A couple of weeks ago, the temperature decided to finally spike to 100+ degrees. Since then, it's fluctuated around 90, but this week it's decided to consistently remain at 100. Basically, the entire valley is baking. It is hot outside, the sidewalk is sizzling and the eggs that a couple of hooligan jr. high kids threw at my car (not cool) scrambled themselves on the asphalt and became glued to it. The heat was really draining me, sapping energy and the will to stay awake. My original plans were to work out with Lisa and Gabi that night at the field house, which sounded terrible at the time simply because all I wanted to do was curl up in front of an industrial strength fan and sleep. As I was about to change into my exercise clothes, I got a text from my brother asking if I wanted to go up to Silver Lake, a large fishing lake located up Big Cottonwood Canyon. A place where there was water, woods, and, most importantly, cool air. I immediately said YES PLEASE GOD YES and drove home like an escaped convict in order to grab my camera and jump in my parents' car just as they were about to leave.
As soon as I felt the cool canyon air on my face, I immediately felt better. I'm usually a reptile; I love the heat and never mind high temperatures, especially if I can bask in them in the grass. However, hit 100 degrees and suddenly I'm drastically out of my comfort zone and just UPSET. We realized when we arrived at our destination that everyone else had the same idea we'd had; the parking lot was packed. We stalked someone's picnic table and jumped on it as soon as the previous tenants left. While eating our sandwiches, we were accosted by ground squirrels aka pot-guts.
(this sneaky bugger grabbed a pringle when we weren't looking)
After dinner, we set out for a walk around the lake. The "hike" is a really easy one, flat and mostly even-levelled by a boardwalk that surrounds half the lake. It was my first serious foray into the woods since Madera Canyon, though, and so it felt good.
(a wee beaver dam)
(Bigfoot?)
(I love pine tree saplings)
(run away little squirrel!)
(I wish that was me)
A lot of people were up there to fish. I passed these guys, who were alerted to my presence by the click of my camera. I asked them how their day was going and how the fishing was and they said they couldn't complain. I told them that hanging out by a lake with beer sounded heavenly. They said generally they'd agree with me, but the mosquitos were out in full force. I felt that, too.
I was thirty steps behind my family during the entirety of our hike, too busy taking pictures of anything and everything I found beautiful (i.e. all of it) while they continued on without me.
We saw giant black bird silhouettes flying over this cliff and, for a second, I wondered if they were eagles because they were so huge. But there were too many of them and when we heard their hoarse caws, I knew they were crows.
(hi, friend)
An elderly couple passed by me, smiling as I took fifty different pictures of this wary squirrel, and told me I had a little friend with me.
Skunk cabbage! I have such strong memories associated with this plant, mostly of resting moose and Girl Scout camp.
At this point, my parents were calling for me. My mom was especially irritable from the swarms of mosquitos, meaning we had to get a move on (since she rules the roost). I can't just NOT take pictures though, that's preposterous
I was about to return to the parking lot when I heard interesting garbling noises. I paused and looked around, thinking it was maybe a dog from a nearby house or cabin. It began to make high pitched keening noises, making me think that it was definitely a puppy whining at the back door of somebody's porch. Then I looked up and saw this little guy.
A Steller's Jay! He was making the funniest noises, and at time it sounded like he was trying to speak english. Corvids are brilliant mimics and often learn how to imitate several other bird calls, including predator calls such as Cooper's Hawks (as a crafty trick to frighten other birds away from resources and as a way to scare off other predators that might be intimidated by a Cooper's Hawk). I watched him for a good fifteen minutes, attempting to take photos of him with my iffy telephoto lens, until my dad was sent to harass me into coming back to the car. At this point, I was ready to escape the mosquitos (though less excited about returning to the overheated valley), so I willingly ceased and desisted with my picture-taking and returned to my impatient family. Thus ended a lovely, cool evening of photography and watching the sun set over the lake.
