Hooray for Fall! October 10, 2010

We've been doing some exploring...

Saturday, September 25, 2010 - Oktoberfest - Snowbird, Little Cottonwood Canyon.  This was a beautiful day.  So warm and sunny!

I didn't get a picture of the moose (plural) we saw.  There was a bull moose and a momma with her two babies in a pond near the parking lot.  There were mountain security people shooing all the people away from the moose and into the parking lot traffic. As we were walking along the parked cars, the momma and her babies splashed out of the pond and headed into the parking lot in our general direction.  We turned and walked between parked cars and before I could make up my mind to climb underneath the closest SUV, they headed away again.  James told me he would have protected me with his body, attempting to redirect her by shoulder-to-shoulder contact - can you imagine James v. Momma Moose!?  Glad it didn't come to that!

Besides a nice drive up the canyon with my sweetheart, we explored the Oktoberfest shopping (Kuhl had an outlet tent with some fantastic deals - James got 2 pr pants for his winter wardrobe.  Hoping they'll have another sale before summer - would love a pair of their capris for me!). We stopped in the food tent, briefly, to listen to the Polkatronics... But the prices were too high for any sampling - $5.75 for a piece of German Chocolate cake! $9.50 for a bratwurst!

And we finished our drive by wandering up to Alta to check on the last of the snow.

Sunday, October 3, 2010 - Big Cottonwood Canyon.  During the Sunday morning session of General Conference we decided to drive up our favorite canyon to check on the progress of the fall colors.  Beautiful!

A really lovely background to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the messages from the Lord.

Friday, October 8, 2010 - Big Cottonwood Canyon.  As James and I contemplated his school schedule, we both felt strongly about the need for recreational study breaks.  So while we scrounged up tuition money, we also scrounged up money for a 10-pack at Solitude Ski Resort.  They usually put all 10 passes onto one card, but for $25 more you can have two cards with 5 passes on each.  With school and flying and everything else, I would have been surprised if James could have found 10 ski days this winter.  Between the two of us, no problem!  We drove up the canyon to check on the fall colors and to pick up our ski passes. This is Solitude's village and a children's fishing pond near the Disc Golf course.

It was the first really cool weather that included rain in the valley.  So we weren't surprised to find SNOW at the higher levels.  This old cabin is in the Brighton "circle"

We stopped on our drive down the canyon to check out Hidden Falls.  This is one of the locations where I took Kurt & Carlee's engagement photos - ages & ages & three kids ago.

We also stopped there last spring with my cousin Michael (March 21, 2009) after a good ski day.  As we explored, the guys found a GEOCACHE and wrote their names in the log book.  Guess what?  The cache and the log book with their entry was still there.   

Saturday, October 9, 2010 - took a break from exploring to do homework.  Love it!  Hand-me-down floral couch from a family James helped move.  Cooler/coffee table with hospital pillow for cushioning.  Soccer jersey from Kathleen's trip to Ireland, camo-pajama pants from Christmas in Idaho (thanks Mom!), and hospital non-slip socks.  (He's probably doing homework in this picture (with such a serious expression) - but maybe he was updating his fantasy football team or watching You-Tube videos of small airplanes landing on non-existant landing strips in Alaska.)

Sunday, October 10, 2010 - Mirror Lake Scenic Byway (Uinta Mountains) We took a study break and wandered our way along this pretty drive.  Enough snow for snowballs on top of these mountains.  We made a long loop of it and drove past Snow Basin (no snow there) and stopped to visit GandG Price for a half-hour-or-so. 

Happy Adventuring!