Land of the Giants

Last weekend I flew into California for a little vacation/family time, and this was the week that interesting things actually happened.

On Monday, we (my parents and brother and nephews) drove out to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. California has eight national parks, but it's more like seven, because Kings Canyon and Sequoia are practically the same. We visited the same parks in 2013, but it's fun to return.

We saw the General Sherman, the largest tree in the world, which is neither the tallest nor the widest but the most voluminous. I can't remember whether this one is it, however, as there were lots of giant trees.

These kids love Nutella, and Franklin grew a goatee by smashing his face into his bread. He cracks me up.

On Tuesday, we went to places we hadn't been before. Kings Canyon has two disconnected areas in its boundaries, so we went to the larger portion and saw a few interesting places there. However, the larger portion is mostly backcountry, and we're not backcountry folks, so we only saw a few minor things, such as this waterfall. The granite of the Sierra Nevada is much older than the granite I'm used to seeing in the Wasatch Front.

We also spent time in Sequoia National Forest (as opposed to the national park), which was less restrictive. My nephews really didn't want to go on this little hike, but we got them to go. We passed through recently burned forest.

This area of the forest was heavily logged at the turn of last century, and there are lots and lots of giant sequoia stumps. They literally logged thousands of them. We have differing values in the twenty-first century.

The main focus of the trail, however was the Boole Tree, the sixth-largest in the world, and the only big tree (or one of the only trees) the loggers spared. Since this was a national forest instead of a national park, we were able to go right up to it and appreciate how massive it really was. Here are Preston (11) and Nathaniel (6) for scale. There was graffiti scratched into the tree, because apparently people like to memorialize that they are terrible human beings.

There were a few cracks where you could actually get inside the tree. I asked my dad to take a picture of me in the crack, but apparently he's smartphone camera illiterate.

This trail was a loop, and Preston and Nathaniel were dismayed to learn that we were completing the loop, which made it longer, but for all their complaining they seemed to enjoy running down the trail. (Franklin's not as big into the running.) I kept up with Nathaniel, and he's quite fast, faster than I usually am on a trail.

I don't know if these were sego lilies or one of their relatives, but it was nice to have a Utah feel in the Sierra Nevada. 

My nephews are all quite competitive, so when we got to the bottom Nathaniel was delighted that he won. I think they enjoyed it, even though Preston refused to acknowledge it.

My mom had bought my nephews souvenirs, and the older boys got gigantic pencils with their souvenir money, but Nathaniel had already spent all his. He was quite envious of the pencils, so he "sold" one of his animal flipbooks back to my mom and obsessed about getting a giant pencil. It was all he could talk about, and we never returned to the one gift shop that sold them.

On Wednesday, we packed up but saw a few interesting things before we returned to my brother's residence in the Bay Area. We went to see the Chicago Stump, which was a giant sequoia that was cut down and shipped in pieces for the 1893 World's Fair, but they thought it was a hoax because it was so big. There was a smaller stump nearby that all three nephews climbed.

 However, what Franklin lacks in running, he more than makes up for in climbing. He is amazing at climbing, and he climbed up the whole Chicago Stump, which was probably twenty or thirty feet high. He scared us doing so, but he made it. Preston was too scared to do it, and we told Nathaniel he was too young. (He wasn't happy about that, just like when we told him he was too young to light fireworks on the Fourth of July.)

 In another life, I would like to be an entomologist.

On Wednesday evening we took my nephews to the drive-in to see The Secret Life of Pets, a movie so forgettable I almost forgot to put it here.

We had one more full day with my nephews before ending our month-long visit with them. I will miss Nathaniel saying things were "bloken," Franklin calling me "Grunkle Uncle Mark," and Preston's pseudo-political discussions. (Well, I probably won't miss those.)

