If you could hie to Kolob

We didn't "hie" or anything (well, we didn't fly), but we did go to Kolob this weekend. Since this weekend was free national parks day, we decided to take advantage of proximity to check out Kolob, part of the Zion National Park. It was hot, but quite lovely. And the kids were troopers--Evelyn had to be carried part of the way, but Andrew managed the entire hike (all one mile of it--but since it was a hike, it felt much longer than that) under his own steam and--more importantly--without complaining.


For book group this past month (we met this last week to discuss), we read Edward Abbeys Desert Solitaire, in which he describes his summer spent as a ranger in Arches, back before tourists really discovered the park. As part of his diatribe about the need to preserve the wilderness, he railed on the perceived need to put paved roads into the parks, arguing that universal accessibility shouldn't be the aim of the park systems. It was hard not to drive on the paved roads up to the start of our trail and not think of Abbey's prophetic vision (one of the other book club attendees described his book as a jeremiad--a kind of railing against the fallen state of a civilization with great promise--a description that I think is rather apt). On the other hand, yesterday I was quite grateful for those paved trails, since we would never have been able to experience the glorious view without them--at least not for another ten years, until our kids were old enough to hike in. And I also have to admit that, while much of Abbey annoyed me (his narrative persona I found to be somewhat arrogant and too overtly masculine for my taste), his vivid landscape descriptions did help me appreciate the specificity of what I was seeing.

That evening, we met a friend from our grad school days at the Pastry Pub downtown, before heading to campus for the green show (which they perform nightly during the summer before evening plays). The kids loved it--the green show, that is, not necessarily the food (which they sort of picked at). Evelyn bobbed up and down in time to the music, and Andrew danced wildly (I was half afraid the whole time that he would step on someone sitting near us). Dan said (borrowing from Seinfeld) that he looked like a "full body dry heave."

In other news for the week, Andrew one night insisted on wearing the new nightgown I'd found (on clearance, of course) for Evelyn. I guess he felt left out, or something. The nightgown was a little on the small side (it only cleared his bum by an inch or two), but he sure thought he was something special when we let him wear it. (Let it be said that his father wasn't very happy about this, but he let it go. He hasn't asked for it since, so I think he just wanted to try it out.) But I wonder what he'll think in ten or twelve years when we whip this photo out for friends?


Lest anyone worry that we're encouraging Andrew to get *too* much in touch with his feminine side (although I have to say that honestly I think that's a silly thing to worry about at his age), this week did also mark Andrew's very first soccer game. (We're lucky his coach called that day, or we'd have missed it--in all the drama of our car--it's been in the shop for the last four days, getting the transmission rebuilt.)

And I have to say, at the risk of sounding like a doting mother, that Andrew did better than I'd expected. For one thing, he was the tallest kid on his team, and as tall as the tallest kid on the opposing team, which I think gave him a little bit of an advantage. But he was certainly the MVP of his team--he scored the most goals of anyone on his team (three, I think, but it might have been four), and as many goals as the other team combined. (Of course, they're four, so their technique isn't very developed). He does, however, need to learn about teamwork--at this age, and this stage (their first game, for most of them), most of the kids seemed to think that the aim was to get the ball (regardless of who has it, team mate or foe) and kick it in the goal box. Of course, that's partly right, but I'm hoping that Andrew will eventually learn to pass the ball to his teammates instead of steal the ball from them . . .


And that pretty much sums up our week. We've been walking a lot because, as I mentioned briefly, our car is in the shop. (And we only have the one car.) At the beginning of the week, we had the transmission checked out to try and identify the source of an odd high pitched whine. When we got the quote back, we were a little staggered by it, so we got a second opinion--which was even higher! So we called around to get a few more quotes, opted to go back to the first place, and now we're getting a new (well, rebuilt) transmission. On the plus side, at least we won't have to worry about the transmission for quite some time. On the down side, this is going to cost a lot of money, and it's kind of a pain to lack ready transportation (Dan's parents have been great about letting us borrow a vehicle as needed).

Faculty meetings start this week, the signal that our long summer is (sadly) over.