Solitude

Today Joe and I went up to the Solitude Nordic Center. We bought a couple of very inexpensive trail passes.
Then we began our little snow shoe journey down to the Solitude Village, just 2 1/2 miles down the canyon.



First we went around the frozen Silver Lake. This is the dock we fished from this summer.
The cross country skiers have a groomed trail that is right on the frozen lake. They can go around in circles forever or eventually follow the trail off into the woods.
The various trails are well groomed and marked with color coded plastic that they tie on the trees.


By just going up the canyon we are out of the smoggy inversions that hover over the valley from January through February. We even saw some sunshine up there.

I heard someone say once that there's no bad weather, just bad clothing. We both stayed comfortable, although I like Joes idea of putting 'toe warmers' in my shoes. Thats the only part that got a bit cold.


I thought I did pretty well, considering I went out there with a touch of the flu or something else like that. I usually don't let little things like that stop me.

Here's a picture of Joes back.

A shuttle drove us back up the canyon to the Nordic Center where we were parked. We had almost two hours to use up until the shuttle came, so we went off on some side trail to play some more. There were a couple of signs saying to watch out for the Moose in the area.
All in all we were outside playing for about 5 hours.

Honour Society

Aaron was inducted into the Golden Key International Honour Society this evening. We were in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom on B.Y.U. campus. I should mention that he's a computer science major in his Senior year.

I took this first picture before the room really filled up.




My hard working boy:



Aaron and his dad:




Aaron and his mom:




For refreshments, before and after the meeting, we could have punch, fruit, cheese cubes, ham cubes, crackers and some other good things. They also had chocolate fountains!




Out in the hallway, on the way out:





The keynote speaker was Dr.Brad Wilcox, Professor of Teacher Education





I got to bring his certificate home:




We're proud of you Aaron. You've worked hard. This is truly a stellar achievement.

Snow shoeing

Today Joe went with the kids to hunt down a new car for Aaron. Before Christmas my boy was in a collision that totaled his vehicle. Fortunately he wasn't injured and he received a good amount of insurance money.
While they were doing that I grabbed some personal time. I've been anxious to try out my new snow shoes.
It was fairly easy walking and I dressed in layers which kept me very warm. In fact at times I was too warm. I also carried a backpack with a 'survival kit', water, phone and snacks.

Here are some pictures from my walk:
























I was out in the woods for about 2 hours. I loved it. It was very relaxing, I got some exercise, and I was surprisingly very comfortable. I saw several other snowshoeing folks out there.
It was so weird; I was just 5-10 minutes from the end of my walk when here comes my husband on his snowshoes! Man, that was bizarre. He knew where I was and had my daughter drive him up and leave him off.
I had him take a picture of me and drive home.






Here's a little video:





Since I got home I can't find one of my gloves. I hate it when that happens.