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Hiking The Wave

The Wave is one of those places where you see photos and wonder if it’s AI or so Photoshopped, it can’t possibly look like that in real life. It looks like a different planet.

It’s also one of the hardest places to hike to… and I’m not talking about the hike itself. You need a permit to hike there, and the Bureau of Land Management limits permits to 64 people each day. That’s it. Permits are distributed through an online lottery with some being chosen four months in advance and the rest the day before. Also, you pay a fee to enter the lottery, even if you don’t get a permit.

It’s the only legal lottery in Utah!!

My friend Sumitra (whom I met on this backpacking trip) had been applying for permits off-and-on for about ten years when she finally scored one a few months ago.

I was so honored that she thought of me when she scored this elusive permit. Even though my kids are busy with comp soccer and track and field right now, my husband made it work so I could sneak away for two nights down to Kanab for this likely once-in-a-lifetime hike.

I drove down to Kanab on a Monday morning and took my time. I listened to podcasts and bought car snacks that I didn’t have to share. I met up with Sumitra, Nancy, and Sue. They flew in from Indianapolis and had spent the weekend in Las Vegas. We explored Moqui Cave. The cave has a fascinating history, but it was very touristy and gimmicky. Thankfully, it was only $7. Any more and I don’t think it would have been worth it.

We ate dinner at Wild Thyme Grill where the food was pricey but delicious. I had three shrimp tacos with a nice slaw. We called it a night early because we planned to head out to the trailhead before 5am.

I barely got any sleep that night. I struggle to fall asleep when I know I have to be up early, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. Whatever.

It was about an hour’s drive to the Wire Pass Trailhead. The road getting there is dirt and clay and apparently almost impassable when it’s wet and your vehicle doesn’t have 4WD. Thankfully, it was dry.

We hit the trail just as the sun was peeking above the horizon and enjoyed a lovely 3-ish miles through sand and slick rock to The Wave. The trail is marked only in a few spots, so having a map with GPS is really important on this hike. Apparently, some people end up not finding The Wave at all. Thankfully, all of us had maps downloaded on our phones and Sumitra had a printed map that included photos of some rock formations that helped us know that we were going the right way.

The views along the way were expansive and epic.

Oooh! A puddle! <—- literally what I said.

We got to The Wave by about 7am and wow.

This puddle made for some awesome reflections.

You can see Top Rock Arch at the top of this photo.

We wandered around a bit taking photos and checking out the area from different angles.

Sue, Nancy, and Sumitra continued hiking up to find a few other landmarks like Top Rock Arch, Melody Arch, and The Alcove. I wasn’t feeling great, so I opted to hang out in the shade and take photos. I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t had enough to eat or if I was just feeling off because of lack of sleep. I made sure to eat (Uncrustables FTW) and included something salty and sweet.

We hung around the area for a few hours and then went back to check out The Wave around noon with minimal shadows. It REALLY made a difference!

We saw less than a dozen people the whole day.

After enjoying a snack break we started heading back to the trailhead. It took a few miles before I figured out why I wasn’t feeling well, it was my electrolytes! I was eating and drinking plenty, and one of my bottles had Liquid IV in it, but it wasn’t enough salt. I had to stop a few times because I was starting to feel woozy. Of course there was no shade and it was about 90°F. I knew it wasn’t dehydration because I was still sweating and my nose was even running. But any uphill sections killed me and I had to stop. Nancy offered me some electrolyte gels and I felt better within 10 minutes. I’m definitely adding those to my hiking pack now.

We got back to our hotels, showered, and met up for dinner at Peekaboo Canyon Wood Fired Kitchen in Kanab. The food was all vegetarian and delicious. I had a wonderful margarita that further replaced my electrolytes along with a pizza that had pears, gorgonzola, arugula, sage, and roasted pepitas. We ate outside, under their awnings, and it rained on us for about five minutes. It was kind of awesome.

I explored a little bit of Kanab the next day, looking for souvenirs. I wanted a Christmas ornament for The Wave and I picked up some postcards. We often send postcards to family members when we travel. This time, I sent them from my kids and wrote, “Mom went on this awesome hike and left us at home!”

Gear:

All in all, it was a really fantastic trip. I got to do a short road trip all by myself and sleep in a hotel room for two whole nights by myself (well, I slept 1 of those nights). The area around Kanab is spectacular and I would love to come back with my family and explore some more with Kanab as a basecamp. Even my kids were jealous and they never want to hike with me anymore.

