Picking up from where I left off, early 2023 brought with it my first bout of COVID. It kind of kicked my rear and took a bit of time to get over it. One oddity is that it left me with occasional and unusually vivid dreams for a couple of months. Glad to have recovered from it, and appreciate the experience although I would not recommend. ;)

Misc. Woodworking

There’s been more bowls turned, more characters carved and a desktop organizer shelf with a live edge top.

2 ash bowls, then my first glue-up bowl from two pieces of shamal ash.

Norbert Blurpletop, Woodsy, Uncle Samuel and the Abominable Arnold.

Built an organizer shelf with a walnut live edge top and walnut box joint trays.

Vacation, Part 1

I was able to attend the Rocky Mountain Carvers Roundup held in Midway, UT. Five days of carving, each day with a different instructor from the Character Carvers of America. It was a most unique and rewarding week of focused carving, camaraderie and instruction.

My carvings from the week. Carnival Barker based on an Uncle Sam roughout from Dale Green, Toasting/Toasted Dwarf based on a Santa roughout from Wayne Laramore, “Critic” based on a Ryan Green professor roughout, the Abominable Arnold based on a roughout from Jim Hiser and a pirate based on a cowboy roughout from Dwayne Gosnell. Definitely can’t take credit for all of the face details as each instructor generally lays their knife/gouge on your carving at some point. Wonderful to see how each of them move tools through the basswood.

Vacation, Part 2

Beth flew into Salt Lake City that Friday eve and then we began a long wander throughout Utah and appreciate the great weather, change of scenery and pace.

We started off with a stop at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum’s new location. The exhibits are so well done and it was really neat to see so many rare cruisers on display. From there we wandered up to Vernal UT and spent a couple days exploring Dinosaur National Monument and the area, including a visit to the Utah Field House of Natural History State Museum.

We saw some petroglyphs in Dinosaur NM, but as our travels took us south through a route called 9 Mile Canyon we saw hundreds of petroglyphs from the Freemont Peoples through that drive. It was astounding to see so many of them sprinkled throughout the area and more nestled away during a few short walks.

From there we drove down to Green River to break up the drive and then further down to Moab. From there we wandered parts of Canyonlands National Park, including the Schafer Basin/Switchbacks. During lunch a the visitor center we met a couple from back east who were exploring in their new Bronco. They joined us the following day to drive “Fins and Things”, a slickrock (sandstone) trail with great views and occasional pucker moments and then a more scenic drive out to Hurrah Pass. Temps were mild overall and we had nice Pixaresque clouds.

It was time to start heading towards home, so we drove onto Page, AZ through the Vermillion Cliffs area and the Forest Gump spot along the highway.

Our last stop was in Las Vegas where we enjoyed the tour and show at the Neon Museum. Sunday we wandered a little bit (I was seriously itching to get out of town) and we got home around 6 that eve, then back to work Monday morning. Probably could have used a day to recover from the road trip, but it was worth it.

It was a great trip, apologies to Beth that there were no zero-mile days, but I did survive a brief kidnapping through FLDS territory. Special thanks to Suzie, Beth’s Mom for taking care of our spoiled little potato Gabby.