Trip to Utah, April 18-22, 2012

The City Creek Center in downtown SLC

Having frozen custard in Orem

After Darren's graduation, BYU campus, 4/20/12

Dorine and I drove up to Utah for Darren's graduation from BYU (BS in Electrical Engineering, with minors in Math and English), which took place on Friday, April 20.  We left town on Wednesday afternoon, arriving in Provo at 1:30 am on Thursday; we stayed at the Provo Plaza Inn on south University Avenue -- adjacent to the Provo Towne Center mall and across the street from Sam's Club -- which was undoubtedly once a nice motel but has its issues now.  (We normally would have stayed at the Super 8, which isn't exactly the Ritz either but is near the BYU campus; however, the rate there had gone up to $140/night during graduation week.)  It was a fun, if too-short trip, as we got to see Darren (and meet his steady date Cait Brobst), most of my brothers (as well as Kelly's fiancee Michelle), and Dorine's brother Brian (who lives in Grantsville, out west of Salt Lake City).  Darren will stay in Provo this summer, thankfully having gotten an on-campus research job, before starting graduate school in the fall.

What's happening

Trayvon at 12; Zimmerman in a mug shot (all part of the narrative!)

1. The Trayvon Martin Case.  I have ambivalent feelings about this matter.  On one hand, I think a neighborhood watch captain has no business carrying a firearm, and it's entirely plausible that George Zimmerman's doing so caused him to feel emboldened and thus wrongfully to instigate what turned out to be a fatal confrontation with Trayvon Martin; however, I also think the prosecutor in the case has clearly overcharged Zimmerman by alleging second-degree murder.  I don't know the vagaries of "depraved mind" murder as it pertains to Florida law, but I can't conceive of any state of the evidence -- regardless of what hasn't yet come to light -- under which Zimmerman is guilty of more than voluntary manslaughter.  On the other hand, the fact that the professional race-baiter Al Sharpton has managed to insinuate himself into the case is almost enough, in itself, to convince me that Zimmerman's assertion holds water that he shot Martin in lawful self-defense.  (Given Sharpton's history of flogging false claims -- the Tawana Brawley and Duke lacrosse cases leap to mind -- a smart betting man might lay odds on Zimmerman's ultimately being exonerated completely...excepting, of course, that an implacable, would-be lynch mob wants his head on a platter.)  The death of a 17-year-old young man is a tragedy under any circumstance, but the attempt to make (Latino Democrat!) Zimmerman's killing of Martin fit a worn-out "racism" narrative is pretty ridiculous from where I stand; it's political opportunism at its very worst and most-obvious.

2. The 2012 Presidential Election.  Now that Mitt Romney has all but wrapped up the Republican nomination for president, I will be interested to see how the fall campaign shapes up.  At the very least, it's certain to be an extremely dirty affair; Barack Obama, not having a positive record to run on, will have no choice but to attempt to vilify his opposition -- and the major news media, having dived headlong into the tank for him in 2008, will surely do so again this year.  I'm one of millions who found irony in Obama's statement that he has to be re-elected in order to "finish the job."  Geez, precisely what "job" would that be -- destroying the dollar, perhaps?  (His lack of economic acumen reminds me of the apocryphal person who asked, "How can I be overdrawn at the bank when I still have checks in my checkbook?")

3. Climate Change.  I've long been convinced that concerns about man-made global warming are overblown and that the so-called "science" on which those concerns are based is the ginned-up product of naked leftist ideology.  However, one positive effect of the warmists' having overplayed their hand in recent years (doing their best Chicken Little impressions) is the gradual realization that their policy preferences are extremely unpopular; in short, we simply can't afford the solutions they propose without a serious degradation of our modern standard of living, and few people are going to go along willingly with that, at least absent some pretty convincing proof.  I once had someone state to me, "How much will it cost if Florida ends up underwater?"  My response (with apologies to Mike Myers): "Monkeys might fly out my butt, too, but that doesn't mean I'm going to spend a trillion dollars to 'try' to prevent it!"

