Need to buy some gas?

Paul and I took a short trip to Ashfork for some stone for an upcoming job. We had to drive way out in the boonies to a rock yard and in route we saw this crazy sign in a front yard. I had no camera but my phone so it's kind of blurry. Ashfork is a very unique town with, as you can see, some very unique people. I forgot to tell one funny thing that happened on this trip. We stayed in a motel in Flagstaff. We were afraid it might be pretty cold to camp out. We stayed at one that we usually do in the winter. They have quite a nice hot breakfast. This time there was a whole bus load of people staying there too. When we went to breakfast, we found that they were all French people, probably coming to visit the Grand Canyon. They were in line for breakfast with us. They had one of those little waffle makers, but they didn't seem to know what it was. The man in front of us got some coffee and them took the pitcher of waffle batter and poured some in his coffee. He must have thought it was very heavy cream. I wished I knew how to tell him what it was. His wife did the same. They ended up sitting by us and drank their coffee right up. I was thinking that they would find that American breakfast food was pretty awful. Maybe is wasn't so bad after all!

Sequoia camp and short walk...

 

One last camp and one "short" walk...

We thought we'd do one last camp out in the mountains before it gets too cold. We didn't have lots of time, so decided to go close, just up to the sequoia tree by Browse. We hurried, at little too fast, to get ready after work and ended up without a few essentials...air bed, hot chocolate pot, lantern...but we were able to make do and had a great camp. It was a little cool, so we had a fire. It was so nice. We haven't done one for quite a while. The campsite was somewhat changed. It looked like a flash flood had gone through not too long ago and the picnic table was lodged in a pile of logs. There were lots of piles of debris around that have never been there before. Still, it was a nice spot. We had great food, a fairly good sleep and a warm breakfast and then decided to check out some of the trail maintenance that the forest service said they had done. We were only going for a short walk, so we left water and walking sticks behind. They trail had been very well cleared and was easy going, so we decided to go just a little further. Then we came to a trail sign and saw the Syler Springs was only a mile ahead...sure we could do that. Anderson Valley was another 5 miles and we wouldn't take time to do that. When we got to a little spring, it didn't seem like it was as far as the sign said, so we went a little further to see if we could find the one the sign was really talking about...never found it all the way to the top and Anderson Valley. We were missing our walking sticks on the very uppity trail, so found some sticks along the way and when we were getting pretty thirsty, the snow showed up and we enjoyed an icy cold drink that way. Now we can say that we have found all three trails into Anderson Valley...they each have their pluses and minuses. We enjoyed them all! Coming back down was much easier than going up and we got back just in time for Paul to make it to his Saturday afternoon stake conference meeting. So much for a short, 12 mile walk!

A visit with Jay and Brynn

 

Family visiting and Halloween

We had a great weekend with lots of visiting and not very much Halloweening. The only bad part was that we never got to hook up with the Smith family. Jay and Brynn arrived on Friday evening and we all hit the sack pretty quick. Saturday we did some fun visiting with the Borrowman kids while their mom and dad were at the temple and Moss, Christie and Brenden. We went over and made the ducks happy with our crusts. Koen and Gage wanted to eat the duck food too. Then Ferf and Ryan made it back and everyone was good enough to eat up leftovers for lunch. It was such a nice day that we ended up out on the front lawn and had some of Paul's yummy kettlecorn for dessert with lemonade and had some checker and fox and hounds games along with some running around and Brenden sleeping through it all in the swing. Later we needed to get moving a little. Moss and Christie and Ferf and Ryan took off, so the rest of us went up and enjoyed a little exercise by walking the Quarry Trail. Then we headed out to the Borrowmans for a yummy dinner and a little more visiting. It was nice to sleep in on Sunday and we got to go to church with Jay and Brynn where they got some baby tending practice with the little girl on the row behind us. She took a real shine to Jay and Brynn and spent pretty much the entire meeting on their laps. Grandma came to dinner and then it was time to kiss Jay and Brynn goodbye. Hope they got enough sunshine to fortify them for the "dark and doomy" days ahead in the north country!

My own Mr. Bony & Happy Halloween!