On Friday, my parents and I headed up to a national park where I'd never been, Redwoods National Park. (Here I am, 27 years old and taking road trips with my parents, since nobody else ever invites me.) There are actually several Redwood state parks in the area, and I don't entirely know when I was in a national park or a state park, much less which state park. While I love being a native Utahn, sometimes I get California envy, and I certainly felt that here. There were coniferous forests right next to the ocean.

 This picture of the mountain was taken at the beach.

We went to the Ladybird Johnson Grove, and I know that was in the national park. It was amazing. It felt like being in a magical forest. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world (as opposed to sequoias, which are bigger but not taller), and there were plenty of them in the forest. But there were other enchanting things. Like large tree mushrooms,

 ferns,

 shamrock-like plants,

 and even entire patches of ferns up in the trees! An ecosystem above the ground kind of blows my mind.

 I also liked looking at the spore-producing parts on the bottom-side of fern leaves.

We had a camping spot in a state park, but we decided we were too tired to camp, so we stayed in a hotel in Crescent City, CA.

The next morning we drove up to Oregon to see another national park I'd never visited, Crater Lake. I'd learned about Crater Lake in my geology classes but this was my first time seeing it for myself. Once upon a time, one of the Cascade Mountains was Mount Mazama, but it exploded about 7,000 years ago, and the top collapsed (since the magma chamber emptied) and created a caldera, which collected precipitation, particularly snow runoff. (Seven thousand years may sound like a long time ago, but geologically speaking that's just yesterday. Maybe even today.) There are no rivers running into or out of the lake.

In the lake is Wizard Island. I always thought it was a rhyolite dome, but apparently it's just a cinder cone.

 On the side of the mountain is a pumice desert, where lots of volcanic rock fell, and the forest hasn't reestablished itself.

After all the granite of the Sierra Nevadas, it was good to see some extrusive igneous rocks, since they are cool because they form quickly. I saw some tuff boulders (not tough--tuff and tough are etymologically unrelated) and lots of rhyolitic rocks. We even drove past some shiny glass rocks.

My dad and I hiked down to the lake itself, which was fun. (We didn't have time to take a boat to Wizard Island.) The water was cold (it's all meltwater), but there were still lots of people jumping in. The trail down had shiny specks in it. I'm guessing it was quartz, since this volcano is so silicic.

 Lots of stratovolcanoes in the Cascades. I don't know which one this is.

We saw Phantom Ship, an island that is older than the explosion. It was "plumbing" at one point for the old volcano.

I would love to go back some day and make it to Wizard Island--but I feel a little bad revisiting places when there are so many beautiful places in the world.

We spent the night in Lakeview, Oregon. This was my second trip to Oregon, the first being in 2010 when I visited my mission with my parents.

Then today we drove through Oregon, Nevada, and Utah to get home. I think my dad killed a rabbit or two and a bird, but it's their own fault for not running away from fast vehicles.

We stopped at a gas station in Nevada. I no longer consider myself a prescriptivist, but this is pretty bad.

Our last rest stop was out on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I had to taste some of the salt, harking back to my days as a geologist. Then I saw evidence of terrible human beings not cleaning up after their dogs.

I hope my travelogue didn't bore you to tears. Now it's back to the working world.

From California

I'm in California writing this on my dad's tiny laptop. CTRL+= is a beautiful thing.

It's hard to believe that the Fourth of July was less than a week ago. I guess I've already moved on to Pioneer Day. Since holidays are best spent trail running, I ran up to Rudy's Flat in North Canyon for the third (almost fourth) time this year. I'm pretty sure North Canyon is my favorite place in Bountiful.

The rest of the holiday was spent doing typical things like barbecuing and fireworks.

On Thursday morning, my parents left with my nephews to return to California. I wanted to go with them, but tight deadlines at work prevented me from doing so, so I bought a plane ticket to fly out on Saturday. While it would have been nice to drive with them, it makes me feel like an adult that I had to stay behind--and like I actually matter. I also would have felt a little guilty leaving everyone behind, so working those two days alleviates my guilt.

