Goblin Valley Utah
Seems like everytime I go anywhere I just have to tell you all about it. On this one I got a LOT of pictures, so for the next couple of week I’m going to be squeezing them in to every available slot.
I’m starting where the trip really started – Goblin Valley.
Goblin Valley is a park a few miles away from Lake Powell. We got there fairly early in the day, which meant 100 + degree temperatures, little or no shade, and a fair amount of dust.
Here is the view from the base, looking North at the entry. Those toadstool looking things on top of the hill are shades with picnic tables under them. To the left is the parking lot. Looks like a movie set, doesn’t it?
This is what you see looking to the south. There are no sanctioned trails at Goblin Valley the way there are in other places. You simple wander around among the rock formations. You are allowed to climb and touch as you please. It’s a nice change of pace.
A lot of the formations look like this. Um…. no comment. I’m betting you’ll say it all.
It’s a hot, dusty, dry place. It’s the shape of things, and maybe a little the color, that makes the place interesting. Get a load of the way the ground ripples in the foreground of this one. Those boulders were as tall as I am.
I can’t remember if these were called the three wisemen or what, but we decided they looked most like monkeys.
We stayed there long enough to cook dinner, then moved on.
How to Lay Floor Tile Part 4: Grout
Grout turned out to be the most problematic for me. I made the mistake of mixing it up with water – which was one of the options offered on the bag. This was all fine and well for most of the floor, but the lip I constructed between the tiled area and the wood floor didn’t fair so well. That will be a blog post all to itself, though. Suffice it to say that in the future I will always use latex.
First the area has to be cleaned up a bit. Anyplace where the mortar sticks up has to be scraped out to make room for the grout, which really does need at least a quarter of an inch. Luckily the mortar crumbles nicely under a well-placed crowbar. I think even a screw driver would work to remove the excess. You do have to apply pressure gently so you don’t knock the tiles loose, but it isn’t very difficult.
I managed to clear off all the spots in less than half an hour. I wouldn’t have had to do it at all if I’d had the foresight to use the little plastic spacer things to even out the mortar before it dried. I did that in the closet area – running the spacers back and forth along the tiles as I set them, but more because I was struggling with the spacing than because I knew what I was doing.
If you’re using water you have to be very conscientious about the proportions. The wrong amount – either too much OR too little – will result in grout that doesn’t want to stay put when it dries. When I followed the directions on the bag closely I got something that reminded me a little of pie crust, only not as sticky.
I glopped this over the gaps between the tiles. If the tiles weren’t so big I would have simply covered them entirely. As it was, I could easily avoid putting the grout in the middles, which saved some work later. That decorative edging I just covered completely.
Then you’re supposed to work the grout down between the tiles with a floater. I don’t know why I had envisions a smooth, sweeping motion with the floater would do the trick. Hah! I ended up using the edges of the floater to jamb the grout into the gaps. A soft cake spatula might have worked as well. By the time I was done with the entire floor, the poor floater was showing some wear and tear.
This was a time consuming process, which was no fun when the kids kept wanting to go in and out by the front door. After the project was done, the kids were so used to taking the back door, they kept doing it. Mind you it only took a few hours to do the actual work, but then the grout had to dry over night.
Then comes the clean up – wiping off the excess grout with damp rags. It spent a good chunk of my afternoon on this. Every time I thought I was done I’d let it dry only to see a sheen of grout dust and have to do it again. By the end of the day there could be no question I got it all, but a fair amount of the grout came up too, and anyplace where the mortar hadn’t been taken down far enough had to be re-done. That added a day to the project as the new grout had to dry. Next time I expect to be able to skip this step and save a day.
Yes, I am going to do it again. Why do you ask? *innocent blinking and befuddled smile*
New Toy
Jack: Hey, Honey, look what I got you for your birthday.
Jack: Isn’t it great? This baby’s got enough horsepower to go through bone. Now you can make all the jerky you want, which is great because I’ve already got a hunting trip lined up. Yep. I’ll be bringing home the venison this time for sure.
Jack: Just be careful how you… huh?