4. My Truck.  I bought a brand-new Toyota Tacoma truck in 1999 and have had it now for thirteen years.  I don't drive it all that much, which is evident in the fact that it still only has about 72,000 miles on it; however, it's been pretty reliable transportation, and I hope to be driving it thirteen years from now.  It's funny that the truck suffered three collisions/accidents in the first six months I owned it -- first, a car pulled into Dorine when she was making a left-hand turn in a dual turn lane; second, we stupidly tried to empty a trailer full of gravel we'd hauled with it...on an incline...without blocking wheels...by unhooking the trailer, which immediately slammed into the tailgate of the truck and messed it up pretty badly; and third, I was stopped at a light on northbound Tramway Blvd. when a drunk driver slammed into the car behind me so hard that he pushed that car into the back of my truck -- but none since that time.  (Knock on wood.)

5. Whitney Houston and "Evil" Benzodiazepines.  After Whitney Houston was found dead in February of this year -- in a bathtub in a hotel bathroom containing multiple prescription drugs -- the word "benzodiazepine" almost became a swear word.  People like Dr. Drew (of the eponymous television show on HLN) were hysterically decrying the use of "benzos" as if anyone using them were a tweaker bent on stealing your identity to get drug money.  Of course, it was later disclosed that Houston's death by drowning resulted largely from her habitual cocaine use, and no further mention was made of her prescription medications.  Speaking as someone who has long used Temazepam (a commonly prescribed "benzo") as a sleep medication, and as someone who has suffered greatly for two-plus years from mal de debarquement syndrome, the literature for which prominently mentions the use of "benzos" (especially Klonapin) as a palliative, I want to scream "You don't get anything, do you?" at these people.  After visiting with a sleep psychologist last week, I came to the conclusion that pharmacology -- especially the continued use of Temazepam for sleep, combined with a low-dose Klonapin or Diazepam (i.e., valium) for use during the day -- may be my only salvation in terms of coping with my two diagnoses (chronic insomnia and chronic disequilibrium).  Unfortunately, trying to convince a doctor or nurse practitioner that it can be okay, even desirable, for someone to use multiple "benzos" is a real trick; the publicity surrounding Whitney Houston's demise sure didn't help!

It's sucking my will to live--

I seem to be losing most of my will to maintain a blog.  There are multiple reasons: first, in many ways I've already "written myself out" on topics that interest me (or that once interested me); second, my physical infirmities impose certain cognitive limitations that impair my ability to do any truly original thinking; third, my pondering too much about the current trajectory of the civilized world is depressing in the extreme (even if I contemplate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as the natural end stage of the coming world-wide turmoil, depravity, and chaos); and fourth, honestly, who really cares what I think?  I'd like to keep writing regular posts, but I've gone well over a month since my last post, and I still don't have anything I want to say.  

My "new" job has been going all right, although it entails several sets of responsibilities that render it virtually impossible to take any meaningful vacation time, at least when it's convenient to me.  (It's notable that this year was the first time since I started at Sandia National Laboratories in 1992 that I literally could not take time off during the Albuquerque Public Schools' spring break [March 12-16].)  It isn't like I'm deriving any special career benefits from working in an SMU [strategic management unit] business office -- a fairly "visible" place to work otherwise -- so I see myself going back to a "line org" business office eventually, if only not to be chained to my desk when I don't want to be.  My main criterion in making such a move would be to have an "old school" manager with substance, intellectual honesty, a customer-service orientation, and a willingness both to trust and go to bat for his/her subordinates -- which, if nothing else, I have in my current job -- and frankly I'm not sure how many business managers at SNL still fall in that category.  I originally planned to work 30 years at SNL and retire at age 63, but, between my health reverses and ongoing changes in the company, I'll be fortunate to be able to put in another five-plus years to reach 25 years.

Working two shifts a month at the temple has been much more manageable for me than was doing a shift every week, but it appears impossible "just" to be an ordinance worker without eventually being asked to be a "coordinator" of some kind.  Thus I'm supposed to be the training coordinator on one of the shifts that Dorine and I work; however, I'm not a natural teacher, and just about any source of stress, however small, eventually has a deleterious effect on me.  I would already have had a conversation about it with a member of the temple presidency, but of course I don't want to feel like I'm not making the full contribution that's expected of me.