Now, people sometimes tell me that I'm a genius, but I do too many stupid things for that to be true. This time it happened in the airport. I printed my ticket at home, and it told me my flight was at D08. So I get into the airport and go to D8. I was a little early, so I figured the plane hadn't come in yet. I sat there waiting and waiting for the plane, when finally I realized it was too late for boarding. I asked the lady at the desk, "Is there a difference between D8 and D08?" Then she told me my flight was actually at C8. I feel so stupid that I didn't check the gate on the screen (I did check the screen but didn't pay attention to the gate), and that I didn't realize something was wrong sooner than I did. By the time I realized my mistake, the plane had already left. So I had to get another flight and spend another six hours in the airport.

I wandered the stores in the Salt Lake airport, and I'm glad they have them so you have something to do, but I wonder why people would buy clothing in an airport. All the mini bookstores sold the same books. I bought a book about the Oregon Trail, since it gets old to look at the internets on your phone for hours on end. I rarely read for leisure, since I read for a living. I eventually got on the plane, where I traded seats so that a mother could sit with her kid. It was an uneventful flight and I made it to California safely.

We attended my brother's ward, and during sacrament meeting we sang "The Wintry Day, Descending to Its  Close." I found this a bit perplexing, since it's a song we never sing even in Utah, and it's a Utah song. It's also a song about winter, but it's a pioneer song, so it's suitable for this time of year too. This is my second year formally celebrating Pioneer Day, so it was a good way to contribute to the spirit of the holiday--even though it's not a holiday in California. (I'm telling you--we need to be careful to make it not an exclusively religious holiday, but a historical holiday, so that the non-Mormon folks don't get their dander up.)

After church, my brother needed to stick around at the church, so we took my nephews to a nearby park to play. They weren't the only ones that played.

Red, white, and blue upon a birthday cake

The Fourth of July is an all-American holiday.

That may sound overly obvious. But I don't mean that it's a holiday about America, or a holiday celebrated only in America--rather, I mean that the Fourth of July is woven into the fabric of American life. If you're American, you celebrate it.

As I read historical documents, it's interesting to see how big it was for nineteenth-century Americans--even though, or perhaps because, the Declaration of Independence had been around for less than 100 years. It was bigger than Christmas.

While Christmas is a much bigger holiday now (and maybe even Halloween is as well), the Fourth of July is still a significant cultural phenomenon. Consider all these popular songs that mention the Fourth of July:

• "Victorious" by Panic! at the Disco
• "Remedy" by Jason Mraz
• "Firework" by Katy Perry
• "Sam's Town" by the Killers
• "Boot Scootin' Boogie" by Brooks and Dunn
• "Born on the Bayou" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
• "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago

...and others that are less popular or that have obvious titles (like "Fourth of July" by Fall Out Boy and "Independence Day" by Martina McBride).

Occasionally you see viral Facebook posts or things telling you to call it Independence Day, that "Fourth of July" is unpatriotic or unappreciative. But I disagree. "Fourth of July" has been the more popular term all along, and it is what our culture calls it. The fact that we can simply call it a date indicates how important it is to us as a country. "Fourth of July" is the more American term.

If you read this blog, it's common knowledge that I only eat seasonal sweets. But not all seasonal treats are equal, and I have divided them into different categories. Categories 1 and 2 are my preferences:

• Category 1 items are things that are themselves iconic to the holiday, like jelly beans or candy corn.
• Category 2a items are other things flavored like those in category 1, like candy cane shakes or gingerbread Pop-Tarts. 
• Category 2b items have a unique flavor, but the flavor itself is not seasonal. A current example of this is America Mix Skittles, which are various red, white, and blue berry flavors--the berries don't have to do with Independence Day, but the mix is only available seasonally. Another example is mint shakes at St. Patrick's Day, because mint has nothing to do with Ireland, but green does.
• Category 3 items have festive colors or shapes, but once they're in your mouth, they're the same as their non-seasonal counterparts. A donut with festive sprinkles is on the low end of category 3 (but on the high end of deliciousness).
• Category 4 candies have a seasonal wrapper, but once the wrapper is off, they're not seasonal. They count, but they're my least favorite category.

