Vacation with the Man 09

Clint and I finally went on a vacation just the 2 of us! We started in Las Vegas, where we stayed at the Golden Nugget on the old strip. I was shown this hotel in June when I was in Vegas working Cinevegas, by a friend and loved the pool and vowed to bring Clint and stay there! Its a neat old hotel that has the coolest shark-tank pool with a water slide that goes through the shark tank. I know, only in Vegas. Its way cool. We had to wait in line about half hour to check in, but we were upgraded to a suite so it was worth the wait! We had a fabulous suite with 2 big screen TVs, 2 bathrooms, the one with the shower had a tv in the bathroom. I was in heaven. We cozied in and layed around and watched tv and only left the room to play in the pool and go to the Freemont experience out front. The Freemont experience is the light show/video where they covered Freemont strip about 2 blocks long with a giant lights/tv screen! Every hour on the hour they play a different music video. It was really cool. They also had a band play in the street, cant remember who...some 60's band that was at Woodstock...anyway it was a fun place to stay! Then we moved to the Mirage to spend a night and go to the Cirque show LOVE. Its the one with all Beatles music. Saw a doc on the making of Love last year at Cinevegas and wanted to see it since. It was really neat! Now I need to see the other Cirque de Soleil shows!

The next day we drove to St George to see the Slaters, had lunch at Cafe Rio with them, then we continued on to the Grand Canyon, no. rim. Clint and I have always wanted to see the Grand Canyon from the North rim. We love the GC and have hiked Havasupai twice, and taken the kids to camp on the south rim a couple times, but never the north rim. Its only open 5 months of the year because it gets more snow and weather than the south because its about 2000 ' higher in elevation.We loved it! It was so beautiful. The shape of the rim curves around quite a bit so there are really cool areas to hiking along the rim and arms that jut out into the canyon. very beautiful vistas.

I have to say though that I was a little uneasy about the lack of fencing along the rim....sometimes the chain link fence that was there was only about 2.5 feet high! And the crazy thing is that it didn't stop people from going over the fence, tri-pod and camera bag in tow to get on the edge of the rim for a "closer" shot. Like it will make any difference! Also when were met with our friends the Slaters, they told us about friends they know who were hiking around St. George with their whole family and they were apparently on some sort of ridge and the mother/grandmother of the group, tripped and fell 200 feet and died. Very tragic. When Clint and I got to the Lodge at the No. Rim and were looking around, I saw on the bulletin board a flyer with a man's photo who has been missing since August 31, last seen on such and such trail. Yes people fall over...it's not really that uncommon. Then I made the mistake of picking up the Death on the Canyon book in the Visitors Center. Sometimes people fall and it is witnessed, and sometimes the rangers only find people because the condors are feeding on their bodies. Yes there have been California condors released in to the canyon, but they are hard to spot. We looked. We saw plenty of turkey vultures and jays etc...not condors. Anyway, the GC is fabulous and very romantic, since there is absolutely nothing else to do but sit and watch the scenery, esp sunset, or go to ranger talks which we went to, and I learned there are only 3 types of rock....Some 8 year old home schooled kid from Utah knew all 3! (igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic) Also the tiny cabin we were in was a duplex and paper thin walls, and one light bulb that hung from the ceiling, so not conducive to reading. Luckily I brought our dvd player and lap top so we watched movies and played computer games.

After a couple days of the north rim, we headed north to Bryce Canyon in Utah. We have been to Bryce years ago and I think we might have just drove through because I dont remember camping there....or spending much time there. It was beautiful. Bryce is not really a canyon, its more an amphitheatre, from like 200 days of the year of freezing and thawing temperatures. So all the formations are caused from that kind of erosion. It makes some beautiful formations called hoodoos. They are great! Some are huge! We camped here for a couple nights and went to more ranger programs, and a few hikes and bird watching. We added to our knowledge of the amazing Colorado plateau. No place like it in all the world. We met lots of travellers from all over the world. The campers next to us were from Slovakia. We found that most foreign tourists come and start at Zion and hit all the National Parks on the Colorado plateau. One night they even had an amateur astronomer talk with the big telescopes. Bryce was great. We haven't camped together for years and we very excited to. I bought a big huge tent a couple years ago and have been waiting to use it! So we excitedly opened up the big huge tent and found it covered in mold!! There was also sand and a Capri Sun wrapped up inside...hence the mold. I was so bumbed! Cassie probably took it on some YSA campout! Anyway, we did fine after we cleaned it up some. We got some rain at Bryce and it was quite cool.

Then on to the 3rd national Park on our agenda, Capitol Reef. We have such good memories of camping here when the kids were young. The campground sits surrounded by fruit orchards planted some 100 years ago by the Mormon settlers. There's a river that runs through the canyon and some huge Cottonwood trees! The deer just hang out in the orchards and campground so its a really cool setting. We also love the fact that one night camping fee is $10 AND you can pick all the fruit you can eat! And you can pick fruit to take for about 1$ lb. The apples and pears were falling off the trees! It was a great time of year. We went on some cool hikes also. One hike to Hickman Bridge, a huge natural bridge and we did a couple smaller hikes. There were some cool places with petryglyphs on the canyon walls. Very neat! All in all the vacation was just about great! We loved being out doors and loved sleeping in our tent! Although it was really cold at night and we had to snuggle and really bundle up! We definitely want to do more camping just the two of us. I guess we were not sure how it would be without the kids....it was pretty darn good and way easier without them!!

