Winter Sunday

There's beauty in gray, winter days. The mountains around SLC are snow-covered, with bits of blue sky peeking through gray clouds. On Sunday afternoon, Dave and I hiked up City Creek Canyon, where the leafless trees were shades of brown and gray and even dark purple.

We watched the relections of trees in a mud puddle...

and we paused to enjoy a snow-covered log...

and the rocks in a stream.

There were just a few other joggers and walkers, like this baby and his big sister.

After our walk, we drove towards the Utah Capitol, framed against the westside mountains...

and against gray clouds, with every Greek column on display.

We went home for the highlight of our winter Sunday--Michael and Grandma Spendlove as guests for a steak and cherry-raspberry crisp supper.

Getting Away (But Not Very Far)

Dave won a coupon for a night at the Red Lion Hotel from Supersonic, where he washes our cars. We decided to go, even though we didn't have anything to escape from, as in the days when we fled to the Airport Radisson to evade, for just one night, the pressures of four kids at home. Of course we brought with us plenty of baggage, including clothes, books and magazines, and the camera...

The bed was fine...

and there was a view from our balcony of beautiful 600 South, with cars wandering off the freeway.

The entertainment for our Red Lion weekend was three movies at the Broadway Theater--"The Young Victoria," "Fantastic Mr. Fox," and "Bad Lieutenant."

We had the theater to ourselves for "Bad Lieutenant."

We ate dinner on the 13th floor of the Red Lion, where we had The Charcoal Room to ourselves, as well.The lights of SLC sparkled below...

the pianist played all the selections we requested, from "Twelfth of Never" to "Deep Purple" and "The Rose"...

and the server flamed bananas foster by our table.

"Why would people in their 60s want a romantic get-a-way, anyway?" Jonny asked. We have our reasons.

We had two other fun getaways this week. We shared pad thai and curries with Michael and Melissa at Thai Lotus on Wednesday.

And we ate a hamburger and a meatloaf sandwich at the Road Island Diner in Oakley on Sunday afternoon.

As always, we enjoyed the signs--how reassuring that "Our foods are pure, our kitchen is clean."

We also enjoyed checking out the other diners, some of whom, it appeared, had many burgers and fries in their past.

It was gray and cold in SLC, with a murky inversion. It was bright and scenic as we drove to Oakley through Brown's Canyon, enjoying the ranch houses and the cows, which made bright and monotone patterns in the frosty landscape.

Idaho Lawyer

I flew to Boise on Friday, January 8, to be sworn in as an Idaho lawyer. A client doing real estate projects in Idaho needed opinion letters, and I had to join the Idaho Bar to give them.

The clerk of the Idaho Supreme Court swore me in, beneath the Great Seal of Idaho.

I was surprised to feel so moved by the oath, in which I promised not to turn away the downtrodden or disadvantaged, but to make sure they got justice. I do regularly provide free counseling for new women business owners, many of them financially struggling, but I seemed to be covenanting to do something more than that.

I had a beautiful flight to Boise. I got bumped up to first class and spent most of the 45-minute flight taking photos of SLC receding...

the snow-capped mountains beneath us on the way through Idaho...

and Boise, with its river, appearing below.

I also had time for some favorite luxuries--reading The Economist and eating one of my favorite cookies--the Delta biscotti.

I decided to spend the rest of the day, after being sworn in, exploring my adopted state. I Googled "Boise sights" and learned that the Old Idaho State Penitentiary is the top tourist destination. It was built in 1870 and used until 1973. It is empty now, but on this cold day I seemed to feel all the ghosts of the former inmates--stretching all the way back to the days of the Idaho Territory.

I visited the gallows, where witnesses watched hangings through a glass window, and the "drop room," where bodies fell from the gallows through a trap door. The whole thing seemed inhumane, to say the least.

I visited the solitary confinement cells, mere slits with a round hole in the ceiling as the only ventilation. The cells got so cold in the winter that ice formed on the walls.

I was interested in the signs--so restrictive and dehumanizing for prisoners.

Next stop was the Idaho Historical Museum.

It was a treasure house of displays that helped me understand my adopted state--agrarian in the south and covered with forests up north, and increasingly high tech all over. At one point, near the turn of the 20th century, Idaho was nearly split in half, with the north going to Washington State and the south going to Nevada.

There were Native American beaded gloves and moccasins....

a Victorian parlor...

neon signs from long-gone bars...

a saddle and an ox yoke from Oregon Trail days...

a collection of cowboy chaps...

and even a mountain goat.

There was also an artist's life work of dozens of water colors of Idaho places. The farm, the mountains, and the desert symbolized, for me, the distinctive parts of this beautiful state.

I had time for one more museum before catching my plane--the Boise Art Museum.

There was a special display of quilts by African-American women in Alabama, juxtaposed with the museum's own collection of quilts by Idaho women. I have always loved quilts, as necessities turned into art by hard-working women. I thought of Grandma Eyring, turning old clothes into bright patterned quilts that she gave to her children and grandchildren.

I treated myself to a silk scarf in the museum gift store and then headed for the airport, for one last luxury, a self-indulgent meal (cheese enchiladas with lots of cilantro and tomatillo sauce), before the plane flight home. I had turned a work obligation into a very fun day.