hello again, my dear ones...

Ahhh, fresh from four days away. Four days out of the county was so strange it seemed a little wrong, and now that we're back, it was not nearly long enough.

We left on Sunday morning and spent two days in Cedaredge with Wendell. Ryan and Ronda were also there, on a little vacation of their own. Wendell's job allows him seven days off in a row every month, a week that they lived for while Michelle was alive. Now, it is the week that their friends come to see Wendell. We all try to head off any time he might have to spend alone, since he already gets far more of it than he wants. We left the house with... lets see... three bikes, two snowmobiles on a trailer, a pair of cross country skis, and a set of golf clubs. And all the clothing to go with all the equipment. We used everything we took with us, living it up, since we actually had time to use them all. On sunday afternoon, Wendell and Bobby and I drove up onto the Mesa, where they dropped me off at the trailhead to the Skyline XC trail system, then drove a mile down the road to the snowmobile drop-off. As they sped across miles of open meadows and frozen lakes, I trudged over icy trails. The trail system was much smaller than I had expected, and I had finished a loop and was back to the trailhead much sooner than expected, so I headed across the space between me and the boys, off trail, so that they would not have to turn the truck and trailer around to come pick me up. I found myself herringbone-ing up steep hills, and flying down the backsides of them, bouncing roughly through frozen snowmobile tracks. As I hit track after track without falling, I began to gain a bit of confidence, and when I least expected it, one came across my path at just enough of an angle that my left ski caught in it, crossed over my right, stopped me abruptly, and sent me face- first through the crusted snow underneath me. I sat up, totally outraged and betrayed, and snatched off my sunglasses, pushed sideways and jammed down on the bump on top of my nose. That was it. Suddenly, I minded the wind that wouldn't stop blowing, I was just ticked off at the clouds that kept hiding the sun and I was cold because it was a windy overcast day and I could not get back to the truck fast enough. I got back to the truck just as my boys were pulling up on their snowmobiles, thirty minutes before our scheduled meeting time. Good thing I was there, because they would have gone to the trailhead looking for me, and I would have been at their trailhead, and our cell phones had no service, and that would have just been a peachy ending to the whole day. As they loaded up, Bobby cradled his three knuckles that he skinned on the end of a faulty spark plug, the reason they were back so early, and I inspected my tender face in the mirror, to discover a long scratch down my cheek, courtesy of the crusted snow I had stuck my face into. We went home to meet Ryan and Ronda, fresh from church, at Sonic for dinner. Oh, what is a veggie to do when the only meat and milk-free food available is doused in grease and overcooked? My chicken wrap filled me up, and reminded me that after three meat-free months, I am much less enamored with the taste of the stuff.

Yes, as a side note, I have not yet come to my senses as was predicted three months ago. In fact, quite the opposite. I did not decide to do the veggie thing because I am a PETA supporting, vegan shoe wearing animal rights activist, even though I am aware of the way that chickens are treated in chicken barns and egg factories, the way cows are slaughtered, the way dairy cows are overused and discarded after only a short and miserable life of milk production. I just do not think that little me not supporting them is going to make a difference, or cause the cogs of production to stutter in the least. I figure it's dead already, so it really doesn't care anymore. Actually it is the stuff they feed the stuff they inhumanely raise, that makes me a bit reluctant to bite off a big chunk of cooked flesh, not knowing where it originated from. Plus, I have realized that calorie control is actually not a dirty word when you can eat enough food that you do not constantly feel like a bottomless pit. Avoiding calorie bombs like meat and cheese makes it easy. I feel a little less despondent about my future health, knowing that I am fully supported by cancer research, my skin is behaving for once, and the energy levels and moods have not suffered in the least, thanks to those wonderful things called carbohydrates that I have been denying myself for so long. Even Mr.B. supports his wife's weird ways, because she suddenly has the body he married. I know, men...

Anyway, as long as we stay away from the fastest of fast food, eating vegan is not as difficult as one might think. Neither is a low-glycemic diet, B is discovering. Poor fellow pulled his pants down over his diminished behind today without unbuttoning them, right in the office, to demonstrate how a sugar-free and caffeine-free diet can cause shrinkage.

But back to our trip, on Monday, Ronda and I stayed in the house the entire day, chasing down kids, and chopping veggies and fruit for dinner, while the boys played nine holes. It amazed me how doing nothing, even napping in the middle of the afternoon, can be so exhausting that one needed to go to bed early. Tuesday, we all prepared to go our separate ways, Ryan and Ronda toward western Kansas, and wendell and us to eastern Utah. We met in grand junction for lunch yet, Famous Dave's barbeque, then made a quick stop for apples, nuts, and sunscreen, and hit the road. As we wound through the desert between I70 and Moab, the trees grew greener, until we dropped into the Colorado River Canyon, where brilliant green contrasted with red rock walls and muddy brown river. I found myself babbling uncontrollably the closer we got. We did not bother with checking into the cabins we had rented, but drove straight up the the Sand Flats recreation area and unloaded ourselves and our bikes at the trailhead to Slickrock bike trail. There is no way to describe it, being back on a bike after a six-month absence. There's ow, there's wow, there's the rush of being back in the saddle, of discovering that you still have it in you, that you can still do this. The now more familiar twists, ascents, descents, ledges and sand pits, the thrill of riding up the hill that you crashed on last time. A warm wind, and actual sweat, something we have not experienced for such a long time, we had almost forgotten what it was like.

Wendell took a seemingly nonthreatening foray off-trail, ended up on a sidehill, caught his pedal and crashed on the hairy edge of a drop-off. Caused us a brief stomache-plunging vision of having to phone home... Michelle would have done some chewing, had she been there to witness it. We have never missed her yelling at him to be careful more. That country terrified her as much as she loved it. She was so afraid of him falling off and killing himself, and if she lost him, she often said, she'd never survive it. We never actually thought that they wouldn't be able to grow old together. The dynamic has shifted in our group. We are no longer two couples. Now it is me and my boys. It is true that we push harder, since we do not need to protect her. She hated slowing us down, so we took any opportunity to take it easy. It was hard for her to take that she could not hike as fast uphill, or snowboard as fast downhill, or be a natural at sports the rest of us have been practicing for years. But I hate every drop of sweat, every burning muscle, because it means she is not along. We would trade anything to be able to see that blonde head coming into view over the petrified sand dunes on Slickrock. I turn down food I do not need, because we do not have each other to encourage each other to go for ice cream, a second piece of pizza, another bowl of soup. There's no need to go for a long ramble after dinner now, because there is no need to walk off all the food we just ate. Wendell just looks so completely lost and alone most of the time. He has his job, and he has golf, the two things he does with his time, and he says he is not always unhappy, but he cannot be happy either, because he just misses her so much.

Wednesday we had a big decision to make- whether to drive to Fruita for more biking, or hike in Moab. After a lot of discussion, we decided a hike in moab would be more comfortable for all, Wendell's back still a bit tender from his crash, say nothing of our bruised behinds not really wanting to sit on bikes seats, as much as we wanted them to. We hiked Negro Bill's Canyon instead, two and a half miles back to an arch over the shaded end of a canyon, water rushing down from above just under the rocks, not visible, but audible. It is a beautiful hike, I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area. Just do not do it in midday, because it is a very narrow canyon and it can become an oven if the sun is shining straight down into it.

We drove back to grand Junction for dinner, then back to wendell's place, where we stashed the snowmobiles in his garage for the winter, then headed back up the Mesa and toward home. Pictures, you say? oh, yeah, bobby forgot the camera in the snowmobile that first day, so nary a picture got taken. Sorry.