Jack: Oof
Jack: Babe, if I’d known you wanted one this much, I’d have gotten one for you years ago.
saturday photo scavenger hunt
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Today’s theme is sharp.
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Suzie’s House 74: Decisions, Decisions
We continue from last week when Sean and Joseph, the red headed men, were nearly caught by the woman who lives in the apartment in which they’ve been squatting.
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Sean clutched the laptop to his side, as much to staunch the pain as to safeguard the computer. The wound was well on its way to heeling, but with the exertion of chasing Joe down the fire escape, it might open up again.
Even as he ran for his life, he had an urge to open up the laptop and check his email.
Could Joe be right? Was his thing for the internet an addiction? Once his fever went down and the wound stopped seeping, he’d craved a little time on his favorite boards. He’d itched to see if his emails had been answered. Had anyone noticed he almost died? Did they care that the master mind behind the Smashum Up Derby hadn’t had his hand on the rudder for a while there?
His blog stats were down, and his board got quiet. That meant they noticed, didn’t it? It meant they loved him and wanted him around. Didn’t it?
Ever since looking into his brother’s eyes and asking if he would really let him die just to avoid the cops, Sean had been questioning everything. If he had died, what would it mean?
He had a really bad feeling the answer was nothing. Neither his life, nor his death, would mean a thing.
“Quiet!” Joe hissed from the bottom of the fire escape, as if the thump of his own feet on the half-rotten wood weren’t just as loud. He stood there, looking like he’d take to his heels any second. The grimness behind his eyes hollowed out his cheeks, making his jaw more prominent. He looked every bit as intense and dangerous as he really was. Sean pitied him for never having learned to hide it. Joe’s head cocked to the side, listening for something at the window they’d escaped through.
He tried to imagine the reaction of the lady the apartment belonged to. She was probably standing in the door, looking at the mess they’d left behind, and wondering what had happened. She was probably old, too old to have heard them. Who but an old lady would fill her apartment with all those doilies?
Except she must have had some life in her because there was a vibrator in the dresser next to her bed. All the pictures around the place showed girls in their 20’s – college students on vacation in Cancun and stuff like that.
He’d like to get his hands on some of those girls, show them what a bad boy could really do. Maybe Joe was right. Maybe he was sick. He was probably looking at the woman’s granddaughter. Except her mail had been mentioned Cancun.
Joe made a hurry gesture, and headed for the back of the building at a brisk walk. Sean reached the ground, his first step hard enough to jar his guts.
What if she came to the window? What if she saw them? Sean grinned, the adrenaline rushing around as if he were in a stolen car hunting the taxi driver in the red barrette. Did he WANT to get caught?
Maybe a part of him did. Maybe a part of him was self destructive. It was like with that boy, the one who lived with the guy Joe shot. He knew he should leave the kid alone. The kid didn’t need to learn to drive like a maniac. He didn’t need to learn how to make motive cocktails, or hold a knife in a fight. There was no reason for Sean to reach out to the boy. No reason at all.
But he would. He’d tell himself he wouldn’t, and avoid the kid for a while, but eventually he’d give in. He’d drive around in Joe’s Jeep like he did before and keep his eyes open, like before. Eventually he’d pick the boy up, get to know him, maybe teach him a thing or two.
It was only because Joe would be mad. Sean saw this in himself, but couldn’t change the impulse. Just like now, when he heard the soft exclamation of a woman’s voice come from the window. Soft, but firm; a young woman’s voice. Sean instantly wanted to meet her.
So much forbidden fruit. So little time.
Joseph went around the corner of the building with his back against the wall, looking for all the world like one of the cops he so despised. No doubt he made it without being seen. No way Sean would. He could hear the woman talking to someone. A friend? 911?
He had to know. He just had to know. Sean stopped at the corner of the building, and turned around. There she was, long dark hair and brown eyes just like in the pictures. She looked right at him from the apartment where he had almost died a few days before.
He gave her a wave and a wink, then strolled around the corner.
Thursday Thirteen #34: More Pictures
Here are more pictures that have appeared on this blog. These are all from Belize. Hover your cursor over the pictures for comments. The blogs themselves appeared here in April and May of 2007. By next week I should have pictures of Lake Powell ready.
