Family Camp 2024 - Glamping at Brian Head #20

This picture shows most of the people that came for Family Camp.  We are missing Landon, Derek, Brynnli and Ryan, Kennis, Brady, Ellie and Bryan who came after this or did not go on the hike.  

L to R:  Beacher, Gem, Supe, Kaia, Kaebri, Brynn, Eden, Madi, Essie, Jared, Clara, Tahlia, Lou, Koen, Joel, Noah, Trigg, Zade, Tasia, Bonnie, Paul, Lorin, Eliza, Brenden, Kai, Lance, Julene, Zion, Sarai, Afton, Ferf, Torin.  A total of 41 people in all came at one time or another.  We missed Tavin and Gaige who could not come at all.

This year it was Supe and Beacher's turn to plan for Family Camp (with a lot of assistance from Mom and Dad).  Supe decided that we should go to the Sheffield's Cabin at Brian Head.  It was arranged that Paul would do some repairs on the artificial stonework that needed to be done in trade for the time at the cabin.  We have done that in the past.  The work got done in June and we went to the cabin on Wednesday - Saturday, July 17-20th.  We had a really good turn out only missing a few people.  Some could only come up for a day, or even just part of a day, but we only missed Tavin for the whole time.  Some came, but had to leave a little early for other family activities.  But actually, it was a better turn out than most years. There were only beds for 28 people at the cabin, so there had to be some bed additions like some girls sleeping in the sauna room and we brought out little camp trailer that Bean slept in.  There were some cots and airbeds used too.  But, since we were inside, I think everyone was pretty much more comfortable than when we camp outside in tents!

We had great meals as usual and for outside the cabin activities we did a beautiful and family friendly hike at Cedar Breaks and went to Yankee Meadow for a kayaking outing.  It was wonderful weather in the low 70's most of the time with afternoon rain showers. We did our outside activities in the mornings and then played games at the cabin the rest of the time.  Some took walks at different times of day.  We had a fun S'mores night on Thursday after dinner for dessert.  Saturday morning we had a big cabin clean up (part of our agreement for the trade) and it ended up spic 'n' span looking even better than when we arrived.  Everyone that was still there worked very hard on this.  

It ended up being a really great time and it was nice to be inside because these dates that everyone could be available for are right during Monsoon season and it was easier to be inside out of the rain for it.  It made cooking and many other things a lot easier.  Staying at the cabin may have been a big reason why we had such a good turnout.  It will probably be Lou and Bryan's turn for 2025.  (It would be Mom/Dad/Bean's turn next, but Mom and Dad pretty much did it this year since Supe was way too busy being up to his neck in a new job.)

 

I think it is pretty amazing that through thick and thin we have managed to keep doing Family Camp, one way or another, for 20 years now.  I didn't even realize it was the 20th year until I started writing this up.  Sometimes I want to quit when I get really tired of some people's being less than helpful or enthusiastic about doing it.  And sometimes when some people are crabbing at me about it I just want to bag it, but I hope we can keep doing something until Paul and I are not longer in the picture.  I doubt we'll be around for another 20 years.  

North Cascades, Stehekin, Yellowstone

 We had a grand vacation going to see North Cascades National Park and catching a little section of Yellowstone that we hadn't seen before because of roads closed for construction.  It was so wonderful!  We drove mostly backroads to see the scenery and lessen the traffic and that was great too!  We left on Monday, July 1st and drove via Ely, Elko and other small towns and made it to Boise, Idaho the first night.  We stayed at the Inn America motel there and it was pretty nice.  Along the way there we went through a small town area in Ruby Valley and there was a cattle drive going down the road.  The head cowboy took his horse ahead of us and opened up the herd so we could drive through instead of just following them slowly for a long ways.  It was fun.  In Boise we ate at a Burger King that took so long.  Then that evening we walked through a beautiful park with trails and a nature center along the Boise River.  It was a lovely evening.  

Tuesday, July 2nd, was another long driving day, but we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, stopping in at Leavenworth, Washington, driving through a beautiful canyon.  Our destination for that night was Chelan, Washington.  We had a dinner at a good Mexican restaurant and found another wonderful walk around Chelan Lake.  We stayed at the Apple Inn Motel, which was very nice, for the next two nights.  