My dad's birthday is near (sometimes on) Memorial Day, my mom's birthday is near Independence Day, my niece's birthday is near Pioneer Day, and my sister's birthday is in there as well. I've often had patriotic cakes for these birthdays, but this week I decided that I didn't want another category 3 cake, but I wanted a category 2. The only category 1 dessert for Independence Day is Bomb Pops (or other brands of red, white, and blue popsicles), so I found a recipe online for a Bomb Pop cake. It was a lemon cake with cherry and blue raspberry Jello in it. It was OK; I like regular cake more.

 (To be perfectly honest, the only reason I'm telling you all this is so I could use the post title. I've wanted to use it for years.)

I've been trying to get my nephews to be like me, so this week I took Preston (11) and Nathaniel (6) trail running. They couldn't run the whole time, as they get a lot of side stitches, but when they were running they were fast. They had fun.

For part of my Fourth of July celebrations, I participated in North Salt Lake's annual 5k again. I've gotten quite slow, and I don't know if it's because I'm older or because I've adapted to trail running and steep hills. Since I wanted to go faster (it's a race, after all), my goal was to make it under 27 minutes. Which is very slow, but it's fast for me, and I barely made it. But it's OK, because I used to be fat. Also, even though I didn't win any prizes for speed, they had a raffle, and I won a prize from that! I picked out a patriotic beach towel. Franklin (8) for some reason gets a great kick out of saying "You won a towel!"

Then my nephews wanted to find fossils, so my family went to a wash in Spanish Fork Canyon to find shell fossils. It was very similar to a Jurassic formation I visited in Spanish Fork Canyon in 2013, but I really don't know how old it was. I'm kind of sad that I'm realizing that I'm really not a geologist. But we found lots of aquatic fossils. 

This is a tree and a nephew, not a fossil. In case you couldn't tell.

Then we went to North Salt Lake's annual fireworks show, which is impressive for just a little city. But my parents didn't come, because my dad had had caffeinated soda earlier in the day, and it made him feel quite ill last night, so much that they had to go to the doctor. Caffeine abstinence FTW!

BLBB

The most exciting thing that happened this week was that my YSA ward went to Bear Lake--a state park I haven't been to. We called our event the Bear Lake Big Bash, or #BLBB16. I saw Bear Lake when I was a teenager, but I didn't actually go to it.

Now, my ward has a lot of rich people in it. I'm not poor, but I certainly can't afford a boat or own a fancy cabin to rent out to other people. But people in the neighborhood can. And they are generous with their goods, which works out well for me. Last year we rented a cabin out in eastern Utah, while this time people "donated" rental cabins--and I think this one was funner.

We went up later in the evening on Thursday night, so I took Friday off. I feel a little guilty about that, but I feel guilty about everything. (I also feel guilty that I showed my mom a spider this week that looked a little bit off, so she smashed it, and lots of little baby spiders scattered. If I hadn't shown her, those poor little orphans would still have a mom.)

We slept poorly the first night because we got there late and people were talking--and in the middle of the night someone woke up screaming. I asked him about it the next day and he said he couldn't wake up, but I still don't really know what was going on.

The next day, there were many activities planned, and I wanted to go to a hiking place. Now, if I'm going to consider myself a trail runner, I will have to go beyond Bountiful and North Salt Lake, so I wanted to do a trail run. But this nature trail we went on was only slightly over a mile, which is tiny, so I ran it twice, then ran up again to meet the walking group. It was a fun little hike, but there were lots of caterpillars hanging from the trees, and they stuck to our clothes. Others called them silkworms, but I don't think they were silkworms because they were hanging from coniferous trees, not mulberry trees. But I'm not an entomologist, so what do I know?

There was a tree with two 90-degree angles on it. I completely missed it the first time I ran the loop, and I didn't notice it until I read the interpretive sign my second time up.

