Brookside to Baker and more Fall fun

 This week was full of Fall fun.  At school we went to Staheli Family Farm for a fieldtrip.  Despite some trepidations about some children's behaviors, it all went well and was lots of fun.  Other fun was taking walks at the Desert Garden's Halloween Scarecrow walk.  We went one morning and then again in the evening with our SA Ward for FHE.  It was fun both times.  Then on Friday we went up and took the Brookside to Baker Dam hike for our morning walk.  It was so beautiful, like always, in it's Fall mode.  This year, because of the fire upstream at Pine Valley and a recent flooding event, there was lots of dirty water coming down along with some debris which seemed to be causing lots of "Indian soap" in the water.  There was so much of it, but it was all still so beautiful and a refreshing way to start our day in the cool, clear air.  Happy Fall!  

T-bone Mesa - a restful day

 We've been kind of chilling and recovering from our quick Fall break trip and then immediate company and all the stress of Anna Lou's struggles.  We just slept in on Friday and Saturday and hung out around the house doing home chores.  We took a nice 4.5 mile hike around T-Bone Mesa on Saturday morning.  The sand was still packed from the recent rains, so it was a good time to do it.  There were lovely views to enjoy as well as the cool morning air and clear blue skies.  Happy Day!  That night BYU played and I actually watched and they even won!  Paul made us very delicious steaks on the smoker and I made good baked potatoes and veggies.  Relaxing day.

Fall Break - Going to see the Brooks

We talked and talked about things to do for Fall break, but just couldn't decide. We decided it would be a good thing to go and visit Janet and Tony.  Janet has beginning stage Alzheimer's and we want to enjoy her wonderful self as long as possible.  She really doesn't seem too bad...Tony was retelling the same story more often than she was!  But, it was good to see them both. They are wonderful people and made us very welcome.  It was a long drive and a short trip.  We left Thursday morning and made it to Boise, ID, to spend the night.  Then we had a pretty short drive (4 hrs.) to get to their house on Friday.   Kriston, Rebecca and Katy came over that night to visit which was fun.  Evan, a son, stopped by to pick up the cabin key so he could go up and hunt for deer there. Late that night a grandson, Ian came to spend the night and see his girlfriend the next day.  Saturday we drove up to their cabin to see if Evan had gotten a deer.  Ian came along.  We did more visiting on the drive up.  Evan was not able to get a deer.  We left the cabin to head home about noonish.  We wanted to drive over to see Hell's Canyon Overlook on our way home.  The map showed it a little out of the way, but not too much.  It ended up being a much longer mountainous, curvy, slow drive than expected.  We finally got back to Boise at 11 pm that night with a stop for dinner along the way.  But, it was a beautiful, if very long, drive. We nearly ran out of gas and were in the red zone for way too long  before we got to a gas station along the way.  It was rainy too.  Sunday we drove home the way we had come on the back roads of NV.  We once again ended up in the red zone and had about a quarter gallon of gas when we finally got to the only gas station in a very small town.  I hope we learned a lesson about running on the top of the tank, instead of the bottom.  We got home Sunday evening about 6 pm.  Between this  quick trip and our last quick trip with Bean and our not very great last campout, it seems like we haven't relaxed in quite a while.  

Company was coming in on Monday - Ross, Lerlyn and James.  After they got here Paul, Ross, James and Roy gave Anna Lou a blessing of release.  She's been in the hanging on more gone than here zone for the last several weeks.  It's very wearing on everyone.  We hope she can get on her way soon and stop having to suffer along anymore.  This is the second trip down that James and Sheryl have made thinking it was her time.  

Colorful campout

We wanted to enjoy the leaves up close, so we went camping up by Cedar Breaks.  It got a little crazy when the electrical parts of our camper weren't in working order, but we got by and had a great dinner with the help of the propane stove.  We had our lanterns to see by.   We took a nice evening walk. It got cold and windy, so we were glad to be snug inside even without the heater being in working order.  It wasn't the best night's sleep, but still, we were warm and out there.  On the way down we drove up to Brian Head Peak to see the progress on the restoration of the CCC building up there.  They are doing a great job and have all the stonework portion done.  Sorry, no pictures.  I didn't actually get out to see it up close because the winds up there on the peak must have been blowing about 50 miles per hour.  Stuff was flying everywhere.  On the way down the mountain the truck started having problems shifting and it was pretty slow going on the way home.  We had to take the truck into the shop.  So, despite lots of things not being in good working order, we did enjoy the leaves and a great dinner!  Ended up having to get a new gas pump.  Very expensive.  Found out we had read the charged gauge wrong on the battery, and it was NOT charged as we thought it was.