2017 Moab Adventure 5K Race

 A few years ago we went to Moab and I participated in an Adventure 5K race and the kids did an Adventure 1K race. It was so much fun I wanted to do it again, and the kids are now old enough they could do it too. We invited our friend, Brooke, who had moved to Colorado to join us, and fortunately she was able to. We met the night before at a hotel and went swimming (warm November!). The next morning we got up and headed to the race site. The marathoners had already started and the half-marathoners were in the process of leaving in waves.

We had time to do a little warm-up dancing.

Brooke got a family photo for us.


And I wanted a photo with Brooke. Can you spot our little photobomber?

The Adventure 5K started in four waves: competitive men, competitive women, recreational, and family and friends. Brooke, Desert Boy, and I started in the third wave, and my husband and Desert Girl started in the fourth wave. The trail quickly became single track.

Soon we were jumping across a creek.

Then it was up a hill and through a cave.

We could see a line forming on the other side of a ravine for the first rope section.

We climbed a ladder and got in line. We had about a 15-20 minute wait.

The line behind us was even longer, and my husband and Desert Girl had to wait an hour here.

Desert Boy was glad when it was his turn, and he scrambled right up.

We had some nice slickrock running on the other side. Here the trail was marked with flour.

Desert Boy started getting really tired here.

Soon we had some downhill, including another roped section.

Then run through a culvert!

Next came the obstacle course. We had to crawl under the cargo nets.

There was even a burlap sack hop.

The balancing was a bit tricky. So was the frisbee golf.

Brooke finished quite fast, sixth woman overall. And a young lady was the overall winner for the Adventure 5K.

Because of their long wait, we had time to go back and find my husband and Desert Girl at the obstacle course.

We've since implemented a couple of these obstacles in our yard!

It would be fun to put in even more.

Here they are near the end.

This adventure 5k race is a little pricey, but a lot of fun. We didn't like the waits for the cliff, so if we do it again, we'll try to be faster in the first part (and not start in the last wave). I'm also really tempted to do the half-marathon, it would be a super pretty course.

Next post: the rest of the Moab trip. You can't go to Moab and just do one thing!

Ice Skating above 10,000 Feet

 My friend Jenny told me that Stella Lake was frozen and that they had gone ice skating on it. What!? Stella Lake is above 10,000 feet in Great Basin National Park. Usually the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive is closed in mid-October, but because of the lack of precipitation, it was still open in mid-November.

So Desert Girl and I headed up there Sunday morning, leaving at 7 a.m. to try to get there when it was coldest. When we arrived, we found that there was open water on part of Stella Lake. Uh, oh.

Fortunately the little cove on the east side was frozen over with about two-inch thick ice. So we put on our skates and gingerly stepped out on the ice.

Desert Girl was absolutely delighted. She fell in love ice skating last winter, and we even bought some skates for her (fortunately they adjust to four different sizes, so they'll last more than one season). She hadn't quite found her rhythm at Fire and Ice last January, but she sure wanted to try again!

She had such a good attitude and was so fun to be with!

The bubbles in the ice were fascinating.

Desert Girl did not want to stop. I had to take a break, but she kept going.

The ice was so beautiful, nice and smooth.

I climbed up the bank to get more of an overview of the lake. You can see the cove where we were. It was at most one foot deep under the ice.

We then went to Teresa Lake and had a great time skating there, but my phone battery crashed in the cold and I couldn't take any photos. Maybe that was a good thing, because it made me want to go back! The weather cooperated, so after school on Wednesday, Desert Girl and I headed back up the mountain.

We hiked to Teresa Lake, arriving about four p.m. Desert Girl chatted on the hike there, she was so thrilled to be skating again, and the hike went very fast.

I was excited when we got to the lake, because the clouds were turning colors and the ice still seemed thick enough. (I was a little worried because it was late in the day and temps had been above freezing.)

Desert Girl kept calling it Teresa Pond because it was so small. A lot of the water evaporates, and the lake shrinks during the summer. This summer it stayed big longer than usual, but it still got small in the fall.

Desert Girl called me over to look at a peanut in the ice. This is what she pointed out.

The ice was mostly smooth, although there were a couple interesting depressions in it. People had thrown rocks on the ice, and they had frozen in just enough that we couldn't move them. So we had some obstacles to avoid.

The clouds kept moving fast, the light kept changing, and I felt like I was in a magical world. Desert Girl improved her skating quite a bit.

