Wordless Wednesday

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Heart Art

Valentine's Day always ends too soon.

The Lizard let me choose whatever I wanted for our Valentine's weekend. If I could have taken more vacation time, I would have picked The Wave. That was my favorite Valentine's Day ever!

Next best thing would be cross-country skiing, and my current favorite locale for that is the Grand Mesa.

We got up at 3:30 a.m. this time and were on the road by 4. Last ski trip, I just couldn't pull myself out of bed when the alarm went off. We way slept in. Until 9 or 10, if I remember correctly. We got in only about two hours of cross-country skiing that first day. (Made up for it the second day with five hours, about 500 photos and five miles!)

This time, we had the whole day! We were beat at the end of yet another five-mile day, and we ended up not skiing after church on Valentine's Day, instead opting to beat the storm home. Nevertheless, we left our mark upon the mountain. Until the next storm...

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Skyway

Cross-country skiing didn't see any time on my calendar last year, but we're making up for it this year!

We kicked off the new year (a week late) with a two-day Nordic swoosh atop the Grand Mesa.






Typically, when I first put on my skis again each year, I have to learn to balance, turn and stop all over again. This year, physical therapy since my last time on skis has made me just a bit stronger! I still had to get that balance thing under control again, and I'm still not too sharp on turns and stops, but I had fewer sound effects this time around snapping into my skis.

Typically, The Lizard has had to help me snap into my skis. Not this year! I did it myself the first time ever! And without falling down, too!


Skyway is wonderfully groomed Nordic track along the western edge of the top of the Grand Mesa. Most of the trails are easy for a beginner/klutz like me. Miles and miles of gentle rises and falls, with four feet of padding when the inevitable spill does occur.






I do still need an extra hand to right myself when I go belly up, but I fell down fewer times this trip.

I had to walk up two steeper hills. The Lizard carried my skis when I had to walk.








The weather was gorgeous. Frigid cold, but gorgeous blue sky, occasional peek-a-boos by the sun, and shimmering snowflakes big enough to admire as I slid along. I didn't take my extension tubes or lights, so I couldn't do extreme macro, but I had fun shooting the big luxurious flakes with my portrait lens and available light on the black fabric of my church dress...




the black fabric of my coat...


the car window...




my skis...


and my ski boots!!!






While The Lizard loaded our skis at the end of the day, I went belly down on the nearly empty parking lot to shoot the last rays of light reflecting off the freshly fallen sparkling snowflakes covering the ground.

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Wordless Wednesday

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Trailing Along

Some of my best ideas have come during long training rides, tranquil cross-country skiing, grueling 60-flight stair climbs and while hiking Colorado's fourteeners.

One of my most fun ideas involves fourteeners but came to me on the flanks of a much shorter peak, an otherwise unlikely destination with an awesome name (which is precisely why we hiked it). I'd been naming my crocheted bears and lizards after trailheads we traveled to while making the yarn critters. Along the golden aspen flanks of a molehill called Tater Heap, the inspiration to tote my bears up peaks hit me like a bolt of lightning. Stuffed animals have accompanied me on every hike since.

Snowcatcher came to me as we attempted to summit a pair of rocky peaks called Payne and No Payne, no kidding, on the third anniversary of my unplanned and life-changing back surgery. Surgery occurred in November, and the upper elevations of the Lost Creek Wilderness typically are encrusted with razor-sharp, crunchy snow that time of year. I didn't reach the mountaintops the year Snowcatcher was born. But my first Snowcatcher website was up and running by the following year when I tagged both Payne and No Payne on the fourth anniversary of my surgery. Two celebrations in one!

The design mechanism in my head is always running, even when my fingers can't be creating. When I'm not driving, my fingers are flying.

I write poetry, crochet, knit, quilt, embroider and even occasionally retouch photos while in transit. Much of my handiwork has been accomplished aboard public transportation, but quite a bit is done en route to trailheads and on the way home from same, too, because my Better Half doesn't mind doing all the driving. I have been known to knit and crochet aboard a bike on a trainer. I have created bears in tents and while being chased by smoke around campfires. I even have nearly an entire set of lighted crochet hooks so I can keep going after nightfall.

My darling, charming and attractive husband dreams of riding the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. (He begged me to take the word "sexy" out of that first sentence, so I replaced it.) He once asked if I would accompany him on a tandem bike (and informed me the record time so far, as if I'd ever be able to keep up if that was the goal). I shudder at the thought of portaging a heavy bicycle built for two loaded with supplies, camera and lenses as well as the latest pair of socks in progress over unrideable sections of trail, but I'll bet I could crochet while he steers during the actual journey. Hmmm... maybe I'll have to give the proposition some serious thought!

Nature inspires and invigorates me. Going to and being in nature empowers me. Hopefully, everything I create reflects the beauty around me.

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