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It has come to my attention that those on Apple can’t see the pop up messages. Here’s a quick run down:
#1 is a cormorant on Monkey River. #2 – manatees. #3 – a shark I once chased. It was bigger than me, but not by much. #4-8 in Belize City during a holiday in which everyone left. #9 and #10 at Maya Beach. #11 Xuenantunich #12 where I went storkling and saw the shark. #13 the path leading to a zip line.
Di
Tiffany
Tamy ~ 3 sides of crazy 🙂
Susan Helene Gottfried
cajunvegan
Celticlibrarian
Paige Tyler
Vera
Tink
By George! What a Fine, Upstanding Husband He Makes.
Last week George was having money problems. Can you think of any problems his wife might be having?
For over a year, (1793) the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert had been growing ever more distant. I think it would be more accurate to say that the Prince had grown more distant. Or, at least, more insensitive. They were fighting frequently. After one such fight, Mrs. Fitzherbert fled the room with “angry tears.” Said the Prince to a dinner guest who witnessed the altercation, “If she loved and considered me as I love her, we should not quarrel as often as we do.” I don’t think it was humanly possible to give the Prince the sort of uncritical adoration he craved. That didn’t stop him from expecting it, however.
One story illustrates the tender, considerate affection to which the Prince subjected her. One night in Brighton, the Prince and some drunken buddies made their way to Mrs. Fitzherberts home. Being no stranger to these nocturnal visits, Mrs. Fitzherbert “would seek a refuge from their presence, even under a sofa, when the Prince, finding the drawing room deserted, would draw his sword in joke, and searching about the room, would draw the trembling victim from her place of concealment.” Perhaps Mrs. Fitzherbert was just being a good sport and playing along with the “joke” by trembling with fear on cue.
Of course, being the Prince, and moreover a Hanoverian Prince, he saw no reason why being “married” should in any way prevent him from having his fun with the girl of his choice. According to one historian “there had been an unsuccessful attempt on his part to seduce the lovely and tiresomely virtuous daughter of Lady Archer.” Poor fellow! Virtuous girls are such a buzzkill.
He had rather better luck with one Anna Marie Crouch, a singer of Welsh/ French decent with a suitably checkered past. Mrs. Crouch was married to a naval officer. While hubby was away, she fended off lonely nights with the help of an Irish opera singer and actor, Michael Kelly. All pretty run of the mill, affair-wise. What was notable was that, when hubby was home, Mr. Kelly wasn’t asked to leave. I will leave it to your imaginations, gentle readers, what the three of them got up to when Mr. Crouch’s ship came in.
And into this steamy nest of wedded bliss enters the Prince. Three was company; four was a crowd as far as Lieutenant Crouch was concerned. He moved out. His wife gave him a small allowance to get by on and the Prince bribed him handsomely to keep his mouth shut. My God, what The Times would have made of that story! All in all, Lieutenant Crouch received 400 pounds annually for knowing the wrong things about the right people.
It was too good to last for the Prince. Apparently he made love to Mrs. Crouch only once before moving on to new conquests. Mrs. Crouch returned to the arms of Mr. Kelly for consolation, if she had ever left them, and found time in between bouts of sobbing to count the one thousand gold guineas the Prince gave her to keep HER mouth shut. I’m not sure how much a guinea was worth, but it was gold, and that never goes out of style.
Mrs. Fitzherbert knew about these affairs and others like them. She looked the other way because her social stratum was completely geared toward looking the other way. The crime, for the Better Sorts, was getting caught by strangers. Or worse, the press. Regardless of how The Ladies might feel, regardless of the fire and brimstone raining down from the pulpits, it was a mans world. And men like the Prince were the top of the food chain. Besides, with discretion, The Ladies could behave the same way and no one among the Better Sorts would even blink
Not that Mrs. Fitzherbert behaved like that, She didn’t. And she didn’t like the Prince behaving like that. But men were men. At least that’s what she told herself until she got sick of being the Prince’s doormat.
