I love the names of things out here. Canyonlands. Zion. Where I live, we have names like Huckleberry Trail, Maple Ridge, and Meadow Run. Here, signs frequently include the words canyon, desert, cliffs, and a variation on the hottest color: crimson, vermilion, or plain old red. But my very favorite, the place that has the best, most intense name, that as soon as I saw it, I thought, “I want to go there,” is the Valley of Fire. The Valley of Fire! So I was super excited that my friend Amy suggested we kill time there on on our way to Vegas to pick up our friend from the airport.
The Valley of Fire is a state park in Nevada, and the colors and temperatures lived up to its name.
We did a short hike to see the Fire Wave, and at 10 o’clock in the morning in April, it was already brutally hot. There is no escape from the sun, and its heat radiates off the red sandstone. But boy was it gorgeous. We even saw a bighorn sheep!
It’s a good thing we checked the map before driving down to the Grand Canyon yesterday. As far as the North Rim is concerned, winter isn’t over yet; the road to that entrance doesn’t open until May 14. I will not be able to visit the Grand Canyon on this trip. I guess I’ll just need to come back. Amy recommended October when the Aspens are all yellow.
For this trip, though, we pivoted in the high school parking lot. We decided to go in the opposite direction, to Bryce Canyon. Wow, what a landscape!
We hiked a 3 mile trail down to the bottom and back out again, and we had beautiful weather for it: short sleeve temperatures, sunshine, and a cool breeze under a bright blue sky.
On the way down, I stopped every few steps to take photographs. The hoodoo rock formations were so cool. I couldn’t get over them. Plus, I am a sucker for red rocks against the blue sky. Luckily, my friend did not get annoyed with my slow progress; she warned me that she would want to stop frequently to catch her breath on the way back up.
Thor’s Hammer
We took our time. We admired twisty trees. We marveled over geology. We talked about how this used to be an ocean, and that the rock is sedimentary — literally sediment that settled to the bottom of the sea. It cemented together in the pressure of its young days and by the minerals that crystalized together to give it structure. It is soft rock that eventually comes full circle and transforms back to sand.
Amy and I made lots of friends on the trail. We chatted with other folks resting in the shade — two friends from California, a couple from Italy, a father and son from North Carolina. I snapped photos of hiking partners with their cameras. We had a gorgeous day together outside in the fresh Utah air, laughing and talking about life and our kids and the nature of rocks.
Today, we pick up our friend in Vegas. On the way we’re going to stop at a place in Nevada called Valley of Fire, which may be the best ever name for a state park. I’m hopeful we can also hit a Mexican restaurant that I’ve been craving since I last came to Amy’s over a year ago.
Now that I’ve finished the hard labor in our garden, my primary obligations are complete and I don’t need to squeeze things into super short snippets of time. Instead of snapping pictures with my phone because it’s convenient and no-fuss, I feel like I can get out my real camera. It’s a little more effort to adjust the aperture and shutter speed, but that means I also take a little more care in framing a photo and paying attention to light. The photographs are more satisfying when I put that little bit of extra effort in.
We had a weekend of arts in Richmond, from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to a 7 o’clock showing of Loving Vincent – a film in which every single frame is hand-painted in the style of Vincent Van Gogh – at the Byrd Theatre. It was awe-inspiring. The museum and the movie made me wish I were an artist.
Photography is the closest I can get to feeling artistic. Besides writing, it is the one craft I have have even a modicum of patience to develop. I had fun with my camera on our trip to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on Sunday. The flowers did all the work of being beautiful. Very little was required of me other than to frame the shot, check the light, and appreciate the colors and textures with my camera.
I made sure to stop and smell the roses. There really is no fragrance quite as lovely. Only a handful of the thorny bushes were blooming among the hundreds still in bud. I bet in a month the rose garden will be spectacular. The air will be heady with their scent. I could go back in a few weeks to experience it. I have that kind of time right now.
We got out of town this weekend. My husband booked a night in a bed and breakfast in Richmond, across the street from and owned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). It’s an actual B&B, not an Airbnb. I find myself struggling to say “B&B” without the “air” on front anymore. I’d almost forgotten these still exist, and it’s such a pleasure that they do. The innkeeper put a cheese plate in the fridge for us, which is a delight. We’re nibbling on it now as we rest our feet after getting lost in our wanderings through the museum.
I knew we were coming to Richmond, but I didn’t know about the B&B, nor did I know about the art museum. This means I also didn’t know there was a Frida Kahlo exhibit. I don’t know much about Kahlo, except that she’s instantly recognizable. She’s an icon. Portraits of her are arresting.
The exhibit was packed, which confirmed to us that we need to plan our trip to the Louvre smartly so that we don’t feel like cattle. The further into the exhibit we went, the more air and space we could find. This worked out great for me, because that’s was where the portraits I wanted to see were. The colors in the color photos! The drama in the black and whites! But really, the colors. They’re irresistible. They suck you in.
