Goaties use a warm December to relax — left to right Mick, Freddy, Bonnie and their mom Twilight.

We spotted a young moose on one of our trips.

December continued with a mild weather of November — and we were wondering whether buying ski season passes was premature. At least it froze in the mountains, and Snowy Range could spray artificially. So on December fourteen I made a trip there — I wanted to pick up our passes on a weekday, without a line, and since it was the start of the season, I would practice going down those two open slopes. I had counted on ski patrol being in majority there, but I think that civilians outnumbered the five patrol dudes in the end. Even the snow was a pleasant surprise — though mostly technical, riding it was nice. And another expectation came true — my legs hurt a lot, and I can be glad that I went there just for a short sample.

The resort had introduced RFID tickets and installed gates. I found it funny that the gates bleat like goats — but Tom corrected my mistake during our Christmas visit there — the sound is not intentional, but just a buzz of a servo operating the gate panels. Yet I still jerk — my phone's main alert sound is goat's bleat, and this is so similar that I tend to pull out my phone to check who's texting me.

Mild weather let us cross Rocky Mountains to Moab.

Balanced Rock.

The advantage of December without blizzards consists of our ability to plan a trip to Moab, Utah. The spot became much closer to us now that we moved out of California — but we have to cross the Rocky Mountain Range, which is not the best idea in a blizzard. Still we got first stuck in a traffic jam on interstate 25 near Denver, and subsequently we hit slow spots along interstate 70, for even at bright and sunny noon, there were crashes on the road — and I don't even want to know how it must look there once the road becomes slippery or visibility drops.

We hiked up to Delicate Arch.

Turret Arch looks like a fairy tale castle.

We had reached Moab in the evening, and since our hotel rooms were reserved, dinner was our priority. Not wanting to look for anything fancy, we went straight to the proven brewery — with parents having a beer to calm their nerves. Arches were on our schedule for the morning — and I must say that I find living in the same time zone like Utah is a great advantage. During our visits from California, we were always off by an hour, and mornings were a lot tougher. Still a considerable line to the park entrance awaited us; apparently we were just one car of many who had decided to spark up their pre-christmas week by a trip. Again — we don't try to imagine how it looks there during the main season — now, hotels were half-empty, and the brewery too; when everything fills up (and Moab grew an incredible number of new hotels), it must be quite a mess.

Tom and Lisa in Window Arch.

A view from Dead Horse Point.

We had hoped that this time we could hike up to Delicate Arch — which is such a landmark, it features on Utah car plates — and thus always beleaguered by hordes of tourists — and therefore a spot in the park where everybody must go. Which does not make it any prettier — but still we hoped that this time on a Monday we could hit a moment when at least the approach trail would not resemble Trafalgar Square. At my age, presence of other people does not make me happiers, and every natural spot gets surely spoiled by cackling hussies or boasting braves (who, judging by their blather, had been at least to Mt. Everest, and who feel that their conquest tales must be heard by everyone within five-mile radius). We were lucky this time, having encountered neither hussies nor braves — but we got punished by the vacuum-cleaner-hiker. A chap, who used his booming voice to hold a never-ending, mono-tonal, boring, nonsensical monologue regardless of whether anybody listened or responded (his group looked very tired) — and moved on at a speed roughly matching ours — he did not possess enough decency to drop off laughing at the first intersection, as the hussies did; neither would he overtake us in impressive large strides, as the braves did.

Thus we Sid and I declared a sudden snack break in the hopes that the booming chap would move on. This, however, had the side effect that our teenagers, who have reached the age where we stopped monitoring closely, had also disappeared forward, but we did not mind. Naturally that even their advanced age did not prevent them from having an idea — scramble up into a forming proto-arch. This was interesting in that it did not bother Tom to climb high — other times he squirms and claims he gets vertigo — an now he did not feel a thing.

On our way to Fisher Towers along Colorado River.

Fisher Towers.

Delicate Arch was surrounded by tourists, and a line formed for a photo spot inside the Arch — we've opted out of participating in such circus, and took pictures of the arch instead, with funny resident crows. Going back downhill took us a lot less time than hiking up, and so we added another walk, this time around our favorite Turret Arch — which is a formation that looks like a castle from a fantasy tale, and because there's no official trail around it, people don't crowd it as much. Alas, my family refused to go to the next, Double Arch, claiming fatigue. We still had some two hours of daylight left, and thus we drove up to Dead Horse Point — a viewpoint overlooking Colorado River. What we did not consider, was the fact that much of the view is turned west, situating the canyon so that you look into the sun. Wintery brownish tinge of rocks and dirt merged with shadows into a bland and uninviting landscape. Well, we've learned our lesson for next time — one must visit Dead Horse Point in the morning and a season that grows some greens.

We went to have a dinner in a Thai restaurant right next to our hotel. Apparently it's a popular spot — by six in the evening we had to wait for a table. But the staff had it worked out and impressively alternated between serving the tables and handing out take-aways, and it all moved at a good pace — but we were thinking again, how must it look during the peak season?

