Cactus Kate

Wow. My trip to Winnemucca. So much to tell. I scarcely know where to start! I guess the train would be a good place to start.

Train from Green River, Utah to Winnemucca, NV: Scheduled trip – 5:58pm pick up in Green River. 5:30am delivery in Winnemucca. Our trip – 1:30am (7 1/2 hours late) pick up in Green River, 3:30pm delivery in Winnemucca (10 hours late).

December 10 – Rich drove us to Green River (50 miles north of Moab), arriving there at 7:45pm (we had gone to the website, and it said the train would be there at 8:15pm). We waited, and waited, and WAITED. I kept calling the update phone number, and all the way until 9:00, it said 8:15. After that, an agent told me there had been a train derailment in Grand Junction, CO, and it wouldn’t be there until 1:00am. Lucky we had a car to stay in, as it was about 2 degrees outside (this is NOT an exaggeration).

The train ride itself was lots of fun. Because the train was late, we got to see everything between Salt Lake City and Winnemucca in the daylight. I saw the Momen Tree for the first time (though from a distance). I got one photo of it, and that photo is bad.

Janet and I each got our own set of 2 seats for the whole trip there. In Salt Lake City (about a third of the way to Winnemucca) a lady with 2 little kids got on, and sat right in front of us. The rest of the trip consisted of her kids running around the train, and squealing, and the lady yelling at them to stop, but not actually doing anything about them or disciplining them. GRRRR.  Janet on the train, and a picture of the observation car:

December 11 – We got to Winnemucca at about 3:30pm, and Julie met us at the train station. YEA! We went to her house and dropped off our stuff, and met her doggies, Bernice and Cash. Bernice is a very well behaved St. Bernard, and Cash is a very SPASTIC German Shepard. Cash is cute, though. They both are. Here is a photo of Bernice sitting on Julie’s chest (she just backed up and sat there), and Cash, at the very calmest he was while we were there:

We immediately went out to dinner. It was great to see Julie! After that, we went back to her house, hung out, and had some cocktails.

December 12 -Got up and went to breakfast at Sid’s (I think that’s the name of it) restaurant.  Looked like Mel’s Diner.  I had a delicious omelette.  It was snowing, and there wasn’t much to do after that, so (since I had my GPS loaded with a bunch of Winnemucca geocaches) we went geocaching.  We searched for 4, and found 3 of them.  It was rough with 7 or so inches of snow on the ground.  We kind of gave up after a while.  Janet didn’t have snow boots, so Julie and I went searching for them, and Janet took photos.  Here is one of the pictures of us after we actually found one, some quails we saw along the way, and two of the 3 of us at the site of another:

We went to Jack in the Box for lunch, and went home to get ready for Julie’s company Christmas dinner/party that night.  It was interesting to go to a dinner for a company that I didn’t belong to.  I was disappointed for Julie, because she didn’t win anything from the fabulous gift table.  Here are Janet, me and Julie in Julie’s kitchen just before the party.

We left the party early, and went home.  Hooray for home!

December 13 – I am actually not sure what we really did.  It really was just nice to visit Julie.  I hate that all my girlfriends live so far away.  I do know that we ate at Long John Silver’s for lunch, and at a restaurant called Dos Amigos for dinner.  They had GREAT food!  After that, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights, which was nice, too.  A LOT of people put a lot of effort into their holiday lights displays.  Here is one of the more decorated houses, and one that I SWEAR had light-up holiday hippos on their lawn, but I was ASSURED by my buddies that they are bears.  I am skeptical.

We watched the movie Seven Pounds that night.  It was really good, but definitely a Four-Kleenex movie.  Sad.  I recommend it, but be prepared.  Here we are before the movie.

December 14 – Julie took us on a Winnemucca tour.  We saw the sights.  Below are the Winners Casino, the Winnemucca courthouse, Winnemucca Blvd, and I was really excited to find out that Winnemucca has a community garden!

The most exciting part of the tour was a drive-by of the local ‘houses of ill repute’ in Winnemucca.  Note the red lights on the signs…

At about 2:00 that after noon, Janet had an appointment to get a tattoo.  This was her second one, and it went REALLY quickly, and turned out great!

Julie took us to the train station at 8:15 that night.  Miraculously, it was only 30 minutes late.  We didn’t run into problems until we ran over some debris on the train tracks, and had an air hose blow (or something).  When we arrived at Salt Lake City (at about 4:00am), we had to replace one of the locomotives (train engine), because it wouldn’t pull a load, or supply power to the train.  We had to sit there and wait for about 3 and a half hours for a Union Pacific locomotive to show up, attach itself to our train, and be tested.  I guess it worked, because we started moving again at about 8:00am.  After that, the trip home was pretty uneventful.  The scenery was great, and it was interesting to see the route from the tracks, rather than a road I have driven many, many times.  I got photos of the BIG windmills they recently installed at the mouth of Spanish Fork canyon, a few where you can see the funny-looking yellow Union Pacific engine, and some decent photos of Helper, UT (which, apparently, is a historic train town).