Wednesday, July 3rd, we got up and boarded a ferry boat, the Lady Liberty, for a 50-mile boat ride up to Stehekin, a little town you can only reach via boat or hike, that borders North Cascades National Park.  When we arrived there we got on a bus with no top and took a great tour of the area.  We stopped at the best bakery along the way, twice.  The first time we had the most delicious pastries.  The next time we had lunch.  We went clear up to Highbridge, which boarders North Cascades and also got to set foot on the Pacific Crest Trail there.  Along the tour we also took a hike to Rainbow Falls and visited a historic one-room schoolhouse.  They still do a one-room school in Stehekin, but they have a new building.  We also stopped in at an historic apple orchard/ranch and an organic garden as well.   It was a great boat ride (I didn't get sick at all) and the tour was fantastic. We loved it all.  That night we just ate dinner out of our ice chest in our motel room.  It was a great meal!  

Thursday, July 4th, we left Lake Chelan and drove the North Cascades Park Road 20 coming in at the East entrance.  It was a beautiful day seeing Washington Pass, hiking Rainy Lake trail. We stopped in at Newhalem WA and while there hiked the Trail of Cedars which was great. We found thimble berries that we had learned about in Stehekin along the trail and ate them up!  We also ate a snack in the park there. We went to the Cascade NP Visitor's Center at the West side of the park and watched the movie and hiked the River Loop Trail, and enjoyed seeing amazing Cascade Mountains all around us and several lakes/dams.  We wished we had had more time to spend in the park, but the time we had was awesome!!!  We ate dinner that night at a park out of our ice chest.  We stopped in at Monroe, WA, and had Dairy Queen to celebrate the 4th.  That night we stayed in a little town called Sultan, WA at the Dutch Cup Motel.  It was old, but great and we even found the town's firework's show to watch that night to celebrate the 4th! It was one of the best firework shows we have ever enjoyed.  It was set up in the middle of a big pasture and we just parked on a dirt road front row seat!  

Friday, July 5th, we made the drive to Missoula, Montana, to stay at the Brooks Street Motor Inn.  Along the way we stopped to hike the Deception Waterfall Trail.  It was so beautiful!  We were so glad we stopped.  We also stopped at the Grand Coulee Dam and watched the movie about it being built.  It is huge and generates more electricity than any other dam in the US.  We needed more time, but didn't have it. We stopped in a little town, Waterton, and had lunch at a park.  We stopped for dinner along the way at a place we have eaten before - Wink's.  They have great huckleberry shakes and the hamburgers were good too.  It was a great day.  The motel in Missoula wasn't our favorite, mostly because it didn't have the advertised fridge that we needed to cool off our ice chest contents.  But we got by.  

Saturday, July 6th, we drove into Yellowstone NP via the north entrance at Gardiner.  We have been to Yellowstone a couple of other times, once during Covid.  But there was one road in the canyon section of the park that had been closed for work, so our goal was to see that section.  We did, and it was beautiful!  We did a hike on the north rim down to the Brink of the Lower Falls.  Then we hiked along the north rim trail to see the other viewpoints as well.  Driving the road in from Gardiner was so beautiful and we also stopped and hiked to see some waterfalls along that road.  It was a great day and we used it all up.  We left the park via the west entrance and stopped off to eat at a Subway along the way to our destination motel, Henry's Fork Inn at St. Anthony, Idaho.  It was a really nice little motel along the Henry's Fork of the Snake River.  

Sunday morning, July, 7th, we attended a ward that started at 9 am so that we could get back and load up to head for home.  It was a nice testimony meeting.  We talked to Tahlia along the way home to wish her a happy birthday #12!  We stopped in at Evanston, Wyoming, to eat a snack and then snacked more in the car along the scenic route for dinner.  Finally, at Orem, we left the scenic route (we went through Bear Lake, but got no pictures), and got onto I15 to make getting home a little faster.  We got home and found all well and found our own bed at last.  This was a wonderful trip!!!  One more national park to check off and lots of wonderful memories to enjoy!  

