Bittersweet

We love parties, but our open house for 70 people on March 10, 2013 was bittersweet. Our beloved Nancy and Darrell Moench were moving, after living in our Avenues neighborhood with us for 35 years. 

Darrell arrived back home from a visit to Palm Springs last week.  On his way, his car was side-swiped by an on-coming pickup truck, and Darrell was flung out of his car and nearly killed.  He brought photos to show the details.

Since Nancy is Dave's sister, members of the Spendlove clan dropped by.  Vincent Moreland, Dave's sister Janice's husband, was in town from Houston.  He cuddled Jett, his daughter Charlotte's new baby, and chatted with Dave, Michael, and Charlotte.

 

 

 

Pam Johnson helped me put on the party, along with neighborhood friends and good cooks Robin Kimball and Janet Hunter.  Julie Monson, my longtime pal, dropped by and chatted with Pam.

Ed Rogers and Dave Monson are other good friends.

Dave played host, as I ran food back and forth from the kitchen.

The Moench open house was only one of four celebrations this week.  In addition to our yurt adventure at Solitude, we attended a Bowfire concert with Michael in Park City and dropped by Annie Poelman's house for her annual soup party.

The Bowfire group includes ten violinists who play all sorts of violin music, from bluegrasss fiddling to Celtic jigs to cool jazz.  They were polished and memorable.

I took butternut squash soup to Annie's party, and I indulged in many favorite soups from my neighbors--Mrs. Merrill's sausage soup, Robin Kimball's broccoli and cheese soup
, and Susan Horne's cold strawberry soup.  The party gets better every year.

 

 

 

 

The Yurt

One of Dave's and my favorite Christmas gifts was an evening at the Solitude yurt.  It was a treat from Camille and Steve, and Jonny and Jenny.  On Saturday, March 9, 2013, we took our yurt trip. We passed snow and trees glimmering in the winter light, as we pulled into the Solitude parking lot. 

 

We wandered past brand new shops and condos, and waited in the Solitude pub for our adventure to begin.

 

We were fitted out with snowshoes.  Here's David saying, "Please, Gretta, just hurry and take the picture."

We followed our guide and party on a winding trail, through the woods and to the yurt, sunk deep in the snow.

 

 

We sat at a table with three women, whom we found very interesting.  Two of them had husbands who were business consultants in Chicago, and the other one lived in Detroit, so we talked a lot about how much we loved those two cities.  The food was gourmet--potato/leek soup with truffle oil, a seafood "roulade" with remoulade sauce, kale and grapefruit salad, a kobe beef filet, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

 

After dinner we watched one of our waiters twirl lighted torches in the dark, as the stars shone very brightly in the canyon sky overhead.  We then snowshoed back to the Solitude lodge in the crisp darkness.

 

It was a perfect evening!

Scenes from Eighty Years Ago

Long, long ago, even before gambling was invented, saber tooth tigers prowled Southern Nevada.

  Later, after gamblers strode onto the desert, but when there were still more miner/gamblers than tourist/gamblers, the hills outside Vegas were sprinkled with bits of petrified wood.

The weekend of March 2, 2013, Dave and I visited Valley of Fire, the state park just outside Vegas.  In the 1930s, portions of the park were fenced to keep visitors from taking petrified wood.  This weekend, for the first time in decades, visitors were taken on a tour of the fenced-off areas.  We were led by a gruff ranger who identified cactus, Mormon tea, and other desert plants as we wandered among the rocks.

 

 

 

 

It was amazing to see how much petrified wood there was, compared to the rest of the denuded park.  There were whole logs to sit on, and bits spread so thickly on the ground that they crunched as we walked on them.

 

We walked up the hillside, savoring the wood, the gray-blue hills with sandy red outcroppings, and the quiet.  In Nevada, the sky is as imposing as the land.

 

 

 

Back at the Visitors Center, Captain Dave arrived, in his Stetson and camouflage pants, to talk about Southern Nevada's fossils.  He brought with him a saber tooth tiger skull that we got to finger.  He also told us about the private zoo that he manages in a tiny town between Mesquite and Valley of Fire.  It is open only by appointment, and has kangaroos and even a couple of giraffes.  That sounds just exotic enough to be interesting!

 

Before driving back to St. George, Dave and I drove through Valley of Fire, to appreciate once more its flamboyant beauty.  There was a new trail, but Dave persuaded me to leave it for next time.  I agreed that, "We need a reason to come back."

 

 

 

 

We had a complete change of pace that evening--watching Abba Mania perform at the Dixie Center in St. George.  It was a rock group singing favorite songs of the Abba singing group, such as "Mama Mia."