Sundance 09! and Nick!

I have been back for a couple weeks now but haven't had a chance to write anything about sundance yet since I was home for barely a week then off to Utah again to take Nick to the MTC! But now he is safely in the MTC learning Spanish for 8 weeks before leaving for Salta Argentina for 2 years. He was very excited to go on a mission and very happy to go to Argentina. He will serve under our former Stake pres. and longtime family friend, Pres. Dan Northcutt (and Cynda) Yes, the same Dan and Cynda that I babysat for when I was 15 and we regularly TP'd their house! I had Dan for 2 years in Seminary. Anyway, Nick was really cute and was anxious to go. So Sundance this year was good. There were a lot of movies that sounded interesting to me so I made an effort to go to movies and ended up seeing 30! It is a lot, the most I've ever seen at Sundance, but I only went to the music cafe 3 times so I was able to see alot of films. Some of the standouts of the Docs were, It Might Get Loud, about guitar legends Jimmy page, The Edge and Jack White. Who knew that jack White is the coolest man alive? Well he is! If you love music and especially guitar, Zepplin, U2 and the White Stripes go see this one, its really fun! I have a crush on Jack now.
When Your Strange- by Tom DiCillo a doc about The Doors is another great look at the Doors. There is footage of Jim from his UCLA film school days that is amazing! So amazing that people thought it was a re-inactment with an actor, so they made an announcement at the beginning of the film that all the footage is Doors original, because a buyer walked out of the first screening after 5 minutes thinking it was re-inactment! In the q & a some woman asked about the "re-inactment" and Tom DiCillo had a cow(or kittens if your from Australia) and practically pulled out his hair! When he explained his frustration and asked if the announcement was made at the beginning, Carly yelled out, "Were not all blonde"! It was great.
Prom Night in Mississippi about the only Public High School in the nation that still has a segregated Prom, yes 2 proms still! This is in Morgan Freemans home town and 10 years ago he offered to pay for the prom if they would have one prom and the school board turned him down so he offered again and they accepted! But the white parents still hosted their own separate prom! The kids in this one were so good. Amamzing that this is still happening today in the USA...well MS anyway.
Crude was a very good David and Goliath story. The indiginous peoples of the Ecuador amazon living and dying due to the polluted rivers from the oil drilling by Texaco or now Chevron. These poor villagers in remote areas have high cases of cancer and skin disease and their water is really polluted by the bad job that the American oil companies did down there. There is a 13 year lawsuit that will probably drag out forever. Trudie Stlyer (Mrs. Sting) is one of the heros. She is a UNICEF ambassador and the filmmaker invited her to go there and she right away had UNICEF buy and put up rain collector barrels with filters so at least the people can have clean water to drink and cook with. I want to raise $300 to donate to buy a barrel!
Sergio,based on the book Chasing the Flame about Sergio Viera De Mello who was the go to guy at the UN who died in 2003 when the UN was bombed in Bagdad. I bought the book because I want to know more about this man and his life.
Other good docs, Over the Hills and far Away, about a family with an autistc son, Boy Interrupted about a 15 boy with bi-polar disorder who commits suicide was really good and tragic at the same time, Afgan Star, about the Afgan Idol, yes they really have it in Afganistan, and Reporter was also really good, about Nicholas Krystof of the NY times who spend alot of time trying to get us to care about the atrosities in Africa.
I saw 11 docs total and there were ones that I didnt see that I wished Id had time to! Now for the features....My favorites of the 19 feature films I saw were these 5,
Adam- starring Hugh Dancy as a man with Asbergers syndrome trying to have a life and girlfriend...very endering and Hugh is so cute!
Arlen Faber- stars Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham and I laugh so much in this one...it was really clever...
The Greatest- Pierce brosnan and Susan sarandon play parents whose 18 year old son dies and they have to deal...and they find out he had a pregnant girlfriend! Pierce was so good in this! I hope this one gets released, but is is a movie about grief...
Against the Current- Joseph Fiennes plays a man dealing with his loss as well in an intereting way.
Taking Chance-Kevin bacon play real life Lt Col Michel Strobl who volunteers to escort a fallen marine back to his hometown. This is a great movie and will be on HBO in April. Watch it, its another story about grief but beautifully done.
okay those were my top 5 but I had a few more that deserve some mention....Moon a good sci-fi that Sam Rockwell carries is very good, An Education written by Nick Hornby is a great British film, Pomegranets and Myrhh was a very good Palestinian love story and Amreeka was a funny and heartwarming look at at a palestian and her son who immagrate to the US and the changes that happen to them. So thats the best of the 30 movies I watched! The music cafe was moved this year and I just wasnt as into it as years past. It was in a tent on main street and not as far of a walk but not like a club at all. I did get there a couple times and got down in the front with my local buddies and saw some good musicians...like John Reznik who was funny and talked alot the first day because he wasnt used to playing such a small club and said it made him nervous! Rachael Yamagata was really good, Wynonna was fabulous! Wynonna was also very chatty, probably for the same reason, the intimacy of the "tent". Also the Irish guy, Damien Rice, oh and the Gin Blossoms. It was good....not like years past though.....oh well!
So that was the highlights! My sister patty came up a couple times and we had a great time hanging out together and also with carly. Carly and I had fun working the midnight shift at the holiday Theatres again. It was fun to see and meet new and old friends.