 It was a lovely, but short, trail. I saw some wild columbine on it, and there was still a lot of arrowleaf balsamroot, even though that flower has died out at the lower elevations.

Later in the day, we went to a beach of Bear Lake, where I swam around for a time. When I accidentally swallowed water, I figured it was a calcium supplement from all the limestone dissolved in the lake. But the water was a bit cold, so the group moved to a pool instead--and indeed, my arms and feet became a bit tingly after a time in the cold water. I wanted to backstroke a bit further than I was doing, but I got a little freaked out when my toes could no longer touch the bottom.

I didn't sleep well the second night either--not because of screaming, but because I had a stressful work dream about footnotes. Why do I have to have stressful dreams when I'm on vacation, and on nights I'm already having trouble sleeping!?

The next day I did go out on my bishop's boat, but I didn't do anything in the water. I considered tubing, but I knew I'd be freezing if I did. I also worry a lot. I once read an article that said intelligent people worry more, so I hope that means I'm intelligent. (I say I'm intelligent, when I initially put an apostrophe in the word "means." Smh.)

We were sunburned, but I wasn't as bad, just a little bit on the peripheries of my sunscreen. This is because (a) I wasn't in the sun too long and (b) I wore a shirt. No skin cancer for me, thank you.

It was fun to get a small vacation in a lovely place, and cross a state park off my bucket list. It's also nice to know that unlike most of Utah's water state parks, this one was a real lake.

And I somehow went to Bear Lake without getting a picture of the lake. Phones and water don't mix.

***

(I separated this post so that people who only care about Bear Lake can quit reading here.)

In other news, I'm still trying to get my nephews to be like me, because I'm an awesome role model. I shared some of my seasonal treats with them, such as my America Mix Skittles and my patriotic Tootsie Roll Pops.

I also took them trail running a few times, although they couldn't run the whole time because they get side stitches. On one trail, six-year-old Nathaniel warned a biker that there was a stick in the path that he might trip on. This was right after we met a person I know named Tayson, and Nathaniel said he was named that "probably because he's tasty." He's so cute.

I also wanted my mom to see a sego lily, because she had never seen one, so she came on the trail. She saw one but just barely, as there were hardly any left, even though they were abundant a week or two ago.

We went to the homecoming talk of my cousin Quin. I'm sure it's different for them, but I felt like those two years sure went by fast. And the brother of one of his companions was in my mission. We shared a car for a transfer or two.

The next thing I need to get my nephews to do in order to be like me is to like cheesy 60s sitcoms. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe I can convince them to watch the episode of Lost in Space I watched this week, where a carrot alien turned Dr. Smith into a vegetable. "Ergo, I am a real stalk of celery."

Vegetables are inherently funny. But that's a topic for another day.

Monkeeing around

This week I got to experience full-time unclehood. My sister-in-law brought my nephews here, but then she went to Taiwan, at the same time that my parents went on a trip that had been planned before there were plans for my nephews to come here.

It made me appreciate parents, as it can be hard to balance cleaning and entertaining and cooking and other things. But I had fun with them. My bucket list is to go to every park in North Salt Lake, and I think there were only two I hadn't been to, so I took them to a new one I hadn't been to before. (The other one is under construction.) It had a spinning device they loved so much that they asked to go back the next night. They didn't like all the mosquitoes, though.

My grandparents really pitched in and watched the boys while I was at work, and on Thursday they had them the whole day, because I had tickets to see the Monkees on their fiftieth-anniversary Good Times! tour.

I don't go to a lot of concerts (I mainly see local artists), but when I happened to see the Monkees were coming through, the site I was on said they hadn't been in Salt Lake City since 1968. I realized that if they hadn't been here in forty-eight years, and one of them is already dead, it was probably the only opportunity I would have in my entire life to see them. And since I exclusively watch terrible 1960s sitcoms, I had to see them.

