An ideal husband. And weekend.

If you thought going to get your child a passport at the downtown SLC post office on a Friday afternoon on your husband's lunch break is a great idea, well, I bet if you tried hard enough, you could think of a few better ones.

It is a place with no filter--poor, well dressed, educated, illiterate, functioning and dis-functioning parts of families, patient, and those with less of that useful virtue--we all had to wait together in a small tiled room while two USPS workers moved slowly through stacks of forms with way too many tiny boxes to fill in, then disappeared altogether for long periods of time. New passport restrictions require both parents to sign their consent in the presence of these workers. There is no way around it.

We were in line, waiting, for over an hour and a half. We had three people in front of us.

But I actually really enjoy the peek into other's psychology in situations like that. And I will admit my eavesdropping skills impeccable. It is a little game I play, piecing together the lives of those around me based on all the clues presented. So if it hadn't been way past Magdalena's lunch and nap time, I would have almost enjoyed the afternoon spent in such a way.

After some lettuce and hummus sandwiches, we packed up the red subaru (otherwise known as Gretchen---a hardy mountain woman-car) and we were on our way north. What pleasure I find in good music and sun bathed fields through glass.

We tried going to one of the two restaurants in town, but a small Closed hung in the dark window of the Dude Ranch Cafe. On a Friday night.  So we had dinner instead at a taqueria attatched to the gas station, watching Mark Wahlberg speak spanish, surrounded by early 90's decor and large portions.

I've always loved the sound of car tires slowing and finally finding a place on that gravel driveway. The air was cold, but soft almost, and the darkness seemed clean and calm. After the babe was peacefully sleeping in her farm-house room, Dorius and I went for a stary night walk, past black cows on a dirt road along a log fence.

The next morning was spent in the hills hunting for deer sheds in the sage brush with three-year-old james. Lunch : Peanut butter and honey sanwiches, apples, and rice krispie treats on a quilt on the sunny lawn. Laszlo slept in the warmth.

We spent the afternoon with horses. My beloved palomino, given me on my 13th birthday, is still as kind and reliable as ever.  I walked up to the big animal slowly. His huge nostrils let out warm breath smelling of sweet hay. As happens every spring, he was shaggy and covered in dirt. I led him around the round pen with small boys taking turns in the saddle, then the two of us, joined by Dorius and Pepper, rode out into the fields.

Evening drive to another small town cafe with slippery plastic covered seats and a less than sanitary cement floor. I was served a pile of hashbrowns and an omelet, and watched Dorius, with his slightly sunburned cheeks, enjoy fresh Apple pie a la mode.

ideal: Dorius, sun, walking, dirty, horses, air, warm, tired.