Dorine and I are now serving as Sunbeam (i.e., three- and four-year-olds) teachers in our ward Primary.  There are certainly worse church callings to have, but our meeting schedule this year has us attending church between 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm, which is smack dab during most of these kids' nap time.  Additionally, due to the circumstance of having a Spanish-language branch in our building whose sacrament meeting overlaps with the first hour of our schedule, we have our meetings in "reverse" order, with sacrament meeting at the end -- which is surprisingly hard.  I haven't been able to get out and hike on Sundays as I had been doing last year, and I miss it.

Trip to Utah, February 7-12, 2012

Darren at the Brick Oven

The Marriott Center (stock photo)

I drove by myself up to Provo, Utah on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 in order to visit our son Darren, who's a student at BYU.  I stayed in the Provo Super 8 (on Canyon Road at University Parkway) for five nights, finally driving home in a series of blizzards on Sunday, February 12.  I also was able to visit with my brothers -- Roger, Robin, Jeff, and Kelly -- all of whom live and work in Utah Valley.  Robin invited me to go to the BYU-Pepperdine men's basketball game on Saturday, and I believe it was the first time I'd seen a live game in the Marriott Center (see photo) since I was a student at BYU in 1981 -- which, coincidentally, was the only year the Cougars have ever made it to the round of 8 in the NCAA tournament.  In some ways, going to the Marriott Center after all these years was like going through a time warp, although a lot of things have changed, especially the ear-splitting volume of the sound system.  Due to my chronic illnesses, the drive to (or from) Provo is almost more than I can handle, and the stress of driving home on icy roads did a large number on me.  It was all worth it to see Darren, however, and hopefully to give him a lift in this, his last undergrad semester.

Bread On the Waters

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the 1970s-era soft-rock band Bread.  (I have a "greatest hits" CD and have listened to it several times in the last week or so.)  When I was a teenager, I was mostly into hard rock music, but, around 1974, after Bread had broken up the first time, I bought an 8-track tape of The Best of Bread (see illustration) and a Bread songbook (Bread Complete, which I still have).  Something about their music appealed to me -- perhaps starting with the fact that so many Mormon girls liked them in that era -- and I learned to play several of their tunes on the guitar.  Most of their hits, starting with 1970's "Make It with You," were syrupy love songs penned and sung by David Gates, but I have to admit they had the whole "soft rock" thing down cold.  I remember there was a "faith-promoting rumor" going around that Gates's grandfather, about whom he supposedly wrote "Everything I Own," had been a Mormon bishop; I don't know about that, but I do suspect that the biblical references in the titles of a couple of their albums (On the Waters, Manna) helped to endear them to a certain religious segment of the population.  I read sometime back that Larry Knechtel (upper left in the photo above) had died of a heart attack in 2009; Knechtel was not only well-known for his studio work -- he played the epochal piano accompaniment on Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in 1969 -- but also as a side man (having, for example, been part of The Mamas and the Papas' backing group at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967).  However, I hadn't known before this week that James Griffin and Mike Botts both died from cancer in 2005 at age 61, which leaves David Gates as the sole survivor of the "classic" Bread lineup.  (Robb Royer, a founding member of the group whose place Knechtel took in 1971, also survives.)  Reportedly Gates, now 71 years old, is presently a full-time cattle rancher in northern California, although I have to think he'd make a ton of money doing live performances.

There aren't too many things about the 1970s now that make me nostalgic for that period, but Bread's music is one of them.  At this point, "Diary" is the only one of their songs that I can still play all the way through, although I remember performing "If" at both a Heritage Halls "candle passing" at BYU in ~1978 (if you have to ask what that was, you'll never know -- I only know it's not a common practice these days) and at my mission Christmas party (in Santiago, Chile) in 1979.  (The latter involved my singing the song, too, which didn't work out well since I don't have the vocal range to sing the whole song in the same octave, at least without hitting some really low notes.)  It's too bad that there is no "soft" pop-music genre nowadays that doesn't involve a lot of scatting or ululation -- in which the song is the thing and not the vocal gymnastics.