(Surprisingly, I had barely seen the Monkees TV show; I was more familiar with their music. After I got the tickets, I figured I should know more about them, so I ordered the DVDs of the series's first season, and I've watched the first six episodes. It's not a great show, but it's growing on me.)

My first experience with the Monkees was in high school, when I got a compilation CD in my Christmas stocking. I wasn't thrilled with the gift, as it looked really cheesy, but I listened to it and quite liked it, so much so that I got more Monkees music in the coming year. At that time, I subscribed to the old-fashioned notion that older music is somehow better than modern music. I no longer believe that, but I still do feel like music was at a high point in the 1960s. (Music from the 50s and 80s is mostly an embarrassment.) While I recognize that the Monkees didn't have great music, mainly because they were a made-for-TV band, I still like them--and, in fact, it takes me a lot longer to get bored by their music than by the Beatles, even though I know the Beatles were higher quality.

As for the concert--well, it was enjoyable to see them, but it was a little sad to think about how they're still the Monkees, yet they're not. Davy Jones died four years ago, and Mike Nesmith isn't touring with them. (Which is a shame, because he's my favorite.) They are in their seventies, and it's a sad fact that artists generally aren't as good when they get older. (I recorded forty seconds of them singing "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone," but it's an awkward video with lots of strangers getting in the way.)

They squeezed in a lot of songs, including my favorites "What Am I Doing Hangin' Around?" and "Papa Gene's Blues," so there wasn't a lot of talking. But they had some witty comments. Micky Dolenz said they were in their archives and they found a dog with a pet boy named Sherman--although he didn't look like a boy, because he looked more like 70--and they used their Wayback Machine to get the voice of Davy Jones. They had Davy "sing" while they played "Shades of Grey" and "Daydream Believer" live. Peter Tork said that there had been reports that they didn't play their own instruments--which was true, as all their instruments were rented. Then he said, "Everything we touch is rented. Even our fame. I just came up with that, that's quite witty!"

Micky Dolenz is on the left in the black hat, and Peter Tork is on the right in the orange. I like that I snapped my phone at the time the screen was showing the mannequin Mr. Schneider from the series.

And here are Micky and Peter together.

This concert was in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of their show this year, and also in honor of their latest album, Good Times! Their album is surprisingly good--but I think it's mostly good when you consider the fact that it's a record made by senior citizens. But they did manage to get all four Monkees on the album, using archive recordings of Davy Jones.

 

Then my family returned, and I was no longer a full-time uncle. The only souvenir my family got me was a tin full of red, white, and blue M&Ms. (I categorize seasonal candies, and these are a category 3, because the colors are seasonal but the taste is identical to their nonseasonal counterparts. Unique flavors are better.)

Yesterday I ran to Rudy's Flat (in Bountiful's North Canyon) again, which I did three weeks ago. It wasn't as special this time, since I've done it recently. But in its own way, that makes it more special. Three weeks ago it was an accomplishment, but I'm glad that I'm at the point that it's not as big an accomplishment. I went on this trail because it's mostly shady, making it better for a summer day. I went slightly farther and slightly faster this time.

Where I turned around

First we had fields of yellow arrowleaf balsamroot flowers, and then they were replaced by fields of yellow mulesears flowers. Now that the mulesears are dying out, they are being replaced with yellow onehead sunflowers--although I don't think they cover fields as well as the others do.

I also saw some thimbleberry blossoms.

As I was coming down the trail, there was a man off to the side with his dirt bike or motorbike, smoking a cigarette. I don't know about you, but if I'm up on a mountain trail, I'd rather be doing something healthy (like running) than something unhealthy (like smoking).

Last night, I had a dream that we had killed a snake, and we put it in a tart. I was nervous to try it, and when my mom and brother said they didn't like it, I decided I would not try it. Last year I had a dream I was making carrot cake with chicken and mouse meat. And another time last year I dreamed I baked a cake full of bees. Apparently my subconscious is telling me I should kill pests and make them into dessert.