I spent a while with that final one. There’s so much to contemplate.
After the Frida exhibit, Brian and I wandered upstairs, which was much quieter. We saw the Fabergé eggs, which were as opulent as you would expect and are amazing to see in real life. They sparkle with gemstones and intricate gold filigree and are so beautiful. I also got to see a Van Gogh that for some reason moved me to tears. I don’t know why. It just made me feel, I don’t know, wonderful.
Daisies, Arles. Vincent Van Gogh
Tomorrow we’ll visit the botanical garden. I can’t wait to see what’s blooming! Maybe I’ll get ideas for my own flower beds at home.
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
I’m writing this from a hotel room bed. It’s not even 5am. I have no obligations until noon when the Uber comes to carry my teammates and me to the airport, but I can’t sleep because I feel like a kid on Christmas day. Today is the last day of my team meetup in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. It is also the first day of my sabbatical. For the next three months, my time is mine to rest, visit friends, garden, travel, and create.
It feels unsettling to begin a sabbatical right now. I have survivor’s guilt after recent layoffs, and I can’t help the niggling worry of, “Is it irresponsible of me to take time off now?” I try to self-soothe with math: 3 months of paid time off in one chunk sounds really expensive; spread over the 5 years for sabbatical eligibility, it equates to an extra 2.4 weeks of vacation per year. That feels more reasonable to my worrying mind.
One of the podcasts I listen to put out an episode on sabbaticals just last week: Why You Should Take a Few Months Off Work (Live from SXSW) from the Happiness Lab. I was eager to listen because I knew that the host, who is a Happiness researcher, would cover the benefits of sabbaticals for personal well-being, but I suspected she would also go into the benefits for the organization providing the sabbatical. And she does. One of the biggest benefits of sabbaticals for a company, in addition to the happiness, creativity, and rejuvenation of employees when they return, is that sabbaticals result in resiliency for the organization. While I’m away, a teammate will step into the role of leading our support operations team. They’ll bring fresh ideas, build leadership skills, and become an additional source of institutional knowledge.
This makes me feel less selfish or guilty or worried or other uncomfortable feelings I feel. I don’t want to dismiss those feelings, but I also want to appreciate this unbelievable gift and not spend all my time fretting. That would defeat the purpose entirely! I’m not going to return in three months feeling refreshed and ready to bring my best to work if I spend this time worrying or decide not to take the sabbatical and burn myself out.
I’m feeling a lot of feelings right now, is the tl;dr. But the feelings I feel most are gratitude and excitement. I’ve been looking forward to this sabbatical for about two years, and I’ve been counting down the days like a student counts towards summer vacation or child counts towards Christmas day. And now the time is here.
Two truckloads of mulch will be delivered to my house on Monday. I’ll spend my first week in the garden. When I shovel mulch, pull weeds, and dig in the dirt, I become totally absorbed. The work is physical, and it clears my mind. I expect getting into my body next week will provide a clean divider between work and not work.
I expect to blog more now that I’ll have the time and space to. I’ve got some fun stuff planned: gardening, a trip to see friends, friends visiting me, and travel with my husband and our son to Paris, Lille, and Brussels to visit our daughter while she studies abroad. I’m sure I’ll find fun stuff to write about through all of that.
Meanwhile, here are some peacocks from the Dominican Republic. See you soon!
Temperatures have stayed below freezing for multiple weeks. Most nights last week were in the single digits, with highs in the teens when the sun was up. My husband texted during the week, do you want to hike the Cascades Saturday morning? I want to see it after all this cold.
When we pulled up to the trailhead at 10 am, the thermometer still below freezing but at least in the 20s instead of the teens, the parking lot was full of cars. Everyone in town wants to see the frozen Cascades.
It snowed and sleeted here a couple of weeks ago, and plenty of people have hiked to the falls since. The trail was slippery and treacherous as a result. The snow was packed tight from all the footsteps, and we had to use hands, feet, and butts to make our way without breaking any bones or falling into the frigid stream. On several short descents, we got down to the ground and used the path like a slide. About a hundred times, I thought, I wish I had a hiking stick. That, and hand warmers.
But oh my God, was it worth it. I really struggle photographing snow, and I could barely manage my camera because my hands were ice cubes, so my photos don’t do it justice. And of course, pictures don’t capture the hollow percussive sound of the stream glooping against the crust of ice above it, or the glitter of sunlight on the snow when the trail broke out of the shadows. They don’t capture the sounds of the college kids’ laughter as they slid on sneakered feet and bowled icicles on the frozen pool at the base of the waterfall, or the smell of cold forest air along an icy mountain stream. But they do capture some of the pretty shapes created by shadows, water, ice, and snow.
Stream from above on a trail bridgeSo smooth!The first hint of sunlightStream under iceI love this rock and its shadowCool blueIce palaceOn the waterfall pool
Butterfly Mind 