In the morning we packed, checked out of our hotel, and continued in our tour schedule — by visiting Fisher Towers. These rocks and spires don't carry a status of a national park, and hence are relatively omitted by hordes — despite a hike along bizarre, tall, crimson towers is no less interesting than famous parks only a few miles away. The area is mostly known among rock climbers, and even on a Monday a few climbers swarmed there. Including a group that pulled up a chimney — and subsequently lowered down again — a child gradually more and more hysterical. These situations are bad, because one can not help the affected person — whol, in a panic attack, stops responding to encouragements, consolations, or rational advice — and when he hangs some hundred feet below, you can't quiet or reassure him that you're right there — because the two of you are universes apart.

Fisher Towers.

Cheyenne Boot and Christmas decorations.

From Fisher Towers we headed home — stopping for dinner in a strange, but nevertheless very good grill in Colorado. Sid needed to switch out of driving there — traffic in Colorado is bumper to bumper, which is a bit nerve-wrecking on a twisty mountain freeway. Dinner also postponed the hour of driving through Denvcer, with later meaning fewer cars on the road, and we still got home in a civilized time.

Because snow still would not come and one could easily lie down on the prairie while grazing goaties, and watch a furiously blue sky throug golden sheafs of grass, I could somehow not find the Christmas spirit. In the end, a trip to our down-town in a full holiday decor, helped a little — after a good dinner, we went strolling around. A park at the railroad depot, which used to — running wild among lit up decorations. We were obviously far from the only family who came to relish a serving of Christmas veneer. Now that we were on a roll, I took pictures of Cheyenne Boots — eight feet tall sculptures of cowboy boots, depicting important milestones and events of Wyoming. Tom and Sid, of course, could not just watch and enjoy, sochy kovbojských bot připomínajících důležité mezníky a události Wyomingu. Tom se Sidem se ovšem nemohli kochat, protože objevili, že některé ze stromků nesvítí, takže strávili asi dvacet minut hledáním rozpojených prodlužovaček a řešním tohoto "problému".

Presents of Christmas.

Presents of Nature.

The Christmas Eve proper ensued in our typical way — small and moderate; we don't celebrate much. Yet on the twenty-fifth, we woke up into a snowed-in landscape. Goaties were quite taken aback, and Tom and I spent the morning checking out traffic cameras and road conditions. We wanted to go ski, because we hoped that on Christmas Day all real Americans sit at home with their family and a turkey, and there would not have to be a big crowd on the slopes. Unexpected Christmas snow delivery meant chaos on the roads — especially on interstate to Laramie, which crosses a pass at 9,500 feet. Eventually we decided to try, loaded our Ford truck, and set out. Tom was driving, enjoying snow and ice, even condition where of two highway lanes only one was clear (sloshed by semis, not ploughed or sanded), so we sometimes crept forward at 30 mph, there not being any way to pass the column. Fortunately at least the canyon down from the pass was sanded, and we reached the city of Laramie without a problem. County road to the ski resort had possibly been ploughed at some moment, but we mostly moved on top of packed snow. That was likely better than heaps of salt and slosh on the highway.

Mountains got a foot of new snow instead of advertised two inches, and consequently skiing was hard work. Given the minimum visitors, powder lasted practically all day — watching skiers fall was fun, for geysers of powder sprayed up, and of a sitting skier or snowboarder, one could barely see his head. Even those who managed to stay upright did not fare much better — one could not see any skis or boards — only a figure moving above the snow surface — from knees up, and everybody looks like having very short legs. Simply a beautiful day.

Tom in powder.

This time on foot, but cross-country skis await.

Whit Christmas has considerably improved our holidays. Sid and I ventured out walking at Happy Jack, where we took great pleasure in meeting wonderful dogs. We are not dog people, but local four legged companions, overjoyed from space and snow and being outdoors, who don't aggravate their surroundings (us) and never want anything from us, merrily going about ignoring us and fulfilling their important doggy duties, are a comforting change from California's endlessly barking psychotics.
Then I took Tom out on our first cross-country ski trek this season. The snow looked promising — I had the impression that after that single Christmas snowfall there was more of it in the woods than during the whole last year. I can't get enough views of snow-covered trees. The next storm was supposed to arrive on New Year's Eve — while I managed to fit in skiing in the morning, before it got cold and started snowing. We did not celebrate New Year at all — everybody stayed at home in the blizzard, and by midnight perhaps one neighbor was active enough to shoot his two petards. Whether something took place in the city, we had no idea — snowy curtains hid everything, even our neighbors, and a town ten miles away was very far that night. I would guess that townfolk treated this blizzard just like any other one — nobody commands the wind, rain or snow here; one gets indoor, and waits until it blows over.

In the warmth and quiet of our home I was hoping that a peaceful New Year's Even would portend a boring, unexciting and comfortable year 2022. About how wrong I was, will be some next journal.