Thanks, Julie, for everything!  …and thanks, Janet for being an AWESOME traveling companion!  I had a great time!  I’m looking forward to a visit to Winnemucca in much fairer weather sometime soon.

It’s been hard to put together an organized post this time, so I am sorry to say it is just a menagerie of various stuff.

Winter is coming on a lot more quickly than I want it to. Every year, the cold season seems longer, earlier and colder than the previous year. I am already dreaming of white sandy beaches, fancy umbrella drinks, desert-scapes full of saguaros and warmth, etc. In Moab, for me, cold weather means a lot more time in the house, and a variety of cold weather activities. I find that I cook a lot more in the winter, I knit, make jewelry, and do other crafty-type things. 2 days ago, I knitted a hat. It’s a very simple pattern, but it turned out to be a nice little hat:

I visited my parents yesterday, as I do almost every Monday, and like almost every visit, I was treated to the lovely song of their local Rock Wren. I think the Rock Wren lives in a large pile of rocks on their property. He has a very nice song, and very interesting habits. You can learn about him by clicking HERE. In any case, on this visit I walked down the garden path, and toward his rock when I heard him singing. I didn’t see him when I got to his rock, so I whistled (like I whistle for my dog), and out popped the Rock Wren, up onto the rock. He seemed curious, and held still for several really good photos. Also, there is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk that hangs out in their side yard, waiting for an opportunity to eat a finch or sparrow. Here are my favorite pics from each:

Last Saturday, I decided to go geocaching again. My mom had invited me over for lunch, so after lunch, I dragged her along. I had a list of 16 geocaches in my GPS. These were all along hwy 191, which is the main highway going through Moab. I had only listed the caches that were right ON hwy 191, so it was really vehicular geocaching (no hiking or riding involved). We managed to find 15 out of 16 of them, and had a good time. Here are some pictures from Saturday, including a few habitat shots of Yucca baccata. Note the deer in the first photo.

A friend in Tucson sent me some seeds from a Screwbean Mesquite tree (at my request), so I have sown 8 of those seeds. To my surprise, 4 of these have already germinated (it’s only been 4 days)! They are supposedly hardy down to 15° F, so I am thinking maybe they would survive a Moab winter (even though Moab goes down into the single digits about 10 nights a year). In any case, I am excited that 4 have germinated. Here is a picture of the first one:

Thanks for reading, and PLEASE COMMENT!

Yes, geocaching. Thanks to my friend Kiri’s bad influence (actually just a ‘blog post on her part, but…) I am now interested in geocaching. …and when I say ‘interested’, I mean this could become an obsession like so many other things in my world.

Geocaching, also referred to as a global positioning or GPS stash hunt, is a recreational activity in which someone “buries” something for others to try to find using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The pursuit can be thought of as a GPS-enabled treasure hunt. Usually, a geocache consists of a small, waterproof container that holds a logbook and inexpensive trinkets. Participants are called geocachers. (Definition from Information Technology at Johns Hopkins Institutions).

I have already found 3 geocaches in the Moab area, and there are many, many more. I have one that I can’t seem to locate, even though it is extremely close to my house, and I am very frustrated by this. I put the coordinates into my GPS, and it leads me to where I am supposed to be, but there doesn’t seem to be a geocache there, though the website has assured me that there IS one there.

The very first geocache I found was GC19B4X (aka ‘A Simple Cache’). It is located in Moab. Geocaches are a secret thing, and you aren’t supposed to let people see you finding/digging/uncovering one. This one was difficult in that respect, because it is a pretty easy one to find, and is close to a road. I can’t tell you where it is or what it’s near, but here are a couple pictures of the cache itself:

This picture is after I ‘left my mark’ on the log. I believe this is called a ‘microcache’. There is really no room in it for any trinkets, or even a writing utensil. The website description usually tells you if you should bring your own pen. There is always a log, sometimes big enough to write your thoughts, but the 3 I have found so far have only been big enough to write your name.

The website I joined is www.geocaching.com, and I like it. It gives fairly detailed maps, with all the geocaches logged with them listed on the map. You can download the coordinates and information right to your GPS, which is very handy (they only support Garmin GPSs at this time, however).

You can participate in geocaching even if you don’t have a GPS. In fact, when I told my mom about it, she said that she and my dad had accidentally stumbled upon one while visiting a waterfall in Idaho last spring. Rich also says he has found several accidentally around Moab while out bicycling. Barb joined the geocaching website, and found her first geocache last night, without the aid of a GPS.

I think it is a really great thing to do, it’s fairly safe, it’s fun, and it’s free. If any of you are already members of geocaching.com, or feel like joining now, my username is katemail13, and I’d love to be your friend!

Thanks for reading! Join me in my newest obsession!