After blitzing from Texas to Oregon in less than 2 days, our trip took a more relaxed turn. As I mentioned previously, while Jeff and Jesse attended the conference in Portland, I hung out with my mom and sister in Eugene and Cottage Grove, OR. They were wonderful hosts-- my mom and I explored the Cascade Mountains a bit via car and my sister and her boyfriend, Jeremy, invited me to join their weekly softball game on the banks of the Willamette. There were both funny differences and similarities between their pick-up game of punk softball and the co-rec city leagues I have played in in the past. The differences included the per capita rate of beer drinking and smoking while playing (literally, on the field-- at one point three infielders were playing with a cigarette dangling from their lips and the pitcher had a beer, and beer cozy, on the ground a safe distance from the mound, but not too far away, so he could take a sip between pitches). Another difference was the frequency of tattoos and square footage of bodily tattoo coverage (out of about 35 people total at the field, including players and spectators, I think I was one of two people with no tattoos-- the other being my mom). Lastly, while most of the males played shirtless (not weird), all the females played in skirts (unheard of). The similarities were just as profound. Mainly, I have to say this was the most competitive group of punk softball players you can possibly imagine. There was no kidding around, score keeping was vigilant, the pressure to perform at the plate was high, and the sighs from the sidelines were 
audible if one of the more inexperienced players stranded runners on base when the score was nearly tied, just as they were in the outfield if someone missed an opportunity for an easy double-play. It was a hoot, and though I had to leave beforehand, the seventh inning stretch involved a quick jaunt down to the river to jump in and cool off before returning to the battlefield.After a few days with the family, I went north to Dallas, OR (quite different from Dallas, TX) to visit my friends Dan and Ariel. Dan and I met in Florida in 1996-- we both did fieldwork in the Everglades, grew up in Chicago, and liked dinner parties. Somehow, despite the fact that we overlapped in Gainesville for only a few
months, we became good friends and I was extremely excited to visit he and his wife at their new place near the foothills of the Coastal Range where they grow vegetables, raise chickens, turkeys, and a duck that thinks it is a turkey. They also keep bees and tend the arboretum on their 14 acres of gorgeous land-- it is amazing and I am thrilled at the prospect of parking the trailer in their ample driveway at some point for a longer visit or, if I manage to get a job in western OR, I may even be able to stomach a commute if this was what I got to call home.
Picking Jeff and Jesse up in Portland after the meeting gave me a chance to stop by Becca Pearcy's studio-- Queen Bee Creations-- and do a little shopping. If you are in need of a vessel of some kind to carry things, you need to check out her website or go to her shop in the city. I was recently bequeathed two bags from my dear friend April (made many years ago, yet still in perfect 
condition) and picked up a wallet while at the hive. We headed back down to Eugene to have dinner and hang out for a bit at my sister's before starting the long trek back east to Tremonton, Utah to visit with Jesse's mom, Deb, and Vince on the ranch where he trains cutting horses (and rocks out).From there, we drove south passed the Great Salt Lake to Jesse's best friend's place from where we headed back west across the state almost to the Nevada border to climb Ibapah Peak (12,087 ft) in the Deep Creek Mountains. This area is spectacular-- rising out of the salt flats like a phoenix, this mountain range harbors lush, forested canyons full of springs and dramatic granite rock formations. I always have avoided hiking in the desert because I was under the mistaken impression that there wasn't much water there-- not so in the Deep Creek mountains. We hiked up through the canyon, through aspen and pine, came out on to a gorgeous green meadow, went up the saddle onto the ridge, got above tree line and clamored our way up the rocks to the summit (picture forthcoming). Having ascended a vertical mile, the view from the top extended far into the neighboring states including several other mountain ranges that pepper this otherwise flat and arid swathe of the US. The trail appeared to be virtually unused by would-be hikers, and is all the more enjoyable because it is so remote (although, interestingly, not far from the original Pony Express route.) I had enjoyed lots of hiking in some of the more accessible ranges in Utah about 10 years ago and it was awesome to be back in such a spectacular part of the country.
After our climb (during which we crossed paths with a gorgeous and rarely seen [but not rare] snake, Diadophus punctatus, shown here), we headed up into the hills to the east to visit Jesse's grandparents in Midway near Mt. Timpanogos. They live in a log cabin and treated us to breakfast outside overlooking the Wasatch Range and then to an informative/hilarious lecture on DVD about dinosaurs given by their grandson at age 10. Those of you who know Jesse may not be surprised to hear that he hasn't changed much since 1985-- his rabid interest in biology, and sharing it with others, is a deeply embedded feature of his personality that easily explains the path he has taken since then. We laughed hard, but were not-so-secretly very impressed with his excellent expository skills, even at a tender age.
From there, we cut through the Valley of Fire (right) and headed down to Sin City to show Jeff the strip and the spectacle that is Las Vegas, NV. I hadn't been there since coming out to the Grand Canyon on a roadtrip in 1987 and was astounded by how much the city has grown in the last 20 years. Casinos that were relatively large when I was there last are comically dwarfed by more recent additions like the Bellagio. We soaked it all in, Jeff won 7 cents on the slots, and we piled back in the car to head to Laughlin, AZ for the night to see Jesse's dad, Steve, and his wife, Sue. We spent the day riding around Lake Mohave on a wave runner and talking shop with a bunch of vacationers who were shockingly interested in biology and DNA. In the afternoon, we crashed a party and that night enjoyed a night gratis at the casino hotel on the Nevada side of the Colorado River. The ubiquity of gambling in Nevada is pretty strange-- you can gamble at gas stations, you can gamble at McDonald's-- people there seem numb to it because it is so everywhere, but to out-of-towners like us it is striking. We managed to leave the state with our shirts on the next morning to make the long drive home. Luckily, my dear old friend Gillichi happened to call that morning and we stopped and had lunch with him in Flagstaff, AZ on the wing. At about 4 in the morning, we succumbed to our nagging consciences and pulled over to check out why the car was shaking so much and discovered a pre-blow-out rear tire with a herniated air bolus the size of a loaf of french bread. Jesse and Jeff changed the tire, we got back on the road, and arrived in Arlington at about 8 am Monday morning-- in time for work, but temporarily waylaid by exhaustion. I can't say it is the first time I have gone on vacation and returned home completely rejuvenated mentally and completely exhausted physically-- hopefully not the last either....
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