Go easy now. . .

Well, they've done it again. Hem has delivered. I recently trotted down to my local music vendor and purchased their new release (Sept. 5) Funnel Cloud and have been listening to it ever since. Since my discovery of Hem (3 or 4 years ago?) they have topped my list of all time favorite bands. They are gentle, transportive, comforting, clear. I went so far as to coordinate a yearly trip to NYC to hear them play in their home neighborhood in Brooklyn (WELL worth it).
This new album lives up to it's predecesors (Rabbit Songs, I'm Talking with My Mouth, Eveningland, No Word From Tom) with my personal favs He Came to Meet Me, Hotel Fire, & the title track.

East of the Beehive

After nine weeks of living in a yurt and being a teen boy, I decided it was time to scrub up and take my annual bite out of my former big apple home. So after a few frantic days finding a house (in 45 mintues), packing, etc. I took off to see my older sister and celebrate her birthday in NYC. My little sis came the next day so it was the Bennion gals together at last. The city was fun, but I found myself feeling nauseated by the amount of consumption and money flow I felt teeming around me. After a summer of simple living I had culture shock for the first time in a city I know and love. (Louisa and Adah closing up at Jacks, the coffee shop my sister manages in the West Village) So I did what any self respecting scared rabbit would do and ran for the beach. I went out to Long Beach, Long Island to stay with my brother-friend Jesse and his rad family. It was just right and we enjoyed quite boardwalk strolls, fish dinner by the water, and a most excellent day on the sand (despite the TERRIBLE burn on got on my tummy. . . that part of my body was still snowy white). We had a terrific bash for my sisters birthday at the pent house of a friend on Central Park West that we always stay with, lots of amazing food, people, and views.
It was great to spend time with the sistas, see some art, eat good food, and find a few things you can't find in Utah.

I took Adah to all my favorite spots in the Met, including the awesome Seraphim in the ancient near eastern wing. . . then we got lost at the Egyptian temple. . . and that's Jesse with some of his amazing art.

The second week of my vacation was spent most delightfully on my annual reunion trip with my three best girl friends from college. We meet each summer somewhere new and explore together. This summer Cape Cod was our destination and we packed ourselves into Courtney's tiny turquoise truck and hit the road. We camped at a lovely little camp ground secluded in the pines, within walking distance of the beach and the fabulous ponds of crystal clear fresh water that dot the cape. Despite the astronomical costs ($70 a night just to camp!) it was a charming place. We enjoyed extensive swimming and lounging time, strolling in quaint villages, oggling boats, a sailing trip with a friend, fresh fish, square dancing on the dock (where I found myself in line to do the Virginnia reel with some folks from my mission!), and general bliss.


First night campfire. . . la plage. . . bluettes for breakfast. . . the warf in Provincetown

Due to a family emergency however, our dear Laurel had to leave for Vermont in the middle of the trip, so Court and Erin and I made our way unexpectedly to Concord, New Hampshire to stay with Court's mom. Suddenly it was fall, dark rainy skies, a few of the dense leaves changing, and New England charm. The highlight of this time was a whale watching trip of the NH and Maine coast! We saw three Fin whales (60 feet long!), a Minky whale, and a whole pod (30-40) dolpins leaping and playing around us (there where even baby ones!). Pretty much it fulfilled all my marine biologist dreams from fourth grade, I was giddy as a school girl.
Our journey back to the city took us through New Haven
where we stopped for Thai with our dear from Paul who is in grad school at Yale. The perfect end to a beautiful trip.


New Hampshire green. . .rainy Mass turnpike. . .Paul. . .fog on the coast

Le Raggazze di Birch Creek

In the 40 year history of Bennion Teton Boys Ranch, and the subsequent three of Birch Creek it has been soley and institution for the betterment of strapping young lads. This year, I took on organizing and directing the first ever girl's session! Same program, same hard work, same living in yurts and showering outside, just different gender. This has been a life long dream of mine (in fact when we first got the girls in the van and where driving them down I leaned over to Kelly and whispered "Kelly, I'm driving a van, and it's filled with girls! And we're taking them to the ranch!") and I couldn't have done it without the incredible program already established by Adam Bateman and Eric Peterson.

The girl were incredible. They were strong, worked hard (I never had to tell them to keep working), brave, hilarious, talented, and inspiring. They started with a backpack the first day up Horseshoe mountain, and they all summited (and all spent the night outside not in a tent for the first time in their lives)!

At the top of Horseshoe and still smiling

The girls worked HARD, they bucked bales, moved pipe, dug out bigs rocks and made fences out of them, hauled wood to the dump, dug out horse manure and mulched a garden with it. . .they done me proud.

