Figure Painting Workshop

Last week I attended a figure painting workshop at the Center for Academic Study and Naturalist Painting in Provo. While the workshop had the option of attending for up to four weeks, I only went one week since the commute was very long and tiring. Since I am not planning on posting this on my website, and some requests have been made to see it, I am posting it here.


I spent a few hours for 5 days working on this figure study. Obviously, it is not finished, but I didn't expect I would finish it in the time I had. I am glad I went though; I definitely felt that the workshop was helpful and that I learned a good deal there.

Bookshelves

Last Fall we started a project at a wood shop class. We really needed some more bookshelves, so we designed and built some. We bought a bunch of poplar wood and got to work. Unfortunately, by the end of the class, we still hadn't finished them. Since at that point it was the middle of winter, and since we didn't have any way to work on them much inside our apartment, we had to set them aside and wait for warmer weather. When warmer weather came, we took them out on our tiny balcony and little by little we finished them. Recently we finally put on the last coat of stain.


They don't look professional, but they look nice, and we are proud of them. And now we finally have the last of our books unpacked and on the shelves.

Local couple's vacation 'Rockin'

A local couple reported Saturday that their recent vacation to the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks was "wonderful."

By Nathan Scott
Unassociated Press

Rebecca and Nathan Scott, a young couple from Davis County, traveled to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks this past week. Only able to spend three nights in the parks, the couple feels that they were still able to see enough to make their trip worth it. "We spent one full day in the canyons area, one day in the geyser region, and the last day in the Teton's," said Nathan. "We even got to do tons of hiking!!!!" added Rebecca, clearly pleased with the 25+ miles total they had accumulated throughout the adventure.

Most of their hiking was in and around the beautiful canyons area, often called "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone". In addition to the many vista points along the north and south rims - some of the points were part of steep, half-mile jaunts down and up the canyon's banks - they were able to complete a "good hike", as Rebecca calls them, of 10-11 miles that goes past Cascade Lake and up to Observation Peak. "I was really happy we were able to do a good long hike!" said Rebecca, "this was one of the first good hikes we've done all summer." Nathan, who definitely enjoyed the scenery and the views along the hike, was not as enthusiastic about its length, however, due to his sedentary preferences which leave his feet and legs more prone to aches and sores. "It got pretty painful towards the end of the hike and especially the next couple of days afterward," he complained, with the roundish, pussy, souvenirs still showing on the balls of his feet.

On Friday the couple visited almost every geyser basin along the Firehole River. In the Old Faithful Geyser area they were lucky enough to see eruptions of the basin's namesake, as well as the Lion Group, the Anenome Geyser, and the Castle Geyser. Following that, they saw the Midway Geyser Basin, the Lower Geyser Basin, Biscuit Basin, and several random thermal features along the way. Last of all they visited the West Thumb Geyser basin where the evening lighting made for some awesome reflection-filled photographs. As they returned to the campsite, the combination of sunset, rivers, and meadows was equally picturesque. "Man!, It's just so beautiful!," said Rebecca.

Their final day of vacation was spent mostly in the Grand Teton National Park (if you don't count all the travel time arriving and returning home). 'Majestic', 'awe-inspiring', and 'gorgeous' were a few of the words they used to describe these huge rocky masterpieces of nature. With the lakes, streams, and greenery adding extra interest to the park, there were plenty of beautiful scenes in the Tetons.


The couple has released many of the photos from their trip to those wishing to view them, but due to the high volume of pictures, they could not all be published with this article. To see the photos, interested parties can go here.

For those who have wondered how the couple's time was spent between the main attractions of the vacation, they had this to say: "Well, there was a lot of time spent in the car. To make that more enjoyable, we checked out The Fellowship of the Ring audio book on CD from the library and got through most of the 16 discs during the trip. We just ate simple meals for breakfast and lunch - french toast, cold cereal, bagels, sandwiches, etc.- and ate and the cafeteria or fast food joints for dinner except one night we made spaghetti on our camp stove and had s'mores by the fire. You have to have s'mores when you go camping. It's just one of those unwritten rules."

Yellowstone is famous for the abundant wildlife. There was no shortage of sightings on the Scotts' trip either. "The coolest thing we saw was the heard of elk," said Nate. "There were a few with huge racks and several babies." Rebecca added that they also "saw a few osprey really close. I could have gotten even better pictures if I had had my longer zoom lens on sooner."

Independence Day Weekend

Our Independence Day weekend started on Friday since Nate had the day off of work. Actually, we had originally planned on going camping after Nate got home from work Thursday, but since it poured rain the whole evening and into the night, we decided to not go. However, we did go on a short hike Friday morning. We followed the North Duel Creek trail up Centerville Canyon (the same one we did in May with the cub scouts for pack meeting). Without the scouts and the time constraints of pack meeting, we were able to go much further this time. The trail climbs up the north side of the canyon before descending a bit to the creek at the bottom of the canyon. It then splits allowing you to either continue up the canyon or go back down the canyon following the stream along the South Duel Creek trail. We continued up the canyon a ways before heading back along the south trail. It was a lot of fun. The trail along the creek was especially nice since it was shady and cool. Later Friday afternoon we went swimming, which felt particularly nice after our hike.

The way the light hit these stalks it looked like they were glowing.

Saturday was pretty busy. We got up at about 6:00 and hurried to the Clearfield City Freedom Run, which started at 7:00. I signed up to run the 5k. I had never run any sort of official race before, but I thought it would be fun to try it. After arriving at the city building where the race started, I picked up my number. Each number had a section at the bottom to rip off and turn in at the end of the race with the contestant's name, age, and other pertinent information on it. While pinning my number on, I noticed that they had my age as being 45. Good thing I noticed, or I would have been very surprised when they announced the race results and placed me in the 45-49 age group.

I was frustrated with the way they started the race. There were two different events, the 5k run and the 2 mile walk, but they started them at the same time and at the same place. They had everyone, both walkers and runners, line up behind the same starting line. This meant that many runners, including myself, got stuck at the end of the line behind many of the walkers. It is hard enough to make your way through slower runners at such races, but it is even more frustrating to push your way past walkers, some of them with their whole family and pushing strollers. Plus, unlike some races, they didn't have a way to keep track of when you crossed the starting line to begin the race, so those at the back of the line had to go a little further while pushing their way through people as well. My other problem was that I couldn't see the finish line as I came up to it because of the way the road curved into it. I probably would have picked up my pace sooner had I known where the finish line was. I came in at 25 minutes 12 seconds, which isn't my best time for that distance, but it is alright. I came in 47th overall, and I got second place in my age/gender division. It was fun to run, and I am glad I participated. Plus, I won one of the raffle prizes at the end: a $25 gift card to Striders (a running store).

After the run, we ate breakfast and drove up to Logan to be with Nate's sister Melissa, her husband Seth and their family. We went on a short hike to see the wind tunnels up Logan Canyon with Melissa and our two oldest nephews, Scotty and Max. The trail to the top was only 1.8 miles (the whole thing was 3.6 miles round trip), but it was a little bit of a climb to get there. I was impressed that our nephews held up so well. It was a beautiful day for the hike, especially since the cloudy skies made things cooler for us on the way up.

The wind tunnels themselves were very cool to see. They were full of holes you could see through and carved out sections of rock you could walk around in.

After our hike, we returned to Melissa and Seth's house where we prepared a potato dish to go with dinner. Then we took a nap since we were tired and still had a good bit of driving ahead of us. After dinner we took off and headed down to Murray to my grandparent's house where we enjoyed some excellent company and some fabulous fireworks from their front yard.