Not-so-random Thoughts

1. I keep feeling like I should have a lot to write, but I've had great difficulty in organizing my thoughts.  The new year, 2012, is one that I approach with more than a little apprehension: not only will it bring an election with tremendous implications for the future of this country, but it's almost like I sense a lot of bad things in the offing.  Much is being made of the Mayan calendar's "running out" later this year, as though the Mayans were predicting the end of the world.  I don't buy the idea that they knew something we don't, but I have ample reason to worry about several family members for whom 2012 could be a "make or break" year.

2. The attached picture was taken in early 1974, when I was on the basketball team in ninth grade at my junior high school.  It was the only year I played on a school basketball team, and this photo of me, making a layup after stealing the ball, was published in the school annual.  I wasn't a great player by any means, although I would have been good enough to play at my high school, at least at the C-team and JV levels, if I'd stuck it out.  I was nothing if not insecure in those days, however, and I would have required a lot of encouragement from the coaches, something they really had no reason to provide to a marginal player.  (I also would have considered it an intolerable come-down to play on the C team after my brother Kelly had played on the JV in his sophomore year.)  Instead, church basketball had to suffice for me, although I now wish I'd never played basketball at all -- I still encounter people at church meetings and functions who (justifiably) regarded me as a jerk back in the day, and who obviously continue to do so now, on the basis of the hyper-competitive games we used to play.  I simply cannot consider it now to have been worth the strife it caused then.

3. A few weeks ago I sat in a Sunday School lesson in which the dichotomy between works and grace was discussed.  The teacher noted that someone, an evangelical Christian, had stated to him that Mormons don't believe in grace and instead believe that one's works are the only thing that matters.  It occurred to me that an evangelical -- much like the Russian who, upon viewing his first baseball game from the left-field bleachers, wondered why almost all of the players continually massed in one small portion of the field of play -- would have limited experience, and thus a skewed perspective, concerning LDS church doctrine.  However, I also asked myself what reason most Christians would have to conclude that the LDS church really does believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ -- that is, his grace -- as anything more than (a) the means by which almost all of mankind will be resurrected from the dead, and (b) a sort of triggering mechanism that enables people to reach the highest heaven by virtue of their own works, which are necessarily judged in absolute terms without regard for individual circumstances.  To illustrate the point, let me put Christ's "Parable of the Talents" into what I regard as Mormon terms.  Suppose the minimum threshold for entering into the joy of the master is the earning of five talents for him.  The servant who is given five talents is thus operating at a decided advantage compared to the servants who are given two talents and one talent, respectively; in fact, it is virtually impossible for either of the latter to reach the five-talent threshold imposed by the master.  In the end, it doesn't matter that the servant with two talents doubles that amount for the master; rather, he winds up under more or less the same condemnation as the servant with one talent who has buried it and earned nothing.  Of course, this "version" isn't the church's official view of things, but it more or less conveys the overpowering sense of hopelessness permeating most LDS lessons, sermons, and conference talks on the topic of eternal life.  I can think of at least two friends from my teen years who went inactive in church precisely because the church made them feel like losers who were beyond hope -- which, it seems to me, is the opposite of the lesson we should be learning from the Atonement.

4. Every time I drive out to my daughter Devery's home, which is located on Albuquerque's west side near the intersection of Coors Blvd. and Montano Blvd., I feel very thankful not to live on the west side myself.  And Devery has it good, living not too far from I-40, compared with the poor inhabitants of Rio Rancho, who have roughly a five-mile drive in any direction (south on Coors, east on Paseo del Norte, or north on S.R. 528) -- generally in bumper-to-bumper traffic -- to access a true freeway.  One has always been able to buy more home for one's money in Rio Rancho, but, even at this late date, it comes with a steep price in the form of a horrible commute on busy throughways that even one small accident can snarl for hours.  I'll take our older home in the northeast heights, and my fifteen-minute commute to work, anytime.