June attention hogs

During the month of June, there are lots of things that compete for my attention.

When Utah's lovely, historic state flower is out in abundance, how can you not spend time with it? And to think I'd never even seen a sego lily until a year ago. June 14, 2015, to be exact. (I always thought that I'd seen one in September 2000, but looking back I doubt that, because they don't last until September.)

However, along with beautiful sego lilies, June is the month I selected to pick horrendous goathead plants, and it's hard to have enough time for both of them. I only picked goatheads twice this week.

Oh, by the way, here is a cat in a garden. Because cats.

However, the biggest attention hog this week is my three nephews: Preston (11), Franklin (8), and Nathaniel (6). (Nathaniel calls his brothers "Pleston" and "Flanklin.") I have been spending a lot of time with them, and I will be spending even more time with them this week. As they have gotten older, they have become better behaved and easier to watch. Well, Nathaniel hasn't, but he was practically perfect to begin with. These kids are half Chinese (well, Taiwanese), both biologically and culturally--they love eating seaweed, which I don't care to try again. They are also into gross-out jokes, which was not how I grew up. But I want to corrupt them into becoming like me. It's a longshot, but I'll see what I can do. They're cute kids. Think how awesome they'd be if they were little versions of me!

While my nephews were jumping on the tramp at my sister's house, my sister-in-law and I picked cherries from my sister's tree. I'm pretending there aren't any worms in them. (Preston asked me how worms climb from the ground up trees into cherries. Oh, the ambiguities of the word worm! At least it doesn't mean snake, dragon, or pus, like wyrm did in Old English.)

With these cherries, I made a cherry-chocolate "sorbet," which wasn't great (and had a very vague recipe), and I made a cherry crisp, which was not popular with the boys. I ate about half of the pan myself, mostly for the crust. (Sometimes I get a little dessert starved, since I only eat seasonal desserts, but "seasonal" includes things made with fresh fruits that I pick myself.)

When I came home from a long day of church meetings, my nephews had strung up a bunch of patriotic balloons. They're doing better than I am, because I don't have most of my Memorial Day/Flag Day/Independence Day/Pioneer Day decorations up yet.

Last night I had another dream about Lady Gaga at church. You'd be surprised how often that happens.

***

Wait! Wait for me! I posted this but forgot something. I have a family history calling, and at one point today I looked at my phone when I got a one-word response from my high councilman over family history. [Insert crying-while-laughing emoji]

I decided not to share with you the picture of the dead bunny I found in our backyard. You're welcome. [Insert sad-face emoji]

New carpet, new month

It was a fun week.

Memorial Day involved taking the remainder of the furniture out of my room so that we could take out the old carpet, which was probably forty years old. I had to sleep on my mattress on the floor downstairs for a few days. It was kind of like sleeping in a hotel.

On Memorial Day evening, I wanted to accomplish my third (and final) trail running New Year's resolution, which was to go to a new trail where I hadn't been before. I technically fulfilled the goal, but it was less epic than I had hoped. I decided to go to Holbrook Canyon, which is right by the Bountiful Temple. I started on this trail, which passes a lovely cascading stream.

After about a quarter of a mile, I came to a stream crossing, and I didn't think I'd be able to get across with dry feet, and running with wet feet sounds awful, so I turned around. I'll have to go back later in the summer or fall when the runoff dies down.

But since I was already there, I decided to go up a trail on the other side of the parking lot. It had some nice views.

 However, I didn't find this trail much prettier than the trails nearer to my house--and it was exceedingly steep. I ran up it a ways, but by "ran" I mean I would run a bit, then stop to drink and catch my breath, then run again. Steep hills are exhausting to run up, but I can only walk down them because they don't seem safe to run down. However, the next two days my legs were quite sore, in a good way. So maybe I should take up steep running--not for running's sake but to strengthen my muscles.