Vacations
As many of you know, I’m nuts for blog stats. I check my numbers more than once a day, and am usually very quick to reply when anyone leaves a comment on my blog. Ok, a lot of the time my reply will be on the commenter’s blog rather than my own, but still, I’m there.
Not right now.
It feels strange to do a Talk To Me Tuesday in advance. I usually come up with it the night before. I usually talk about whatever is on the top of my mind. I guess that’s true this time too, though you won’t see this for days.
What’s on my mind is that I’m on a houseboat in Lake Powell right now. I’m not likely to get back online for a week. And I already know what my stats are going to look like when I get back.
Not good.
Even though I have a post all ready to go every day this week. Even though Mr. Al will be around as much as ever. Even though I will be eager to come visit your blog as soon as I can, I’m betting you won’t come to see me until I go to see you.
So my question this week is would you have known if I hadn’t said something? Can you tell when someone sets their blog on autopilot and walks away? Do you care?
Call of the Wildside
At times nature can be cruel, but there is also a raw beauty, and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty.
The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators, normally considered the ‘apex predator,’ can still fall victim to implemented ‘team work’ strategy, made possible due to the tight knit social structure and ‘survival of the pack mentality’ bred into the canines.
See the remarkable photograph below courtesy of Nature Magazine. Note that the Alpha dog has a muzzle hold on the gator preventing it from breathing, while another dog has a hold on the tail to keep it from thrashing. The third dog attacks the soft underbelly of the gator.
Too see the picture, click “more”
Deviled Boats
3 hard boiled eggs
2 Tbs. mayonnaise
a pinch of paprika
salt and pepper to taste
6 Wheat Thin crackers
Cut hard boiled eggs in half. Remove yolk. Mix with seasonings. Stuff yoke mixture into egg hollows. Place on plate or tray. Stick crackers into egg mixture on edge so they stick up like sails. Sail into your mouth.
Little raison crew optional.
Gotcha, Jack!
Jack: Jill!
Previously in Jack and Jill With Running Water
saturday photo scavenger hunt
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Today’s theme is bright.
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Suzie’s House 73: Time to Go
This episode continues from quite some time back when the red headed men found a place to hide while recovering from their wounds
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“What do you think you’re doing?” Joseph balled his fists so he wouldn’t just yank the laptop away from Sean and fling it across the room. He could see it now, fancy silver case skidding through artsy-fartsy, hand-made junk. The longer they crashed in this stranger’s apartment, the uglier the primitive little figurines ranging from Hindu gods to tikki heads looked to him.
Maybe they’d convalesced here long enough. There was no guarantee the woman who rented the efficiency wouldn’t come back early from her vacation.
No, that was an excuse to move on before either he or Sean healed all the way. The truth was he couldn’t stand one more minute locked up here with his brother.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Sean didn’t even bother to glance away from the screen.
“It LOOKS like you are back to the same old tricks that got us into this fix in the first place. Is that Crash Site? Are you pretending to be the Smash Master again?”
“There’s no pretense about it, Joe. I AM the Smash Master.” Sean’s finger’s clacked over the keyboard in a blur, spewing out more trouble for Joseph to deal with.
“Not anymore, you aren’t.” Joseph yanked the laptop out of his brother’s hands.
“Hey!” Sean rose from his chair like Poseidon rising from the sea, looking as menacing with his shaggy, red hair tumbling into his face like seaweed. He brushed it out of the way with the back of his hand. “Give that back.”
“No more Smash Master. No more Taxi Derby. No more Smash Point. It’s over Sean. Give it up.”
“It is NOT over.” He made a grab for the computer, but Joseph was quicker. After a couple of tries, he rocked back on his heels. “Sure, my page views are down since I was too sick even to get myself to the hospital.” His voice filled with bitterness, no doubt thinking of how Joseph refused to get either of their bullet wounds tended by someone sure to report them. “But I can get them back up again fast. You wait and see.”
“After everything we have both been through because of it, you would still do this thing. You’ve a sickness, Sean. It’s taken you over like an evil spirit.”
“It hasn’t. Besides, Joe, you’ve been living on the money from the site, same as me. Ad revenue, you know. You can’t say you don’t see the point in that.”