5. I continue to suffer from various health issues.  Since I wrote about going off sleep meds back in August, I started taking them again after about only seven weeks, and now I've gone off them again in the interim.  Needless to say, I feel very uncertain of my ability to stay free of the meds long-term, simply because I haven't succeeded in sleeping without them; however, it becomes clear at some point that they are doing at least as much harm to me as good, and I feel I have to stop taking them.  On this go-round, however, I haven't noticed any improvement in my mal de debarquement dizziness, which still, after two years, shows no signs of going away.  And I've started having an increasing number of aches and pains in my lower back and hips, which are probably the result of mild arthritis (and which are certainly aggravated by the additional weight I've put on in recent years).  The soreness in my back and hips has made it more difficult to do even low-impact "cardio" exercise like riding a stationary bike.

6. I've read with interest some of the recent news coverage of the extraction of petroleum and natural gas by hydraulic fracturing (or "hydro-fracking"), which entails the underground introduction of a pressurized liquid to create fractures in rock strata in order to release fossil fuels.  Some reports have stated that "fracking" has the potential to increase domestic production of oil and gas significantly, in turn enabling the U.S. to reduce drastically its dependency on foreign sources.  Of course, now the anti-energy Luddites of the Left are doing all they can to link "fracking" to groundwater contamination, and even to the occurrence of earthquakes, something I might have been inclined to have concerns about, too, if it weren't for the utter predictability of it all.  The notion of "peak oil" -- i.e., that petroleum production has hit its peak and therefore will, from now on, tail off in marked fashion -- becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if every bit of new technology must be eschewed whose effect is to increase oil production or facilitate its delivery.

7. The Iowa caucuses take place today, followed by the primary elections in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  It seems almost inevitable now that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president, despite late surges by Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and most recently Rick Santorum.  Consequently, some conservative pundits are already conceding re-election to Barack Obama, placing Romney in the line of 'Pub candidates whose largest qualification to be the nominee was that it was "their turn."  I think I would have preferred to choose among Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, or even Jeb Bush; however, I consider it overly pessimistic to believe Mitt Romney cannot be elected.  I wince even to think about the prospect of an Obama second term, even if the 'Pubs, as seems likely at the moment, have control of both houses of Congress next year.

Noelle Rosa Hamblin, b. 12/5/11

My Greatest Christmas Present Ever

What a dizzy person looks like who sleeps poorly

This photo shows me with my Alvarez acoustic guitar, which my parents gave to me as a Christmas present in 1975; thus I have had it for nearly 36 years.  My mother bought it for $120 (along with a second Alvarez for my sister) at a small music store on Eubank Blvd., north of Constitution Ave., called "Mr. Music," which went out of business shortly thereafter.  

I haven't played the Alvarez much in recent years due to my fascination with the electric guitar -- which resulted primarily from the fact that extremely versatile, relatively inexpensive guitar amplifiers (like my Line 6 "Spider" amplifiers) are on the market now.  However, last week I put a new set of strings on it and sort of "re-discovered" it, finger-picking old tunes like Roberto Carlos's "La paz de tu sonrisa," Christopher Cross's "Think of Laura," Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," and Bread's "Diary."  At times I've considered buying a new, more-expensive acoustic guitar, but there simply is no need; the Alvarez has taken a beating through the years (including the extremely poor job I did years ago of replacing the tuners), but it still plays and sounds nice.  It was an "entry level" guitar -- note the adjustable bridge -- but it was always much, much more.

When I think about how long I've had the Alvarez, it occurs to me that it is the greatest Christmas present I've ever received.  How many people ever receive a gift that still brings them joy, and has practical utility, three or four decades after the fact?  I bless my mother for her kindness and generosity in buying it for me.

