Trailers

Shortly before I was born, my family bought a tent trailer. We had that trailer until I was in sixth grade, at which point my parents traded it for another tent trailer. But in 2011, they decided it was too much work, and they would rather just do tent camping.

Two years ago, they decided they would like a trailer again, so they bought a regular trailer (not a tent trailer) because they thought it would be less work.

But then this year they decided they didn't like the trailer. It was too small and didn't feel like you were out in the open, and it wasn't that much less work than a tent trailer. So they bought another tent trailer.

This week we had our last camping trip in the regular trailer. It was me, my parents, and my niece; I slept in a tent since there wasn't room for everyone in the trailer.

We camped at Moosehorn Lake in the Uintas, which my family has been going to since before I was born. Across the road from Moosehorn is a trailhead that I had never noticed or paid attention to. So my dad, my niece, and I went on a hike on this Fehr Lake trail. Fehr Lake was pretty and easy to get to.

 There were lots of wildflowers that I'm not accustomed to, since they are unique to higher elevations.

Elephantheads!

The white ones are American bistort.

 There were supposed to be three lakes, but we felt like we had already gone a long way before we encountered another lake, so we turned around at a small pond. It was a rocky trail, so it wouldn't be good for running, but it was fine for hiking.

We had a lovely campsite right on the lake, and I went on our inflatable boat a few times.

This is the old trailer.

 Then on Wednesday, my parents traded in the old trailer and picked up the new trailer. We keep it parked at my sister's house (for a few reasons), so we set it up there. It does seem very nice. But it's very tall—since I'm the tallest member of the family, my height will come in handy, but I worry how my family will manage without me. We will take this new trailer camping in a few weeks.

Since we picked and froze so many cherries last month, I have been cooking with cherries. My favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, has a recipe for cherry sauerkraut soup, and I finally made it this week. I know that sounds super weird, but it was surprisingly good! But you definitely have to like sauerkraut. Besides the obvious ingredients, it has onions and was cooked with bay leaves and cloves.

This week I had a few things that left me feeling relieved. Our neighbors have an apple tree that hangs over into our yard, and I love spending October evenings picking apples and then making them into pies, crisps, omelets, and whatever else I desire. They were going to cut down the tree. One night while camping, I was thinking about how tragic that would be, especially since it's loaded with apples this year. But then I found out they're not going to cut it down! Yay! They're just going to trim it instead. That's a much better decision. That means this fall I'll be able to make apple sauerkraut soup! (That's actually the main recipe; the cherry version is a variation.)

Another relieving thing can be best explained with an incident from Christmastime. I was driving my mom and my brother to my grandparents' house, and I remarked that my own personal Christmas playlist was better than the radio. So my mom asked why I wasn't listening to my own playlist, and I explained that I had my playlist on Google Play Music, but it only let you have 1,000 songs in a playlist, and my Christmas playlist has 1,407 songs, so I couldn't shuffle my entire playlist. This week I learned that Google Play Music is being replaced by YouTube Music, which lets you have more than 1,000 songs! Yay! That will change how and when I listen to music! But my enthusiasm has been tempered, because so far YouTube Music appears pretty clunky. I'm hoping it improves. It also seems to be tailored to the subscription model. I don't like that model: why pay for something if I can't own it? I still buy music (and use streaming services to know what to buy—usually holiday songs).

This week I will give you a break from my North Canyon runs, but last night I ran on the Woodbriar Trail. I scared some kind of animal in the trees, and it made a weird squeal. I assume it was a deer, but I didn't know they made noises like that! As I looked out over the valley, a saw a plume of smoke coming from near Woods Cross High School. I saw flashing lights nearby, and it looked like traffic was backed up on I-15 southbound, but I haven't seen anything on the news about it. 

And then, as I was close to the trailhead, I heard a snake rattling, my first time encountering one on that trail. I know I've been running more this year, but I do think rattlesnakes must be more common this year.