“Can’t you make money doing something legal?”
“Can’t you?”
Joseph looked away. Sean had a point. He’d spent a while as a dishwasher, and a while longer as a line cook, but that was nothing he could be proud of. Then again, there wasn’t much call for people with his kinds of expertise. Not since the Irish Liberation Activists gave up.
He shook his head. Violently. The point was they couldn’t go on the way they were.
“Start up a web site that won’t have the cops breathing down our necks.”
“Phff! It isn’t as easy as it sounds. What do you expect me to do? Sell Tupperware?”
“I don’t know! I don’t care! All I know is that they are after us because of the sodden web site, and they found us through it. With you tapping away again, they could be at the door right now!”
“Hardly.” Sean fainted right, then snagged the laptop from the left, grinning as he took it back.
Joseph would have gone to the mat for it, but right then he heard a soft thump from the hall. He went still, tense, listening hard. There it was again. A thump right by the door to the apartment.
“Did you just hear something?” Sean looked up from his laptop. He hadn’t sat yet. His eyes went to the door, where the metallic clink and grind of a key going into the lock could be heard.
“Oh God. It’s her. She’s home.” Joseph scanned the apartment wildly. Sign of their habitation was everywhere – empty booze bottles, bloody rags, food cartons and old pizza boxes. They’d brought in a couple of changes of clothes each, and Sean had obviously sneaked in his laptop. Except for the incriminating laptop, there was nothing here they couldn’t afford to loose.
Would she go to the police? Would they test the rags for DNA? There wasn’t time to do anything about it. Joseph grabbed Sean’s’ arm and dragged him toward the window over the fire escape.
“No her. The woman who lives here. I thought you said she was in Thailand.”
“That’s what her correspondence said, but plans change. Quick. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Thursday Thirteen #33: Thirteen Pictures
These are all pictures that were posted on this blog at one time or another.
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That last one is from a trip my family went on to Belize. While on that trip I was unable to get to a cyber cafe, though I saw a few. I was unable to post. My blog withered away. Which is why this time when I went on vacation I set up some posts to appear on their regularly scheduled times.
I’m at Lake Powell right now. I’ll come and leave comments on the blog of anyone who as left one here, as soon as I can get to the internet again.
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By George! Can You Spare Some Change?
It seems George IV never made it a day without some sort of money trouble. Let’s see how close he can come to the national debt.
Previously in By George!
Next in By George!
The Duke of York’s solution was to get married. While my loyal readers know that The Prince had already gotten married, they also know that it wasn’t the kind of marriage that anyone other that The Prince, his sorta-wife and their intimate circle of drunken reprobates would approve of. I take some of that back. It was The Prince’s intimate circle of drunken reprobates. Mrs. Fitzherbert may have been delusional as far as her …um…husband was concerned, but she did NOT share The Princes taste for antisocial “Lifestyle Choices.”
The Duke had married Princess Frederica of Prussia. This was a positive development as far as Their Majesties were concerned. A marriage alliance with Prussia could pay dividends some day; in the meantime, the princess’s dowry was going to pay dividends to The Duke right away! And that was on top of his big allowance increase because he was married. The Duke was in sore need of it.
Oh yeah… The Princess… what was she like? Well, according to one observer she was “small, not at all pretty and had bad teeth.” Be that as it may, she was also a gold mine. Besides, The Duke was in no position to look a gift princess in the mouth. I’m sorry I had to write that after that quote about her teeth. And how much more did The Duke receive? An additional 18,000 pounds on top of what he already received directly from the Civil List and rent and revenues from various landholdings. Dowry not included, The Duke was looking at 70,000 pounds a year. He needed every shilling.
These were numbers that made The Prince sit up and take notice. He would be entitled to more than that as Prince of Wales. Maybe a lot more. Lord knows he had his expenses. His “racing establishment” alone cost 30,000 a year. And this was after promising representatives from Parliament that he would steer clear of the ponies from now till hell froze over. The denizens of Hades could be heard singing “jingle bells.”
