I went to Curly Springs on Friday with the fam. And it is way warm for November. We were both sweating. For our hike, we started at the Dry Canyon trail head in Lindon, than hiked clear over to Battle Creek. It was about 5 miles, with 1000 ft elevation change.  The hike wasn’t gorgeous by any means. Great views out to the valley but devoid of much vegetation at first, and than it was more woodsy and nice over by Battle Creek. I just wasn’t much into it though. I think I was working a little too hard, took me forever to feel recovered.

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Battle Creek is nice, because it usually involves a trip to the Grandparents. They even had pizza waiting! I love my grandparents.

We decided to go up Diamond Fork canyon to go hiking this week. The trails are a bit confusing and not clearly marked at the beginning, but I think we ended up going up Brimhall canyon road several miles up the canyon on the right. There seems to be a lot of private land intermixed with the national forest which was why I was confused. We didn’t have a whole lot of time anyway and just went about a mile or so up the trail. It was quite a nice autumn hike. It would have been terribly hot in the summer, but was a nice hike now with more range type vegetation and hills not mountains.

So do you always stick to established hiking trails? How about one marked on maps with with little signage or upkeep? Or ones used for purposes other than hiking, like ranching and hunting? I’m still generally don’t bushwhack, except in the winter snowshoeing. There seems to be more possible hiking trails than there are established ones, and I like to hike new places. Sometimes finding the new places is the hard part. Up in Cache Valley, they have a wonderful guidebook you can buy that has all the trails around, with lots of great information. I have not found anything remotely similar down here. I usually get trails off of USGS maps which is not as good as a good trail guide. I’m also writing about all of them, so I can make a guide of sorts for future reference. Any resources I haven’t found yet?

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We meant to go here a few weeks ago. But we made it Tuesday night. It was a great little afternoon/evening hike, and the fall color was gorgeous. Better, I think, than a few weeks ago. The colors are more vibrant: the reds are deeper reds, there was more yellow, and it all sticks out more. The oaks are turning brown. Not that pretty, but marking the further growth of fall. This fall has been long and warm: it looks like this week it’s time to bring in the tomatoes. But not having to do that until the end of October? Awesome.

Back to the hike. It seemed to be mostly a cattle ranch trail: we even met a group of cowboys herding down the cows for winter on our way up. That had us trying to get Peter to say “moo,” unsuccesfully. (But he does say “up” and its adorable.) The trailhead was a few miles up the right fork in Hobble Creek canyon, right next to a large corral. Besides the cowboys down the road, we didn’t meet a soul. I love Hobble Creek because of that. The hike was pleasent, minus the missing jackets. (I forgot it was fall, and fall means jackets. It’s just been so warm.) We took the right side of every fork, and our trail dead-ended at a spring about a mile and a half up.

I love hiking in the fall. Best hiking season ever. Minus the deer hunt, but that was easily avoided this year. The color of the leaves, the cool air. It’s wonderful. This time of year is also when I had baby Pete last year. I enjoyed that time, and took lots of walks out in the leaves with my tiny infant. I’m even looking forward to the snow this week. (If you include snow in fall and spring it greatly extends those seasons. Isn’t part of fall waking up to snow on the ground, only to have it melt away in hours?)

Joe and I had a weekend free from Peter thanks to my Mom. First we went hiking up Dry Canyon in Alpine to Horsetail falls. It was raining soon after we started, and we weren’t wearing rain gear but perservered to the falls, about a mile and a half up. When we reached the outlook to see the falls, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Just perfect timing, and it made for a wonderful hike.

After that, we stopped to do some birthday shopping for Peter, and I started to get chills/feverish. So we went home and I got a nice nap and some ibuprofen and felt much better. Apparently hiking in the rain, although quite romantic and beautiful, was also quite hard on me. Marry Poppins just might know something. I think I had a very mild case of mastitis, but luckily the fever didn’t last. Sleeping while sick is not the best way to spend baby-free time, but we still had fun after I was feeling better. We rented a movie, slept through the night, and I didn’t have to sweep the floor after breakfast and dinner.

A break from Peter was much appreciated–no matter how much I love him, he’s still hard. Sweeping/cleaning/playing/changing diapers isn’t too bad, but it gets a little old. He did great at Grandma’s too.