Forsyth Trail and beyond!

 I didn't think I was going to make it.  Paul and I decided we wanted to try backpacking quilts.  They save so much weight in a pack rather than carrying even a lightweight sleeping bag.  The kids put together and got us some for Father's Day/my birthday.  I thought it would be cool to go for just a short little hike/overnight campout and try them out.  Paul had a bigger hike in mind.  I went along with it, but then it ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be...and I sort of crashed along the way.  We ended up doing Forsyth Trail up to Burger Peak plus on to Further Water.  Forsyth to Burger Peak is 10.6 miles and is considered challenging with an elevation gain of 3487 feet.  This was a lot more than what I had in mind, but we had hiked the first 4 miles of it earlier in the year and it was so beautiful, I thought I wanted to see the rest of it.  We got there and hit the trail at 8:30 am on Friday morning.

I had about a 21 lb. pack.  I really had nothing but some phone charging blocks that wasn't essential.  But it wasn't too far into the very uphill hike that I really started feeling it.  We saw a guy a couple of miles up the trail that told us water was going to disappear not very long after this unless we wanted to go to Further Water.  We needed to be able to have water to cook our dinner and stay the night, so that concerned me.  The full bladder of water I had in my pack was 6 lbs. of the load.  We didn't have anything else to put more water in.  But I think I must have of slowed down my water usage then and that may have been part of why I was having a hard time and was getting concerned about whether I would be able to make it all the way. About 5.5 miles up, right by a direction sign we found a really beautiful campsite.  I asked to stop and rest there. I think it was about 11:00.  (We also hadn't eaten anything, but that's usual for the intermittent fasting lifestyle we are living right now and we had backpacked like that before.)  I was having such a hard time that I wanted to just stop there, but we finally decided the thing to do was to drop my pack there and also drop most of Paul's pack into mine and then hike up to the top and then on to Further Water to get more water and then come back there to camp.  

That's what we did.  I was still struggling.  It got so very straight up and rocky after that.  It was pretty hard for both of us.  We had to stop and just breathe very often - like every 100 steps for most of the way to Burger Peak.  It was supposed to be 3 miles more to get to Further Water from that campsite, but it sure seemed like more than that because the going was so slow.  We peaked out and saw amazing views.  Then we kept going to get to Further Water.  It was quite a bit down and very hard to find the trail.  And then it started up again.  Paul had found a helpful map on Google, but it wasn't too functional because he didn't have a signal.  When it seemed like there was just one more big climb and then a down hill to where it was supposed to be we just decided that I would stay put and Paul would do the last little ways and come back if he didn't find it in an hour.  I was so tired and felt so unable to do that last uphill that even though I didn't like being separated, I just felt like I was slowing Paul down and it would be better to do it that way.  I drank some water and then he took off.  I laid down on a ground cloth he left and waited.  I took a nap and just rested and ate some trail mix .  We had eaten some after the peak too.  

Thank goodness he found it and was back in less than an hour and we just took a rest and then ate our apple and orange and more trail mix and headed back up and then down to the campsite.  We had hiked about 10.6 miles by then (Paul had that other mile or so on his own).  We were so glad to get there.  It was about 5:30 and we were tired and hungry and glad to just lay down for a while and rest our tired feet.  We made our dehydrated dinners and they were very good along with dehydrated cheesecake bites and later some hot chocolate.  We rested and played cards and cleaned up the campsite until bedtime. 

I can't say I had a great night's sleep.  My backpacking quilt was great, but the pad I had was pretty miserable.  (We  had ordered a new one, but it hadn't come in yet.)  I did lots of noisy tossing and turning, but I saw the stars and moon come up and then finally the sun.  I slept somewhere in there I'm sure.  

We got up with the sun and left camp at 7:30 and got down by 9:30.  It was, all in all, such a beautiful hike.  Near the summit the flowers were beautiful and at the lower elevations they were still beautiful near the water.  It was all beautiful because of the magnificent trees!  At the top we saw some Bristlecone Pines that I never knew we had in the Pine Valley Mountains.  We also saw some of the most giant Limber Pines all along the upper areas of the trail.  Of course the Aspens, Furs, and Ponderosa are all wonderful too.  