Then there was Carlton House. The costs of turning it into something fit for sybaritic layabout like the prince had truly become astronomical. The situation had become even worse because the Prince had used up nearly every source of capital available to him. No London banker would touch him with a pair of tongs.
Lenders in Europe were equally unobliging; particularly after the dukes of York and Clarence borrowed 350,000 Dutch guilders from a Jewish firm in Amsterdam, then drove it into ruin by refusing to make even interest payments on the loan. Whattyagonnado with kids like that?
The Prince came up with one brainstorm for the Duke of York after he had married. Why not hit up his new father-in-law for some pocket change? Not much, maybe, say, 150,000 pounds? Wrote the Prince to his brother; “Pray do you think your beau-pere would do a little something in the loan way?…. My dearest Frederick you must for all our sakes strain every nerve…. I hope you will not lose sight of this as it is of too much consequence to be neglected and that you will prove yourself to be an able negotiator.”
There are times when reading about the Prince, especially when he is quoted, that I think of Bertie Wooster from P.G.Wodehouse’s “Jeeves” series. Wither the Duke had failed to strain every nerve or the King of Prussia had already heard about the Prince is not known. The Prince never received any money from that quarter.
The fact that no one would loan him money didn’t stop the Prince from spending it. His tailors alone were owed 31,919 pounds. The guys who made only his pants were owed 1,875 pounds. And this at a time when a country squire would be considered well in the chips if he had an annual income of 700 pounds.
Creditors from all sides beset the Prince. He had to raise a lot of money fast. There was the Whig party. If he could get Fox and others to approach dad about a subsidy… Alas, the Whig party was in turmoil over the French revolution. There were those who thought that England would be better off it the Prince got a “Republican Haircut.”
The moderate wing of the party, the wing the Prince hoped to appeal to, was closed to him because of the rift between the Prince and Fox. A rift Mrs. Fitzherbert was “straining every nerve” to keep as wide as possible. And what of Mrs. Fitzherbert? What was she up to while the Prince was romping about in his splendid new uniform? Reaching the end of her rope it would seem.
This blog was written by Mr. Al
Exsqueeze Me
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Mr. Al and I dropped by the grocery store on our way home the other day. Each of us grabbed a basket and loaded up with our own choices. I, for one, won’t buy potato chips. He doesn’t buy raw potatoes. We went through the check out line one after the other, each paying for our purchases out of our own wallets.
So far, this is what we would consider normal. Then, after Mr. Al made his purchases and before I’d paid for mine, Mr. Al reached over and squeezed my loaf of bread.
I didn’t think anything of it. It’s hard to not squeeze a loaf when you’re thinking about eating it. I squeezed the loaf myself when I selected it. The cashier took exception; not because of the squeezing, but because Mr. Al did it to MY loaf.
“Do you realize he’s squeezing your loaf?” The cashier asked.
“Yes,” I said, not looking up from my wallet.
“I’m not kidding. He’s squeezing your loaf.”
At this point I grinned, and wrapped my arms around Mr. Al. He is, after all, my husband. I’m allowed to do that. Even in public. I grinned and said, “He can squeeze my loaf anytime he wants.”
The cashier was an aging gentleman; deep wrinkles and gray sideburns. He couldn’t seem to get over our behavior. While I paid for my selections, Mr. Al scooped up the bags and headed out the door.
“He’s taking them now! Did you know he’s taking them?”
“Oh, good,” I said, waiting for my change.
I never did tell the cashier Mr. Al and I are married.
What would you do? If you’re married, do you always pay for your groceries out of one wallet? Do you never ever shop together? Surely Mr. Al and I can’t be that unique.
Whisper Winner
Remember the Whisper Contest? Here’s the winner.
Only three people placed comments on the correct blog during the correct time period to qualify for the $20 gift certificate, and the only one to qualify for the cookies didn’t want them. Sigh.
Usually I write all the names, then have my daughter pull the winner from a hat. This time I just flipped a coin.
Andi, you get the gift certificate, and if you’ll let me tag you yet again, I’ll throw in the Thin Mints. Email me.
I am going to do this whole thing again, but I’ll probably play with the rules.
