all hail the sun

I am a sun worshipper. I forget this sometimes, but it's true. I live for sun. I'm surprised I haven't yet made a soltice pilgrimage to the sun tunnels to burn sage and dance in circles (or whatever a proper sun worshipper might do).

When I was making grad school decisions, the clincher was probably reading somewhere that Ft. Collins has 360 days of sunshine a year (and it pretty much did). Once, during an atypical week of cloudy skies a professor remarked that the sun better come out soon or students would start killing themselves. I also briefly considered attending college in Fairbanks, Alaska until I read that it had the highest suicide rate in the nation (along with other extreme responses to cabin fever).

Now I live in the land of smog. It's smog people, not that hopeful " haze." Air so thick and dirty, it coats your car. Sometimes I even forget that there is a sun--a total faith crisis.

But luckily if you drive high enough (maybe those Babel tower building folks lived in an inversion) you can find some evidence for your tenacious faith. Sun. Real sun, not sun that sets behind smog before it retreats behind the real horizon.

Today, Will and I hiked (so little snow you can hike) up to Dog Lake. At the top, the sky was blue and fierce. There was so much sun that I didn't have to wear gloves or a coat or a hat. I was so ecstatic, I even climbed a tree (which didn't go so well, the tree being a wobbly aspen).

This is just to assure all of you Salt Lakers that there is still a sun.

how I spent my christmas vacation

I may not have been to Spain or Scotland, but I did briefly escape from the valley and the smog (which today, thankfully, gloriously has disappeared).

First to a yurt in the Uintas (Lily Lake) for Christmas. This included 5 1/2 miles of cross-country skiing with a backpack which is an impressive feat for a girl who had never put on a pair of skis until this winter (and who desperately hates winter).

Cross-country skiing is pretty fun and winter camping is made tolerable with wood floors, canvas walls, and a stove.

For New Year's, we cruised off to Vegas, but stayed totally out of Vegas (except for a trip to Trader Joe's) . I detest Vegas and have know realized that the only way it is worth seeing is from a Sandstone peak miles away in Red Rocks. We camped, we hiked, we climbed (well, mostly Will climbed. I was kind of in a wimpy mood). On New Year's eve, we fell asleep at 8:30, but we did wake up for three subsequent countdowns (couldn't they have coordinated a little?) in the campground and some ill-advised fireworks. It was, I think, the best New Year's I've ever had.