Paragon (Minaret) Canyon with Supe, Beacher and Jem!

 We got one more day of adventure in for Fall Break when Supe, Beacher and Jem let us join them to go to Paragon Canyon.  Supe has been telling us about this and we were so excited for it to work out for us all to get to go finally!  It started with a roller coaster ATV drive out to the very start of the canyon.  They dropped Paul and I off for a short hike to the place in the canyon where the rappels get started.  It was a lot of fun to do the first part and see how the canyon started being carved at the top and then got better and deeper and MORE carved.  We met them at the beginning of the 9 rappels that you do to get down and out the other end of the canyon.  SO COOL!  Or as they say now - "SICK"!  (I don't get that one!)  Supe and Beacher are both great at this sort of stuff and Supe was great at getting it all set up and taken down each time and keeping all of us safe as well.  Jem came down in his kid pack on Supe's back every time.  And wow, what a canyon!!!  It was crazy in both sections to see the wood that had been washed down and had gotten stuck in the top.  Paul and I had to crawl under some in that beginning section and created a cave over the canyon down very low.  It was such a fun time to be with all of them! And in such a beautiful place!  We saw no one else once we left the starting point in the ATV.  (And that ride was better than any roller coaster ride at Lagoon!)  

When we came out at the bottom of the canyon Supe, Beacher and Jem did a short hike up the hill to where the ATV was parked.  Then Paul and I hiked down canyon to meet them at the end where they drove to in the ATV and then hiked down to meet us.  Our river walk/lunch was a beautiful and very interesting one.  When they met us Supe took us on a short hike to see some amazing petroglyphs down there.  Then we all hiked back up to the top and had another crazy/fun ATV ride back to the truck.  We left at 8 am that morning and made it back at about 6 pm.  We didn't really hike that far, probably 5+ miles only, but with the drive out and all of the getting people set up to rappel and all the rest, it made for a full, great day of it.  Jem did so great.  He got a little sad at nap time and after seeing a dead bluebird in the canyon, but he napped (unbelievably) on their ATV ride to the end to the pick up spot and was all sunshine again after that!  And...he got a lot of outdoor potty-training practice during the whole day too!  

(Oh, and just a note:  Beacher is several months pregnant with baby sister - due in December - and was still a pro-rappeler and hiker and ATV rider!)

Fall Break - Camping in the Kaibab

We left Thursday afternoon and got there in plenty of time to find a great camp spot just off of FR 255.  Someone must have camped there just before us because sadly, for them, they left a neat little Dutch Oven outfit with a bag to go in, a small DO, silicone muffin cups and a metal pan w/lids set and a lid holder.  I feel bad that they left it, but they never came back to look for it, so now we have some new camping gear via the booty find.  It was a wonderfully level spot with a rock fire ring and surrounded by wonderful Ponderosa trees.  The dirt road wasn't bad at all.  And we were only about 20 miles from Jacob Lake.  That was nice, because for our first night's dinner we just ate there.  Always delicious.  We took cookies back to camp and had hot chocolate by the fire when it got dark.  It was so nice to have a fire.  It's been a long time.  

The next morning our plan was to visit as many of the Grand Canyon View Points as we could before we needed to be back to cook dinner in camp that night.  We made it to Sowats (first time ever), Crazy Jug, Monument, Parrisawampitts, Fence, Locust, North Timp and Timp. We put on over a hundred miles doing it.  And we saw lots of beautiful overlook views.  Sowats is off by itself and offers a different view completely, but the others are different focal points of the same area.  The leaves were gloriously beautiful as well as the canyon views.  We ate lunch along the way.

We had a great Paul cooked dinner in camp on Friday.  We had a fire again that night and read a book around the fire until bedtime.  It got cold in the evenings and early mornings, but the days were just right other than a bit of gnattiness at a few of the points.  We saw Kaibab Squirrels 4 times, turkeys and heard coyotes the first night.  A very noisy crow woke us up on Saturday morning!  We cleaned up camp and then headed over to Jacob Lake for one of their great breakfasts and then headed home.  It was a really relaxing trip!  (Note - Monument Point is unmarked and is basically just the trailhead to hike down to Thunder River.)

Happy #95 Aunt Georgia!

I feel bad that we didn't get out to Aunt Georgia's 95th birthday party/reunion.  It was held on conference weekend this year.  We have had SO MANY huge truck repairs and other auto maintenance and auto expenses of late that our credit card had huge bills to pay.  We just couldn't see that we could spend the $500 plus expense that it would have been to go to CA and pay for food and motel, etc. that it would have taken.  So we didn't go.  She's my mom's last living sibling.  It sounds like everyone that went made it nice for her.  Sometimes life gets in the way of things.  

More Fall-lelujah!

We took Grandma to see some lower down Fall-lelujah yesterday.  We drove the Kolob Terrace road and down the mountain to the Cedar section...and it did not disappoint.  The colors were beautiful!  We enjoyed the Zion skyline and rock formations on the first part of the drive through a portion of east Zion with some rain showers, and then a picnic lunch at Lava Point, on to Kolob Reservoir and then over and down the mountain.  She said she enjoyed it so much.  It is good for her to be able to just get out of her house for a day.

During the week Paul and I took some beautiful walks at Pine Valley and at Brookside.  Loving Fall this year...well, every year!

Tavin goes far and fast!!!

Paul and I went for an early walk this morning and saw the beginnings of the of this October 1st St. George Marathon.  There were people coming in from the half while we walked.  Tavin did the full with a bunch of friends down from BYU.  And he did a great job!  Came in in about 3 hours and 20 minutes.  Proud of him for working hard to do this thing and for so many other good things he's doing in his life right now.  

Glorious Fall on Cedar Mountain!

 I love that I get Fridays off!  After years of having to go in for just a little while on Fridays to help with OEK Lunch, I'm glad not to have that interruption now.  It's like I have 2 Saturdays now! I can have one to clean the house and one to get outside!  Yesterday Paul and Bean took Friday off (they had reached a finishing point on the job they are working on) and we drove a loop over Cedar Mountain and saw such beautiful Fall colors, sunny and cloudy and rainy and thunder skies, and the coolness of impending Fall!  These are some places and walks we take every year...and love them every time!