Things to see around Kanab:

The Wave (duh!), Buckskin Gulch, Peekaboo Slot Canyon, The Belly of the Dragon, Moqui Sand Caves, Toadstool Hoodoos, Willis Creek Trail, Mansard Great Diverse. Plus, it’s a 30 min drive to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, 35 min to Zion National Park, and about 80 min to Bryce Canyon National Park. Lake Powell is less than an hour away and The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is only 1 hour and 45 min away.

My 2nd Taekwondo Tournament

I’ve been a student of taekwondo since 2018. I started because I had some sudden, unexplained weight gain after my youngest son turned two and I needed some sort of regular exercise. My oldest son was already a student, so I started going with him to the Saturday morning family classes and found I really enjoyed them. From there, I attended more and more because I enjoyed the variety in workouts and I suddenly found myself a red belt when Covid struck. By 2021, we could train in studio again and I tested for my black belt that fall. You can read more about my TKD journey: Pre-Black Belt Test, Post-Black Belt Test, Black Belt Graduation.

This April, I competed at the Utah State Taekwondo Championship. This was my second year doing black belt poomsae (forms), and what a difference a year makes.

I take photos at a lot of our tournaments, but my oldest was able step in and get some photos of me while I competed. Thank you, Tommy!

Last year, I was nervous as hell. This year? I felt calm, decently confident... and even took on a second challenge: competing in mixed pairs with Van, a fellow AMYS parent. There aren’t many of us over 40 still throwing kicks, so that felt extra special. We learned cheonkwon, the 7th dan form, in just a week and only practiced together three times. We also had no competitors, so we refused to put a ton of pressure on ourselves. Cheonkwon was fun to learn and getting a gold medal for it was even sweeter.

Next was individual poomsae: Pyeongwon and Sipjin. I love sipjin, but pyeongwon challenges my balance and strength big time. It's beautiful and looks simple, but it’s NOT. It's frustrating to watch myself knowing I can kick higher, but then I'd be stumbling.

I had a few moments of panic right before it was time for Jessie and I to compete when I realized I was missing a step in sipjin. My teammate/competitor Jessie quickly realized what move I was skipping and I was able to get it fixed, but damn, that was scary!

Lookie how high I can kick when the pants don’t try to break me! Photo by Master Samery

I know that taekwondo uniforms look like we’re just wearing PJs, but they are NOT designed for curvy girls. The fabric is stiff and has zero stretch. Poomsae uniforms specifically are even stiffer because they are expected to make snappy noises when we do poomsae, and when I sweat, the fabric sticks to my skin. I get it, but argh!! I had to drop some money to figure out a solution that didn’t give me major sensory issues. I bought a very-overpriced undershirt from Lululemon that helped with the sweat/sticky fabric issue.

THEN I bought a whole 2nd uniform two sizes bigger so the pants had more give in the hip and thigh area. I was suffering from knee pain after workouts because when I kicked, my knees would hyperextend because there was no give in the fabric at my hips. Of course, that meant they were too long, so I had to alter them at the cuff AND make the rise shorter. They are officially the most comfortable TKD pants I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, no one allows us to buy the top and pants in different sizes. I’m always on the lookout for discounted uniforms now.

Jessie was the only competitor in my age division and I squeaked out gold by 0.33 points. It has been wonderful training along with her these last couple months.

It's very easy for me to watch videos of poomsae athletes who are younger than me; athletes who've probably done taekwondo since they were little kids, and compare myself. But then I remember:

  • I started taekwondo at 39.

  • I've had two kids.

  • I'm dealing with health challenges most people never see.

I'm showing up and I'm proud of my growth. The Wise and Inspiring Mirna Valerio once said something that I often replay in my head: "You start where you start, it's gonna be a journey no matter what it is. You can't compare yourself to your former self or anybody else. You have to be in the moment, and then you move from that moment forward." 

Now the big question... should I compete at USA Taekwondo Nationals?? It’ll be at the end of July and in Ontario, CA; where my sister lives. And they changed the format of poomsae competition for black belts and I won’t know what forms I’ll be competing in until MOMENTS before. Hmmm…

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My Dream Studio

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My 10yo was telling me what he would put in his dream bedroom the other day and he asked what I would want in my dream bedroom. I told him that my needs are really simple for my bedroom: an incredibly comfy bed with room to snuggle and some decent light during the day. Perhaps a little reading nook too. That’s it.

But what I’d REALLY have fun with would be creating a custom studio space for my art and design. He asked me what that would look like so we went onto Pinterest to play.

Of course, in this dream scenario, we have no budget. I told him I’d love a space that’s separate from my house so I could have a tiny feeling of “going” to work.

