As I write this, I am listening to migrating geese calling as they fly over our house and find myself eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring. While I’ve seen it snow in the Rocky Mountain region in late May, I am hoping that the winter storm of last weekend was the last big storm of the winter. Others may disagree with me on this point and unfortunately, we still need significant precipitation to avoid slipping into a draught. However, my hope is that it will come in the form of a wet spring with snow in the mountains and rain in the valleys. I am tired of the cold, the inversions, the snow and want to see green on the hills, flowers in the yard and I am looking forward to planting tomatoes and basil in the garden.
This is not to say that we have not enjoyed the winter or even getting outside when it is cold as there have been amazing days for getting outside including another day spent cross country skiing last weekend and H’s final race of the Salt Lake Winter Training Series the weekend before.
Cross country skiing last weekend was spent up at Soldier’s Hollow, one of the Olympic sites for the 2004 Winter Olympics. It is actually a pretty nice course that is well maintained and groomed and is another success story for Olympic facilities as many facilities in the history of the Olympics simply do not maintain their usage. It was a beautiful day after a storm system came through dropping fresh snow on the Wasatch Front and we made the most of the day, skiing until we were exhausted.
As I said before, the Salt Lake Winter Training Series culminated the weekend before with a 15k that H and her sister ran. We were lucky to have another beautiful day for this race in contrast to the other overcast, foggy and bitterly cold days that the runners had to endure for the 5 and 10k races. I was hoping for more bird photography on this day given that there was so much light and the temperatures were getting up into the high 30s, but I had to satisfy myself with pictures of gulls, planes and principally runners, some of which were remarkably fast with the fastest runner coming in under 50 minutes. Not record setting, but nothing to sneeze at given the cold and the altitude.