On Tuesday, my superiors asked me to go to the state archives, where I had never been before, in the Rio Grande Station. I didn't think they were overly helpful, but I found what I needed. On Tuesday night, I went to get a haircut. (I don't like talking about hair or haircuts because of my perpetually hideous hair, but it's the setting of this story.) I was talking with my stylist about small towns and how my dad's family is from Millard County, etc., when another customer getting his haircut said, "Wait, what's your last name, customer getting a haircut?" When I told him, he said that he had a book called The Melville Family of Utah in his car at that moment and he wanted to talk to me. So I waited for him to finish and he showed me his book. He said that just the previous night, his Melville grandpa was worried about the Melville name dying out and said he'd never met another Melville. I've met a few other Melvilles around here, so that surprises me a little bit. But the very next day, there I was! He said he almost fell out of his chair.

Wednesday welcomed June. I don't like heat, but I am looking forward to late sunsets and popsicles.

My family visited a place with a cliff that was popular with rock climbers, but you could also take an elevator or a side road to the top. We drove to the top, and as we were leaving, my dad was backing up, and I was just about to warn him not to go over the edge when he did just that! As we plummeted down, I thought, "It's too late! This is the end of my life! There's no other possible outcome." I didn't consider the possibility that it was only a dream and that I would wake up, but that's exactly what happened.

That got me wondering--when you dream, does your brain plan out the storyline in advance, or does it come up with things spontaneously? If a cliff shows up in your dream, it seems likely you're going to fall off of it, but the cliff appeared in my dream long before I even got to the top of it. (I also had a dream this week that I was back at BYU in a new apartment, which obviously did not fit BYU standards, as it was coed and didn't have enough beds, so I had to sleep on a couch. I didn't know my roommates' names, even though I'd been living there for a time, except that I knew one girl's name was Alyssos.)

On Thursday evening, I went out to Best Buy to have them look at a laptop battery. I ordered a new battery for my three-and-a-half-year-old laptop, and it didn't work, so I wanted to make sure it was the battery and not my computer. (It was indeed the battery.) While I had traveled that far, I decided to go do things that only I would do. I had to go to Shopko and See's Candies, since there aren't ones closer to me, so I could get their selections of patriotic candy. See's had these sour red, white, and blue stars, which are my favorite Fourth of July candies I've had so far.

I also went to a place in Sugarhouse where I picked some goatheads last year, and I picked some this time around.

 For those of you who haven't known me long, or who need a refresher, I hate the invasive weed species known as goatheads. If they were a person, they would deserve to be dipped in boiling oil. They grow as vine-like plants on the ground and produce lots of sharp seeds, which look like heads of goats. These seeds become impenetrably hard, and the "horns" pop bike tires, stick in shoes, and stab skin. I hate them. So. Much. But rather than simply complain about them, I do something about them during the month of June where I try to find them and pull them up. Why June? Because they are just starting to come up, so I hope I can catch them before they pollinate other plants and produce new seeds, and if I wait until later, the seeds are sharp enough to be dangerous. But so far I've only pulled them that one day. I will have to make more time to find them if I am truly on a crusade against them.

Then on Thursday night, I was delighted to see another June plant, but this time one I love. Sego lily season has begun!

On Friday, I saw even more sego lilies, and ones in better bloom, than I did on Thursday, but I didn't have my phone with me. They are less striking than, say, a field of mulesears:

However, I love sego lilies for their delicate, simple beauty and their pioneer connections. When I run past them, I have to stop to take a look at them because they fill me with such joy.

Thursday was also when I got my new carpet.

On Saturday morning, I ran a half mile past Elephant Rock in Mueller Park Canyon, since it's the shadiest trail around. (No pictures this time, because it's more commonplace now.) When I got to the trailhead, my old boss (who is indirectly my current boss) just happened to be there too, so I talked with him a bit, as he was hiking up. We talked about various things, including the book we published together, before I ran up. I ended up running 7.5 miles.

Yesterday was also apparently National Hug Your Cat Day. Jenny the cat wasn't too keen on the idea.