Hike to Rincon Ridge via Piedra Lisa Spring Trail

The Knife Edge of the Shield

The northern Sandias from the Rincon

View of rock formations from the Piedra Lisa Spring Trail

I'm still trying to hike on Sunday afternoons after church. Last Sunday, November 20, I hiked up the Piedra Lisa Spring Trail to Rincon Ridge, a 4-plus-mile hike (round-trip) that I'd wanted to do for some time but had put off due to (a) the long-ish drive required to get there, and (b) the lamentable $3.00 day-use fee that the USFS imposes on people parking at any of its trailheads.  (I remember when the USFS started charging what it originally called a "courtesy" fee [what a joke!]; the ranger I first spoke to about it told me the USFS was just "trying it out," but, alas, government regulation and taxation only ever seem to ratchet in one direction.)  Anyway, it was a great hike for me -- I loved the scenery and did passably well on the uphill leg; however, I've got to remember to take my trekking poles even on these shorter hikes, as the pounding I took on the way back down caused my lower back and hips to ache horribly.  The first picture above shows the "Knife Edge" of the Shield, the largest single rock face in the Sandias. (The "Knife Edge" is an increasingly popular route for thrill-seekers -- it's "Class 4" in rock-climbing terms but extremely exposed -- and several people have uploaded videos to Youtube showing some exciting jumps.)  The second picture is the view north from the Rincon, showing an aspect of the Sandias that is invisible from Albuquerque.  The last picture shows the "Needle," a large pinnacle, on the left, and the "Tombstone," a small formation that I climbed several times with Rod Williamson (most recently in 2002), in the middle.

The route

Trip to Heber/Overgaard, AZ (Nov. 11-13, 2011)

At Cardo's in Payson

In our suite at the Worldmark resort

Mogollon Rim

Mike and Judy on the Rim

Looking at clouds from both sides now

Playing games in the suite

Dorine and I in the living room

Hot-tubbing in 40-degree weather

Mike taking panoramic pictures

Dorine at the Petrified Forest

Painted Desert, AZ

Dorine and I went to Arizona last weekend with Mike and Judy for our annual "anniversary" trip, which took place earlier than usual this year owing to family matters due to arise in the first half of December.  Mike and Judy are members of "Worldmark by Wyndham" (which is described on its website as a "flexible vacation ownership program"), and we were able to get a large suite at the resort in Overgaard, AZ (adjacent to Heber) for a really good rate.  Our trips with Mike and Judy are always enjoyable, largely because we purposely don't do much besides kick back and relax -- and we always eat well.  On this trip we drove into Payson on Saturday for gasoline (staying for lunch), and then we drove along the Mogollon Rim, marveling at the scenery.  On Sunday, we drove through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert on the way home.

Hike up Long Canyon, 11/6/11

Me in Long Canyon, 11/6/11

Dorine and I took a short hike today up what I believe is called Long Canyon, which I'd never, in all my years of hiking in the Sandia Mountains, visited before.  The canyon is accessed at the southeast corner of the Glenwood Hills subdivision, which itself is located at the far eastern end of Montgomery Blvd.  As it happens, Long Canyon is a pretty cool place, at least the lower part that we saw.  I now want to go back and hike up the entire canyon to its head at/near the "Whitewash" Trail.  The topo map (below) shows the canyon becoming quite steep near the top; however, it looks manageable, assuming there's a recognizable trail up that high.  I'm not quite sure why Mike Coltrin makes no mention of Long Canyon in his hiking guide; I wondered if it might be private land, but the topo map shows the wilderness boundary (dotted line) passing just beyond the existing subdivision.

[Update 11/8/11: I happened to be e-mailing Coltrin yesterday about a work-related matter -- he, too, works at Sandia National Laboratories -- and, in an aside, I asked him why there was no mention of Long Canyon in his hiking guide.  His response was simply that he omitted a lot of what he referred to as "user" trails from the book (especially ones that follow streambeds, which he says he avoids for aesthetic reasons), and that he didn't want casual hikers to get lost on unofficial, primitive trails.  I'm not sure I buy that 100%, since (a) Long Canyon has such easy access, and (b) his book references many other primitive trails that would be infinitely easier to get lost on, and where it would be a much more-serious matter to be lost (e.g., Chimney Canyon).  I can't help thinking that a combination of parties -- the USFS, the City of Albuquerque, the Glenwood Hills subdivision, the residents whose houses one has to walk past to get to the canyon, and perhaps even Coltrin and his publisher -- have collectively made the decision not to publicize Long Canyon for the express purpose of minimizing vehicular traffic and hiker impact in the area.  I'm sure they'd much rather steer hikers north to the Embudito Trail (see topo map).]