 We found some evidence of higher lake levels on the south shore.

More fun patterns.

 Finally we were at the last light. We skated over to the edge, thanking God for such a marvelous place and experience. We had a pleasant twenty-minute dark hike back to the vehicle. The memories will last much, much longer!

I don't know if we'll ever have the opportunity to skate on these lakes again, as usually we have snow. But if the weather works out, we will surely be back, because this is an amazing place to go ice skating.

It Followed Them to School One Day

 So after the county fair in August, we still had one sheep left. It was a little underweight, so we decided to keep it for a couple more weeks. Sheep are very social animals, so we let it into the yard so it could socialize a little more. Then it started following us (and the dog) all over. Including to school one day. It had managed to find a way around a fence and then jumped a cattle guard. I was impressed.

The sheep watched with interest as the school bus came.

I think if our dog had gotten on the bus, the sheep would have too.

The sheep also followed us to the swimming hole. The dog and sheep got along pretty well.

And another day the sheep got out and started following Desert Boy to school.

I even got phone calls one morning, Your sheep is walking down main street.
I headed over there and made sure I had a camera ready!

 Life never gets boring!

A Trip to Ozark Caves in Arkansas

We're going to take a trip out of the desert for this post. In mid-October I headed to northwest Arkansas. For the first few days, I was at beautiful Blanchard Springs Caverns, an amazing US Forest Service (USFS) show cave. It has huge passageways and huge speleothems. It also has amazing cave biota, including at least two kinds of cave salamanders, plus isopods, pseudoscorpions, and more. 

The reason I was there was to assist with a USFS video for CavesLIVE. This is an educational project, and in mid-February, a free video will be available on their website. In mid-March, there will be a live question and answer session. It's geared towards grades 4-8, but anyone is welcome to view the video and check out all the resources on the website. Plus, You might recognize someone in the video! 

The video was filmed by a professional film company, but most of us definitely weren't professional actors! Fortunately there was a teleprompter and the crew was very friendly. Below are two friends in Tyvek suits ready to do the hydrology part of the filming where they put some dye into a spring. I loved how the yellow stood out!

We had filming in various parts outside and inside the cave.  It was great to get to know these ladies better and everyone else involved.

It was really interesting observing the filming process. We filmed the opening and closing the first day. The next two days it was the middle parts. We hoped we had good continuity!

Next it was on to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for the National Cave and Karst Management Symposium. Eureka Springs is an interesting town, built there because of its 60+ springs, which were thought to have medicinal healing value. Now they are all polluted and you shouldn't drink from any of them. It's still a gorgeous place, and I made it a point to get out and run every morning so I could do some sightseeing.


This little free library was so cute.

A Carnegie librarie. There was moss growing on rocks and building stones everywhere. It was so different than the desert!

The Catholic Church up on the hill.

 We had a field trip one day, and I chose to go on the geology trip down the Buffalo National River, the first national river in the U.S. It's 135 miles of free-flowing water. We just saw a few miles.

We visited a couple shelter caves, saw awesome fossils, and learned more about some of the issues facing the river. Here I am with my paddling partner.

A little more view of the river.

And some friends paddling in to the take-out spot.

Eureka Springs is very hilly, and the Crescent Hotel is up at the top. Sunrise one morning...

I found the trail network near Harmon Park and surprised these deer.

And there are hidden secrets all over.

CaveSim came. This is a trailer with a simulated cave in it. What makes it extra special is that there are sensors in the speleothems and cave critters. Anytime you touch one, the sensor records it. Your goal is to go through the cave without touching anything fragile and as fast as you can. It is so much fun! We're hoping Great Basin National Park might be able to get one to take to various places and teach about cave conservation.

The keynote speaker was Tom Aley, a longtime caver and hydrologist from Ozark Underground Laboratory. He spoke about the history of NCKMS and also related some entertaining tales, such as a house in a cave that leaked a lot. Hmm, go figure.

It was an enjoyable getaway to a part of the country I had never visited before. I did feel a little claustrophobic with all the trees around. And everything was so wet and moldy! I actually missed the desert dryness. But it was a great place to visit, and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity.

If you're every heading to Arkansas, I highly recommend Blanchard Springs Caverns and the Buffalo National River.

Wherever you are, don't forget to check out the CavesLIVE website! The goal of CavesLIVE is to raise awareness and understanding of caves and karst - a resource that is seldom seen and considered mysterious - and connect it to people's everyday lives.