So, with some adjustments, that ended up being wise and good, I made it!  Dropping the packs and camping down low where it was not windy and so we didn't have to carry heavy packs up that very steep section, was the best thing to do after all.  I'm not sure, without doing something to get into better shape, that I am going to be doing anything that challenging again soon, or maybe never.  I'm not sure right now.  

My 69th birthday and some others

 I love when my birthday is.  One big reason why is because it is almost exactly half-way through the year 6 months from Christmas!  It's a perfect month for presents and far enough from Christmas to really be ready for some presents.  It is in the summer after school is out and you can go and do something fun! 

Paul took off work and we did go and do fun things!  We sort of celebrated it on the Saturday night before.  Anna Lou likes to take me out for a meal for my birthday, but it's getting pretty hard for her to eat out because of her poor vision and aversion to noise.  Because of Gaige's farewell party after church she wasn't going to get to come to Sunday dinner with us like she usually does, so we "took her to dinner" at Pine Valley and she paid for it for my birthday.  We had KFC chicken and fixin's and I brought some cake and other things to round out the meal.  It was a really nice evening away from the heat and noise of St. George.  So it was a win win, happy birthday dinner/substitute for Sunday dinner with G'ma evening.  

On the day of my birthday, Monday, Paul took off work and we went and did things that we wanted to do together.  He thought of the idea of taking our morning walk and going to Smith's and reading birthday cards to choose the one I liked.  We did, and it was fun, but I didn't see that we needed to buy it.  Then we went to the University to see the latest art exhibit which I have really been wanting to see.  It was wonderful!  

After that we went up to Pine Valley and hiked one of our favorite short hikes, "the waterfall hike" and then added to it with a little bit more.  We probably did 4 or 5 miles of wonderful, beautiful hiking.  After that we tried to go kayaking at Baker Reservoir near Pine Valley, but it was closed because of an awful algae bloom problem.  So sad to see that little lake completely green and unusable.  We drove over to Gunlock reservoir and had a good time kayaking there since we had never done it there before.  Then that evening we went to dinner at Benja Thai where I got some really yummy salmon I had been wanting.  We tried going to the Benja Thai that's close to our house, but they didn't have the salmon on their menu, so we left and went to the other one where I had gotten it before.  It was delicious.  We got the peach mango sticky rice for desert too.  Yummy!  Then we went to FHE at the church with our singles ward and had a good time painting food crates for the Utah Food Bank.   It was really cool.  They sang happy birthday to me there.  

We didn't really have a family party.  With all of the things going on with Gaige's mission it was just too much and we didn't really feel the need to get together again.  All of the kids told me happy birthday at one time or anther and I felt their love and support.  They all put in on a great gift - a backpacking quilt that Supe could get a very good discount on through his work - thank goodness!  I look forward to trying it out soon.  Juge gave me a really pretty water bottle and some yummy candy as well. Paul got me some See's candy and lots of  other things I "helped" him pick out!  So, it was a really happy #69 for me.  Thanks everyone.  I love you all!  

Lance, Derek and Moss also celebrated their birthdays this month!  Happy Birthday guys!  We love you!  

 

Gaige - Temple and Mission Blessings!

So happy - SHOUT FOR JOY type happy for Gaige!   On June 21st he got to go to the Red Cliffs Temple and take out his endowments!  It was a wonderful evening with family and friends there to support him.  There's not much better than to see one of your grandchildren going forward on this path. What a blessing for him and his family now and forever!

Then on Sunday, June 23, Gaige got to speak in church in preparation for leaving on his mission.  He spoke with another young man who was returning from his mission.  His ward has 5 missionaries out and 8 missionaries called/leaving to serve including him.  That's so awesome!!!  Gaige has had wonderful ward and friend support and I'm so thankful for all of them.  He's had some tough times with the divorce of his parents and I'm so glad he has weathered that storm and all of the other storms of life and still made it to this point heading in the right direction.  Go Gaige!!!  He started his Home MTC portion of his mission on June 24th and then will go up to the Provo MTC to finish up.  He is serving in the California Roseville Mission!  So happy he has decided to take this opportunity to serve the Lord.  