Monday night I got to see Kit Fry after his two month absence of having epic adventures in Fiji and New Zealand! We gathered at Battlestar Nostalgica and drank coffee (or beer in my case) and shared stories outside on the grass. At one point, Maddie made a joke and I sprayed beer all over the table and three separate people. We also made a creature sculpture out of the banana I was forced to buy with my beer (oh Utah, you and your crazy liquor laws). When Nostalgia closed, Kit, Rachel, Fernando, and I all decided to head to the Twilite Lounge. Kit and I played darts, my very first time, while drinking Cutthroat out of huge steins. I won, miraculously, and then went outside with Rachel to hang out while she smoked. I made friends with a pool shark regular named Chopper who was incredibly drunk and almost spilled a beer on my dress (which had already ripped earlier that evening from an unfortunate incident while sitting down in my chair). I complimented a girl named Lisa on her owl dress, which she thanked me for and then told me how she got it from a thrift store for $3. We went back inside to find everyone playing pool, where I had the privilege of meeting Rachel's neighbor, who she calls "Alanis Morissette Guy". Apparently, he knows all of her songs by heart and absolutely LOVES her. I told him that she was my jam back in jr. high. The rest of the night was spent trying to make their jukebox play our requested songs (it's free, and it was so backlogged with song requests from other people that it was refusing to play The Doors). I was still happy because it played a few Beatles songs, my favorites. We left Twilite Lounge in search of late night drunk food and found ourselves at Del Taco at 2 AM. Six hours later, I woke up to join Mark at Red Butte Garden for a picture-taking adventure. We went to lunch at Red Butte Cafe, said our goodbyes, and I visited Claire before my Doctor's appt. The rest of the day was spent having a facetime date with Natal and playing with Manny and then going on a hike with Gilly-Bean to Donut Falls. I love the mountains, I'm going to miss them so much when I move.
Today it was 102 degrees. I foolishly ignored this and decided I was going to walk to work in order to squeeze in some exercise and avoid using my car. Last night, when Gillian and I went up to Donut Falls, the undercarriage of my car began detached when I went over a couple of potholes too quickly and at not enough of an angle. The road leading up to the trailhead is awful, made of gravel and full of potholes, which did my car in. I just need to find some sort of strong car glue and staple it back to the underside of the car, but for now I'm trying to take it easy since I don't want it getting worse. I began my walk briskly, feeling confident about my life and my choices. Twenty minutes into the walk, I realized I had a terrible headache and decided I should probably drink some water. Fifteen minutes after that, I had a tiny bit of tunnel vision and wondered if I was going to pass out embarrassingly next to the construction site along Foothill. I powered through until I reached the library, just two minutes away from the bio building, and sought refuge inside the first floor bathroom. I looked like death. My entire face was red, except for two bright, white circles surrounding my eyes. My forehead was dripped with sweat, but it was nothing compared to the waterfall streaming down my neck and into my shirt. Speaking of my shirt, the entire backside of my shirt was soaked through with sweat. I was literally a hot mess. I rinsed off a bit and refilled my water bottle before shuffling over to the bio building, wishing I didn't actually have to do any work. After recuperating in the cool air of my lab for a bit and drinking plenty of water, I recovered and went about with my work fairly pleasantly. I'm taking care of a Bearded Dragon right now, which is an exciting new ward to nurture and coo at, and I got to take a bunch of pictures of dead pigeons. I begged my mom to pick me up from work, and I'm definitely glad she obliged. I headed to Nostalgia after dinner to study for the GRE and hang out with the regular Battlestar Nostalgica crew (some of whom are also studying for various things). On the way home from Nostalgia, I listened to the radio with my windows rolled down. I love summer nights because there's just an explosion of life in the city once the sun goes down. People were walking their dogs, riding their bikes, buying beer from 7-11, running barefoot across the sidewalks, and ultimately enjoying the absence of the currently unmerciful sun. One of my favorite radio stations has a help line that teens can call after hours, so I listened to that because the man's voice soothes me as he reassures the caller that everything is going to be okay, even though some hard work may be required.
Yes, so far this week has been good :) My plan is to maybe go to the Twilight Concert tomorrow, or if not go do karaoke at Bourbon House with Girr, go to my friend's bar hopping 21st birthday party on Friday the 13th, and then spend the weekend in solitude doing laundry, starting to go through my things, studying, and forcing my mom to retrieve old family photos from the depths of the "scary closet" so I can steal some of them and scan others. But I probably could be convinced to go on more outdoor adventures, rather than study.
Good night, world.
x
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