Happy 4th of July and more!

Started a great 4th of July at the church with the annual program/flag raising/breakfast at 7 am.  I loved that the Cub Scouts did the flag ceremony this year!  After that Paul and I got our gear together and headed for the cool beauty of Ashdown Gorge.  I think this is one of the most beautiful hikes around. (The road construction to fix the slide area pretty much ruined the approach unfortunately.  Wish they would redo some kind of trail, but it is still doing a lot of sliding.  You just have to pick your way through the mess.  The rest of the hike makes it worth it.) We did about 11 miles round trip up and back from the bottom end.  I love the top of this hike too.  It was a perfect temperature - about 85 degrees.  You spend most of this hike in the stream and it was so nice and cool.  The wildflowers were blooming and everything was green!  It even rained a little on us in the afternoon.  I hated to turn around and head back down to the heat. 

Flanagan's Arch, Tom's Head (in one picture you can actually see the face), and a giant boulder.

One of the many beautiful waterfalls

Lake Creek and Rattlesnake Creek empty into Ashdown Gorge.  This is Lake Creek.  

This is Rattlesnake Creek.

Just had to get in and cool off in this one on the way out!

Beautiful flowers and butterflies.

The Borrowmans invited us over for a yummy dinner that evening!  It was fun to hang out, visit and eat!  

After that the Smiths and assorted others came to the house for root beer floats and  then we made the hike up the hill for a great view of the fireworks!  It was a really full day of celebrating!  So thankful for this  country where I have the freedom  go where I want when I want with who I want and to be safe while doing it.  

None of our men wanted to come back to work until Monday, so we took off too.  Friday we had some home repairs to take care of most of the day.  After that we threw our camping gear together and headed up to Brian Head and had a great camp.  We got a little worried when it started raining and hailing just as we turned off to get to our camp spot, but it got done in a hurry and we didn't have to get wet setting up.  Ended up being a dry night.

In the morning we did some little hikes at Cedar Breaks enjoying the amazing scenery and the Wildflower Festival.  Again it was so nice and cool.  Even got a little cold while sitting around eating our lunch beside the trail.  It's been a great few days!

Took the picture of the dog through the windshield coming down the canyon on the way home.  He seemed very content in his motorcycle dog bed seat!  

We finished off the weekend with a great family feast-of-the-fast-over at the Borrowmans house.  I surprised everyone by NOT bringing a camera...thus no pictures.  We had great food, fun visiting and played headbands.  Thanks to Brynnli's broad hints to me, I didn't do too badly.  Love all of you guys.  Thanks for a great evening!