Campout and exploring fun!

 We finished up the stonework repairs just in time for Father's Day.  Paul did the final touches on Saturday while I stayed home and cleaned, did laundry and shopped.  Then on Sunday Paul enjoyed the Father's Day meal and talking with the kids, and getting presents, but we didn't get to just go do something he wanted to do for fun...like camping.  So, we decided that we would do it on Monday/Tuesday after Father's Day.  It felt strange and we kept thinking is was Friday/Saturday. But, since he is semi "retired" and I'm out of school for the summer, we decided it's just going to be ok to go camping any day of the week now!  

We went up to Brian Head and over to one of our favorite camping spots on the mountain there.  We got there early afternoon, so we got the camp trailer set up minus the electrical.  We never did figure out why that didn't work, but I had brought a lantern and we had headlamps, so it wasn't really a problem.  We took a nice nap, and then went over by Cedar Breaks and did some little hikes there and ate our snack. We saw the fireplace on the new visitor's center they are building. We took a drive to Brian Head peak and were sad to see that the old CCC structure there was without the roof and the stonework was coming apart.  So sad.  It's been an icon up there on that high peak for a long time.  We ate a nice dinner using the stove in the camp trailer for the first time.  It worked great!  Good food and then a drive up to High Mountain and over to Sydney Valley (which we did not find).  Then it was time for bed.  We had a great nights' sleep.  It got cold outside, be we did fine inside even without the heater.  It had gotten very windy and dusty and smoky outside (from a fire going up north) just before bed, so we were really glad to be in the camp trailer instead of our tent this time.  

 

The next morning we got everything stowed and then drove to Parowan and parked the trailer at a church parking lot and continued up to Beaver and up the mountain to check out a possible family picnic spot for future use.  It is a nice spot.  We drove further up the Mountain and tried to find the old scout camp up there, but instead found a nice reservoir and some old falling down log cabins.  Then it was time to pick up the trailer and head home.  We did stop in at the Creamery at Beaver, and got some yummy cheeses that we are excited to try!  Happy Father's Day some more Paul! 

Father's Day 2024

I think Paul had a really good Father's Day!  He talked or texted with each of the kids.  That's the best thing.  They all put in on a camping quilt that Supe is getting through Desert Rat with a big discount to help it happen.  He also got some new work hats of the type that he really likes. And he also got some yummy See's Candy! He had a wonderful dinner of ribeye steak, funeral potatoes, green salad, bread and his favorite cheesecake and some walnut brownies for dessert.  Grandma came to dinner, as usual, and Ferf and Gaige came over with a card and ate some dessert with us after dinner.  The meal turned out perfectly!!!  Happy Father's Day Paul!  You have been an amazing father to our children and the best of the best of husbands to me!  Love you tons!  Everyone wanted to try on one of his hats!  

Working for Family Camp

 Paul and I had a good, cool time working up at the Sheffield's cabin doing repairs to the artificial stone in trade for Family Camp time there.  He did the skilled labor part and I did the clean up, unskilled labor part.  It was so beautiful driving up and back and while we were there in the 70 degree zone that it felt pretty good getting away from the St. George heat!  It was a lot of kneeling and bending over for Paul especially, which isn't fun, and it was "phoney" stone, which he hates, but it was good to get it done and know that it was good repair work and we would have our part of the trade out of the way.  

Summer Vacation 2024!

What a great vacation we had!  Day one, Monday, was about getting to Ross and Lerlyn's in Aztec, NM, to spend the night.  We went via Page, Kayenta, with a nice little stop in Monument Valley to see some of the sights up close and eat our snack/lunch.  Then we went on through Bluff and Cortez, where we stopped for dinner and then on through Durango to Aztec.  It was nice to visit with Ross and Lerlyn for a bit that night and in the morning.  

