We’re nearing the end of our trip to Salt Lake.

The celebration of life we held for Rudi’s mom on her 87th birthday was lovely. About 20 friends and colleagues were able to join us at a park pavilion for drinks, snacks, and reminiscences.

We scattered some of her ashes on Friday and we’ll do some tomorrow in areas where she used to forage mushrooms. It was clear that she approved of the first location, because we found two types without much effort.

While I’ve enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool and eating out, I’ll be glad to get home to Corey and volleyball, even if I will have to do some cleaning so a friend can come over this weekend.

First thing Friday morning, Rudi and I boarded a bus to New York City to catch a show. We rode Citi Bikes (those New York cyclists are a lawless bunch, but their traffic lights force them to be) to Chinatown, where we were staying, ate a delicious lupper of vegetarian dim sum in a covered streetery, checked out a bookstore, and took a nap in the afternoon. In the evening, we biked up to the theater to take in the penultimate performance of Macbeth, starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga (the girl in the flower dress from Agents of SHIELD). Before returning to the hotel, we stopped in Little Italy, in search of a cup of coffee for Rudi and found a patisserie with delicious cannoli, which we took back to our 11th-floor view of lower Manhattan.

The next morning, Rudi got up and caught a flight to Denver, and I bummed around the city for a while longer before catching the bus back to D.C. I returned to Little Italy to a shop where I’d seen Italian ice advertised for a taste of home. I knit for a while in the park across the street from the hotel after checking out. I biked over to one of the tea shops we like and stopped at a street fair en route.

It was a good trip, and I’m already looking forward to returning in August when we catch two Tony-winning musicals, The Strange Loop and Paradise Square.

Rudi and I spent a pleasant long Father’s Day and Juneteenth weekend in Connecticut, where we got to visit with my folks, spend time outside, and bask in not being at home for a few days.

Mum and I checked out plants for the garden (I foisted seven seedlings off on her of the flat I bought) and spent time in the kitchen.

Dad and I played pool and listened to music.

Rudi and I ate ice cream.

I baked and read and knit.

It was a good weekend.

Rudi got some time off to clear his head yesterday morning, and I got some this afternoon, when I spent a couple hours at a cafe reading and luxuriating in the sunshine.

This is the view behind me of the Uintas:

And this is off toward the west and the Oquirrhs (pronounced like ochres):

Our drive north today started later than we’d planned, as it nearly always does. To be fair, 4:30 in the morning isn’t the natural departure time for either Rudi or me, so the fact that we were on the road at 9 a.m. is really impressive.

But it also meant there were more people, some of them doing crazy things with their cars. Luckily, we were really only caught in standstill traffic a couple of times, but we’ve made this drive enough times over the years that we have a solid understanding of alternative roads. It’s just that those alternatives put you onto state roads that are just slower and less direct.

We detoured through Princeton and opted to stop at a used music shop for an hour. Their Christmas cd collection was a lot lighter when we left!

In the end we pulled into my parents’ driveway nearly a dozen hours after we left the Burrow. While it was a slow trip, it wasn’t a horrible one.

But I am glad we don’t have to drive back until Monday.