Dirty toes were just the tip of the ice burg, gone were the days of needing a shower every day!

In addition to all the work there was lots of fun had including campfire songs (hello, it is camp!), a day at the lake, african dance, documentary watc hing (hitting the apartaid issues with the teens), pinata hitting, horseback riding, tie-dye . . . you get the picture. Pretty much the best camp ever.

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Jeanne and Lauren making tamales, my cuz Heidi and I, Hannah leaps at the yak, the cool crew.

Back from the ranch

Well, after long last (I know, I'm probably fired from the blogging life after this lapse of activity) I am officially back within a close enough range of the internet vein that I can sit and post a bit about the rest of the summer. I need to post a blog dedicated to the fabulous girl's session of Birch Creek Service Ranch. . . and I would do the same about the second session, but somehow my camera ate ALL the photo's I took from that session. So I'll try to do it justice in words alone.
Then there will be a report on my vaca to the east coast, and some documenting of my new home. So keep checking, I promise this blog will be at least a little more exciting in the near future. Until then, VIVA LA PLAGE!!!

Coyote Gulch

The landscape of my childhood is found in the curving sandstone canyons of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument area in southern Utah. Some of my earliest and best memories are of countless backpacking trips down there with my family and assorted friends. I think I first spent the night in the Calf Creek campground at age three, and it's been a long time affair ever since. I've participated in weddings, baptisms, vision quests, reunions, art happenings, jobs, and other assorted events in Death Hollow, Sand Creek, Coyote Gulch, Upper Calf Creek, and numerous other canyons. Needless to say I'm always more than happy to lead a group of campers down there each session, and this time our trip to Coyote was no exception.
We got to the trail head late, so we only hiked about twenty minutes in the dusk till we plopped down in the last open sand patch before we hit sandstone.

Goodmorning sandpatch, Neil, Topher, Matt
The next day we traversed some sandstone moonscape, till we came to a spot where you can lower your packs, and then squeeze through a crack made by a large slab against the cliff.


Boys looking over the cliff, squeezing through the crack, and packs getting lowered.
We spent the remainder of the day playing in the water, skipping stones, catching frogs, and then hiking about 7 miles to our camp in the Jacob Hamblin Arch alcove. Dehydrated beans and fresh spring water never tasted so good. The next morning we got up and hiked out Hurricane wash.


Neil showing how it's done; Steven's Arch; Conner likes lunch; me, my new hat, and jr. counselor Eli (who in a teen game of 'husband, lover, muse & friend' I chose as my husband, and then he chose me as wife! we're only 9 years apart. . . )


The boys take a much needed desert shower, the weirdest bug the boys found

Morning hikers, Jacob Hamblin Arch (named for my 4th great grampa).

Hippy up, or fight in the war

At the ranch, we fill our afternoons with a variety of excellent activities co-ordinated by my dear friend Neil, or by my soul sister Kelly. An example of the disparity which can exist in the interests of teen boys is the combo we had one day of either making tie dyed t-shirts , or marshmallow guns and bunkers for a full fledged war. Being the once founder, owner, and sole employee of Zi-Dyes (yes, yes, I was a high school hippy and thought it cooler than cool to wear at least three different tie-dyes at a time layered with old jeans and a chunky brown sweater)- I opted for the more peaceful of the two activities. I'll admit I took some pleasure in instructing the boys in the making of shirts that undoubtably would cause some of their parents to squirm when they welcomed their camper home clad in the rainbow of hippy peace with his neck still encrusted in dirt. One boy told us how last year he'd made a tie-dye shirt and his mother hid it from him the whole year saying it was lost, only to pull it out in time for camp- the only place she saw fit for him to wear such a thing. The boys did a remarkable job, and the shirts turned out super.


As you can see though, the war faring group didn't do half bad either. The following pics illustrate the construction, love, and result of a good mallow gun.


Clark and Max B. designing their guns, Graham with "The Death Taker", and Pancho post war.

Back on the Ranch

Dear faithful readers, (of whom I'm assuming there are about two). Let me apologize for my lapse in bloggingness, my life as a teen boy has been exceptionaly busy these last few weeks, and whilst every day contained many blog worthy events, pics, and anecdotes. . . alas my proximity to the internet, and time sufficient to blog have both been severely impared. Since I last posted the first session of boys ended, I ran the first ever girl's session, and now the second boy's session is underway. . . so there is a lot to report on for all you hungry for the latest BCSR gossip. Hopefully over today and tomorrow I'll be able to post about the end of the boy's first session, and the girl's session- baring this afternoon thunderstorm doesn't knock the power out for a few hours as it is wont to do.

The horned flaming bus, one of our many fine vehicles
used for toting teens around the valley.