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Have you noticed the fall leaves? I started to see red on the mountains and started itching for a hike. This Saturday, my little family took a long hike up hobble creek canyon. We went on the Wadsworth Creek trail, which was pretty empty, not too steep, and gorgeous. So beautiful. We ended up hiking anywhere from 8-10 miles. I hardly noticed we went that long–there was something new and colorful and interesting around every corner. We reached a grove of cottonwoods and bluegrass. (I’m a little wondering how they got there–neither are native.) Peter had fallen asleep by then, and we placed him in the hammock where he was rocked so deeply into sleep he didn’t noticed when we took him out and put him back in the hiking backpack. Joe and I had lunch, and then he suggested we lay down and take a nap. I actually slept a little too, with my head on my husbands shoulder. I thought that heaven must be like this.

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My little family went on a hike yesterday. We actually got out of the house before 9:00, which is doing pretty good for sleeping in until 7:00. Here is where we went on the USGS Springville map. It’s located at the east end of center street in Springville.

Based on my rough interpretation of the map, we climbed 1,000 feet in 2.5 miles. In other words, it was very steep. I have no idea what to call this hike: it certainly isn’t that popular (we were the only people on it on a Saturday). The only reference I found on a google search called it Spring Canyon. It does say “spring” on the map, but it doesn’t really call the canyon “Spring Canyon”. But the hike, as mentioned before, was steep. Most of the way up it was pretty shady, although not all that pretty. Scrub oaks dominated, with an occasional maple and rare mountain mahogany. Under-story plants included lots of lupine, a few penstemons, DYCs and grass (most past bloom).  At the end, we started to get into more of an aspen forest and the grasses were still green. Much prettier. We stopped when we made it to the end of the trail: there’s a couple of different lookouts you can go to, but we were done and had no desire to hike another mile.

Peter kept me going a little. Joe carried him, but he hated slowing down and stopping, so we didn’t. I haven’t worked out so hard in a long time and it felt good. The shower after for my stenchy body was even better.

This week is vacation week, as Joe is in between semester. And he did very well his first semester of grad school, even while working. We will be going up to Wyoming. I’m excited. Peter should be too, but he has no idea it’s his last night in his crib for a few days…I hope he enjoys the traveling. Or at least tolerates it.

I’m surprised I had never heard of this hike or been on it before. It was a moderate/easy 2 mile hike to a gorgeous waterfall up by Sundance. Joe and I went there this past weekend. I am not in good hiking shape, but this trail didn’t kill me. I did feel like Peter and wanted to fall asleep at the end of it.

Previous to the hike, we had a picnic at Bridal Veil Falls. Joe had never stopped there before. I’ve climbed up the cascade before (and lost a shoe doing it) but climbing up with Peter wasn’t going to happen.

I had a birthday and instead of feeling old, I felt young. I’ve packed a lot of life into the last few years. Those I associate with are almost always older than me. I never though I would be graduated from college, starting my own business, with a husband and kid at this time in my life. I thought I’d be in grad school…but grad school right now if for my husband not me. (I do want to go back someday).

For my birthday my husband (and myself) got me a bike seat for Peter. I love being able to go bike riding again. We are able to do more too when Joe’s out with the car. He also arranged a wonderful night of all you can eat sushi–oh so delicious. Favorite food ever. There’s just nothing like putting that first bite of beauty in your mouth. Expensive though. We spent a little under fifty dollars for all-you-can-eat, and I thought it was a way good deal.

Peter just went to the doctors, and at nine months he’s over 26 lbs and 32 inches tall. Right above everyone else on the growth chart. So cute and happy. He’s started crawling now. I posted a video on facebook of him.

And I finished my curtains! Finally. Here’s how they look. I’m not a sewer, so please do not analyze my seams.

Joe and I went hiking up Maple Canyon, same place I went with Clarissa but different fork. No idea where the trail led–someone asked us if we went to the top, so I’m asumming some mountain. Great, shady trail, with lots of benches too. Nothing better than hiking with my two boys.

None of my pictures are working. I am hoping this isn’t permanent.

Anyway, life is normal. It is finally getting hot. My garden is growing. I ate my first radish today, the first produce out of my garden. I don’t like radishes. But it was still fun. Peter is very close to crawling. He tries…and goes backwards. Very frustrating for him, and I want him to crawl because I think I will have a happier baby. I’m not looking forward to him getting into everything.

This is Peter helping me garden

So lately, I’ve done two things to save money that I’m a little proud of. I started cloth diapers after talking to a lady in my ward who did them. I am only doing it to save money, and it isn’t horrible. I think the worst thing about them is getting started. There are way too many products out there. The second thing I did was cut my own hair. I have a long history of bad haircuts, and my hair was awful. Curly hair is hard to cut, and everyone’s curly hair is a little different.  So after much deliberation, I cut in some random layers. Now I love my hair.

Here’s a picture from a hike with my sister, Rissy. We went up the left fork of Maple Canyon for about a half mile. Carrying Peter, that was plenty long.