The routes of my two hikes up Long Canyon

[Update 11/28/11: Yesterday afternoon I went back up Long Canyon, this time by myself, and hiked/scrambled all the way up to the Whitewash Trail.  The last half-mile or so turned out to be a bit of an ordeal -- steep, rocky, loose, bushy, cactus-y, and not much of a trail -- and immediately upon reaching a real trail, I decided not to go back down the same way.  I essentially had a choice, then, between hiking up to Oso Pass, and then down the Embudito Trail, or simply going down the Whitewash Trail; lacking a lot of daylight, I chose to do the latter.  So I sat down, drank a bottled water, ate a granola bar, called Dorine to tell her I'd need to be picked up later (and then taken back to where I'd parked my truck), and then set out down the trail.  Unfortunately, I got off the bottom part of the Whitewash Trail (there being numerous "trails" in them thar hills), and rather than back-track, I kept going down, finally having to pick and slide my way down a boulder-strewn canyon and ending up behind the flood-control dam on Menaul south of the "Whitewash Trail" parking area.  Thus the last half-mile of the descent was almost as bad as the upper part of Long Canyon, and it became clear to me that I need to start going "shorter and easier" on my Sunday-afternoon hikes or else I'm going to burn myself out.  Anyway, below are a couple of photos of Long Canyon, taken from the Whitewash Trail; the first shows the lower part of the canyon, and the second shows the upper portion where I came up -- my path roughly corresponded with where the shadow line falls here.]

Long Canyon, 11/27/11

The upper part of Long Canyon

Trip to White Sands and Ruidoso, October 7-9, 2011

Sam, Zach, and Mason

Kayla, Mason, and Tyler

Tyler and Mason check out the gear

Grandma sledding with Mason

Sam, Zach, and Devery

Me and Zach at Oliver Lee S.P.

Making s'mores at Oliver Lee

Sam, Kiley, and Devery

Tyler and Mason

Sam packing up to go to White Sands

Getting ready to go to White Sands

Maddy guiding Tyler across the road

The girls in front of the Swiss Chalet Inn

Zach with Tyler

At the Swiss Chalet Inn

Kristy, Chris, and Kids at White Sands

In back of the hotel in/near Ruidoso

Toasting marshmallows for s'mores

Mason taking a tumble at White Sands

Grandma doing a little sledding with Mason

Me taking a sled run on "our" dune

Series of videos that Kristy and Chris shot at White Sands

Our extended family (minus Darren and a couple of sons-in-law) took a weekend trip to southern New Mexico on October 7-9, 2011. This was a trip I'd wanted to do for some time, so I looked forward to it with great anticipation. We camped Friday night at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, located south of Alamogordo, NM, then spent several hours on Saturday at White Sands National Monument, which is west of Alamogordo. Finally, we drove up to Ruidoso, NM (a pretty mountain town that was once the playground of many a Texas oil millionaire) and spent Saturday night in the Swiss Chalet Inn, an older hotel north of town.

I love the Oliver Lee campground and always enjoy staying there. It was windy and thus the tents flapped around all night, impeding everyone's sleep; however, I think we all had a great time camping out otherwise. The conditions at White Sands the next day were perfect -- perfect weather, perfect dune, perfect company, and perfect equipment (fast masonite sleds for the adults and slower plastic sleds for the kids).

Ruidoso was a little disappointing. The rooms at the Swiss Chalet Inn were far better than the online reviews I'd read would suggest, but the indoor pool was out of operation, a severe letdown for the grandchildren. And I became very self-conscious about our having five kids under the age of six, all of whom were excited to be with their cousins, in a hotel that wasn't designed for children. I know the desk clerks caught an earful from various guests about the noise, so if we ever take the whole family back to Ruidoso -- which I doubt, since there just isn't that much for kids to do there, anyway -- we'll plan it out better and get a cabin. The highlight of Ruidoso for me was eating at the Circle J Barbecue on Saturday night, and then at Schlotzky's Deli on Sunday before returning back to Albuquerque.

Overall, everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. It was the very sort of trip I'd like to take at least four or five times a year.