Last night we surprised the kids with one more Christmas gift – a road trip. To do what? You’ll find out. Their luggage was already packed, the car was loaded, all we had to do was climb in and go. Along the way we stopped and gave them little gifts with hints on the destination, like sunglasses, lip gloss, and bucket hats. In the morning we arrived in California! We had a few hours… several hours, before we were allowed to check in to our hotel so we took a short road trip to the Ocean to get wet. It was cold but fun!
Lately I’ve been taking some kids to school in Vineyard and then head over to the office a little early. The road I take runs right alongside Utah Lake and this morning the sunrise was just killing it in several stages. I would be late to my own wedding if I had a good vantage point of a sunrise or sunset. Anyway, watching the sky shift and change while driving was painful, but after drop off I had a moment to grab this view across the lake. I love it. No editing, this is just as my camera saw it.
After biking an hour or so on the Shimanami Kaido in the Seto Inland Sea we were ready to head back to Onomichi via ferry, this was taken at the Shigei Eastern Ferry Terminal. Tonight I was revisiting my photos and stitched this together from a handful of images to make a nice wide panorama. I wish I had better ways to view these ultra wides.
First snow of the winter season. It was coming down hard for a little bit and left some to play with. Arianna was excited to get out and play in it as well for her first Utah snow, and Odin went out to play in his best attire.
Last year we doled out some new Christmas Pajamas on Christmas Eve, but then you only have 1 night of the season to wear them. This year we did it after Thanksgiving – I think it’s the right way to go! Afterwards we spent several hours playing games together. What a perfect evening.
This weekend we went up the Mirror Lake Highway to camp at Soapstone Pass with some friends. It’s up there! Where we live is about 4300′, so it’s a long climb up to get where we went. The last stretch is steep – 6 or 7% – for several miles, and it’s a long haul for my car. I was going about 20mph in 2nd gear at the end. I wonder how much power you lose for every 1000′ in elevation gain…
Anyway. We camped! And rode motorcycles. It was beautiful, and chilly. A perfect end of summer campout.
Riding Motorcylces and ATVs is very popular up here, right next to our campsite was a nice little oval track for everyone to do laps on. Perfect for kids to get practice in.
Sometimes to get the shot you want you take you spendy camera in to the water and do your best not to fall in. Lake Powell is a lot of fun, but most people already know that.