This structure with glass panels for two of the main walls looked especially wonderful with how much natural light I’d be able to get. Although, I don’t know how secure a room like this would be and I may not love having to get there when it’s snowing. I would also want to make sure it’s climate-controlled.

I would want a space that’s large enough so there’s a whole wall of desk space and a large table in the middle for picture framing, kinda like these:

This made me swoon a bit.

^^^ This image with the chairs made me think that a reading nook might be nice. Loving the under-the-stairs storage solutions.

Like THIS for a reading nook. ^^^ This low sofa-daybed-looking thing looks downright dreamy.

Really digging the long desk space.

Ultimately, I would want a designated space for all of the different artsy things I do. I’d want a designated space for my desktop computer, a space for my sewing machine, a space for my mat cutter, a space for my easel (if I ever paint on canvases again), and a space dedicated to watercolor painting. I’d prefer for my mat cutter to live on the edge of a large table that’s in the middle of the room to make picture framing easier.

Some creative storage for flat paintings and paper would be nice along with vertical storage for mat boards, foam boards, canvases, and more. I’d prefer drawers versus shelves for the flat storage to prefent dust from collecting.

I would love a big, sturdy table in the middle to hold my mat cutter, rolls of craft paper, picture framing supplies, tapes, and various other tools.

I also want a Fletcher 3000 Multi Material Cutter. It mounts on the wall and can cut mat board, foam board, glass, and plexiglass. It’s amazing how much easier it is to cut things to size when they are vertical versus trying to cut these items on the floor. It’s only $1800, a girl can dream.

Perhaps the most important of all would be the kind of light this dream studio space can get. I’d ideally love large, north-facing windows to get the most optimal light for most of each day. I’d love if these dream windows are still pretty easy to clean too.

This amazing studio with fantastic use of vertical space reminded me: I would love for this dream studio to have a big, industrial sink for the fabric dyeing projects I love to do but don’t really have the space for right now.

Large, deep, and most importantly, easy to clean.

Of course this space would be heavily climate-controlled and have its own toilet. Cuz, yeah.

BTW, I started a wishlist on Amazon for my little business if you’re interested. A few random art supplies, picture framing supplies, and photography gear.

What would you have in your dream studio space?

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Ten Decades and Counting Book Cover

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I had the absolute privilege of designing a book cover for my grandpa’s autobiography this spring. He turned 104 in July and he’s been working on his autobiography for a few years with some help from his eldest daughter and a few of us grandkids.

My grandpa, Kenneth, was born in Missouri in 1920. He grew up during the Great Depression and served in the 106th infantry division in WWII where he played with the USO band. He met my grandma by chance at a USO dance. She also served and was a nurse. They were married for over 75 years until she passed away at 102 years old. They raised 4 kids together. And when I say together, I really mean it. My grandpa was more hands-on as a dad than so many men from his generation and I know it made an impression on the kind of father my dad was/is. I’d like to think it even influenced what kind of dad my husband has been to our kids.

With his heavy background in music, my grandpa taught music, band, orchestra, and more in Kansas public schools for decades and was inducted into the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame in the 1980s.

One of the tasks I was more than happy to help with was editing and cleaning up the photos from my grandpa’s life; photos of varying ages and conditions. We knew that any photos printed in the book would be in black and white, so I was able to clean up quite a few photos and converted any color images to grayscale. This is definitely NOT a specialty of mine, but there are a few I’m quite proud of.

Correcting photos with silver oxidation was a new one for me. Many thanks to YouTube for a few different techniques.

My grandpa is the kid on the left with his brother and his dad, my great-grandpa.

My grandparents in the 1940s.

Top left: my grandma with my Aunt Sue and my dad. Top right: my grandparents with their 4 kids for some kind of “family of the year” photo shoot. Bottom left: my grandparents when they got married. Bottom right: my grandparents in Bali in the 1980s.

For the book cover, my cousin Chris and I had a handful of photos of my grandparents together that we decided between. We agreed that this one worked best for the cover. I love how they aren’t looking at the viewer and it feels like an intimate moment between them. I love the look in their eyes and how my grandma is messing with his jacket button. It’s a perfect pose that shows me how in love they were without looking like it was posed. Honestly, I don’t know if it was a posed photo, it may not have been.

For the cover design, I wanted to isolate them from the background, but I didn’t want the background to be empty either. After cleaning up as much of the dust and spots and noise in the scanned image as I could, I played with some different blurring effects and colors. In the end I’m really happy with how it turned out.

My cousin Chris, wrote the blurb for the back and we were able to get it published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

My grandpa’s book is available for purchase on Amazon if you want to order one. CLICK HERE to buy through my affiliate link.