the sun warms the mountain air, it will all reawaken. And fortunately we won't be trapped in our vehicle, waiting.

NaNoWriMo 2009

It's that time of year again--a month-long effort to write a novel. I did it last year and had a wonderful time letting my mind go free and turning off the self-editor for the most part. This year I'm going to give it a try again, realizing I have even less free time. But even if I can't do 50,000 words in a month, whatever I do is more than what I have now. It's also reassuring to know that thousands of other people are going through the same thing at the same time. So if you're ready to take the leap into literary abandon, join me in the craziness of NaNoWriMo!

Skeleton ABCs

I never could figure out how to rotate this clip without paying money or spending considerable time, so here's 49 seconds of goofiness tilted 90 degrees.