After several years of helping the kids in the class make these in one of our centers, I finally just had to make one of my own. Very good project for dexterity. I found I could use some work on mine! Happy Halloween!

PS Here are some other fun Halloween pictures - a class picture and one of Brenden in the big cauldron!

Tasia #5 & Koen #1 - Happy Birthday!

Tonight we went over to Lenae and Derek's to have a birthday celebration for the two latest birthdays in the family - Tasia's #5 and Koen's #1. Tasia had requested a "brown party" so everyone who had it wore brown clothes. We had brownies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate licorice straws and chocolate cookie things. You could even have chocolate milk to wash it all down with. It was a good time and nice to have everyone there for a little visit. We sure have cute grand kids! Happy birthday you two!

Yosemite, Bakery & Aliens

 

Sequoia & Kings Canyon

 

UEA...time for a visit to some amazing places

While in recovery from some illness, swine flu or otherwise, UEA school break gave us a chance for a long hoped for visit to Yosemite. Since the east entrance at Tioga Pass was closed for snow on the day we wanted to use it, we decided to take a southern route and come up through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National National Parks & Sequoia National Forest/Giant Sequoia National Monument. We left Thursday am plied with Tylenol and Dayquil. We arrived Sequoia Foothills Visitors Center entrance and drove to the Potwisha campground for our first night. It was perfect weather, about 67 and we had a great night there. Next morning we headed out to see the sights after breakfasting in camp. We saw some really cool things including Auto Log, Tunnel Log, Cresdent Meadow, Moro Rock, Tharp's Log and the Big Trees Trail. We also visited the General Sherman's Tree - the world's largest tree. While we were there we also ran into a little black bear. We lunched on the back of the car while waiting for a road stop for a controlled burn. We loved and were truly amazed by the REALLY BIG Sequoia trees and all the other amazing scenery. It was extra pretty because of the fall foliage too. It wasn't crowded at all. We then headed off for King's Canyon where we visited General Grant Tree, one of the world's largest living trees. It was also declared the Nation's Christmas Tree by President Coolidge in 1926. On a little hike we also saw the Fallen Monarch, the Gamlin Cabin and the Centennial Stump. Then we drove the road all the way to the end of Kings Canyon and visited Roaring River Falls with many photo stops in route. We headed into Fresno for the night. Saturday am we headed off to Yosemite entering at the the Wawona Rd/Hwy. 41 entrance and headed off to one of the best views in the park - Glacier Point. From it you can see 4 huge waterfalls, Half Dome, Sentinal Rock, El Capitan, the whole Yosemite Valley, etc. Truly amazing vistas. Then we headed into the valley and did the hikes to Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite Falls, Mirror Lake and further also seeing many beautiful stone bridges and the beautiful river. It was just about dark when we got done with our hikes, so we headed out of the Park via El Portal road via Hwy. 141 and spent the night in Merced. We did our Sunday food shopping that night. Next morning we enjoyed a really good sacrament meeting and then headed back to Yosemite. We really enjoyed the trip there through the beautiful Merced Valley canyon and stopped for a picnic lunch along the way. In the park we walked through the Ahwahnee Hotel and then took the road out of the park via Tiaoga Pass which had opened back up. We had many stops en route to enjoy more amazing vistas. We stopped for quite a while at Olmstead Point where you could see back into the park and see the back side of Half Dome. It is truly a commanding feature of the whole park. We saw climbers on the way out too. Just as we were leaving the park, it started to snow again. We got out in the nick of time and were so glad that we got to see that part of the park before it closed up again. We found a nice campground several miles outside Bishop and ate picnic dinner and spent one of the windiest nights camping that we ever have. It was a really nice spot, but we nearly blew away. It was just windy, but not really very cold. We breakfasted in Bishop and visited the so cool Erick Schat's Bakkery there. It is one bakery that everyone should visit. We bought our lunch there (Mulekick sandwiches)and put it in the ice chest and headed on to the Extraterrestrial Hwy. and home. We didn't see any UFOs, but did see a lot of desert. We got back home in time for dinner Monday evening and were ready for our own bed and some rest from a fabulous, beautiful trip!