Day two, Tuesday, we drove over to the Great Sand Dune NP in Colorado.  It was so amazing to see it as we were driving up to it.  It is HUGE! We made it early enough in the year to enjoy the creek running by it.  It's like a big beach party with people just sitting around on the beach chairs with umbrellas and playing in the sand and water.  We wished we had remembered the plastic we brought to slide down the dunes or had rented a  sandboard.  Since we didn't, we just ran down them.  We hiked up the dunes and walked in the creek and ended with a nice little hike.  Then we drove on to Salida, Colorado, where we stayed at the Loyal Duke Motel that seemed like it was very attuned to making people with dogs happy.  But it was good for us too. We had dinner at the local burrito place in an old building that used to be car repair garage. Then after a walk and seeing the awesome surfing set up they had on the river that ran through the town, we splurged and had a great root beer float in our room!  Can't be doing that every day, but once in a while it's a real treat! Oh, yah, we also saw an old narrow gage train that does a trip up the mountains on the way that day too!  Really cool and in such a beautiful place going through the high mountains.  

Day three, Wednesday, we drove on through amazing Colorado mountain scenery to Leadville where we went just out of town and did a beautiful hike of about 5 miles through snow up Mayflower Gulch.  At the stopping point there were old mining cabin ruins.  We met some nice people along the way and visited with them.  Then we drove a beautiful mountainous scenic route to find our next stop, Hot Sulphur Springs.  It's a pretty done little place with it's only claim to fame a hot springs and an old motel.  In its' heyday it was probably really something. But it was clean and had lots of little hot springs pools of different temps that you could soak in.  We  had to drive back to the last town, Gandy, to get something for dinner.  The location of the hot springs in the foothills and near a beautiful river canyon was nice and we enjoyed our time there.  

Day four, Thursday, we drove across Colorado, down from the high mountains, and into the more desert area where we went to Dinosaur National Monument.  First we stopped at the Canyon Section, which is in Colorado and watched the movie and then went on a scenic drive and did a little hike to Harper's Corner, where you look down on the confluence of the Green and the Yampa Rivers. It had an interpretive guide that made it really interesting. 

 

"The Green is greatly increased by the Yampa...and the waters waltz their way through the canyon, making their own rippling, rushing, roaring music."  John Wesley Powell, 1869

Then we drove on into Utah to the Quarry section.  It was pretty late, but we still saw the amazing Dinosaur Quarry which is indoors in a huge building.  It really a sight to see!  Paul taught a lady ranger there all about shims and wedges.  Later we drove to see the petroglyph sites scattered around the amazing geology of the park.  The rock formations are beautiful.  For dinner we drove down to an old  homestead in the park where a lady lived on her own for many years building her own cabins and doing everything she needed to raise livestock, gardens and do all it took to live.  It was beautiful and peaceful and crazy to think how she did it all by herself and lived to a ripe old age of near 90.  Then we went on to the cutest cabin in Rangely, Colorado for the night.  It was really so cute.  We got there pretty late and they had it all ready for us to just pick up the key from a box and go to bed.  One other thing that was going on for a lot of the drive was a huge cricket migration.  They were crawling everywhere and you had to just run over them all over the road as you went. 

Day five, Friday, we drove on to Vernal, Utah, to visit Sheryl (Doug wasn't there).  It was so nice to see her and also to see the amazing progress they have made on their beautiful gardens and greenhouse farm operation.  They are really great at what they do there and we got to eat some of their fresh strawberries right off the vine, divine, and pick kolrabi and eat it fresh from the garden.  We had never eaten it before and we now know what it is and how good it is.  It was nice to just see all they have done and just have a good visit with Sheryl.  The last time we were there they were still digging pig poop out of the barn and had just put up fence around one place for a garden. 

After we left her, we tried to drive to 9-mile-canyon via a road that ended up turning into a dirt nightmare, so we had to back track and go a different way to get to Moab, our next destination.  It took a lot longer than it needed to with backtracking and then with so many big trucks on the road that you could not get around very well to move along.  But we made it to Moab and kind of pigged out at a fancy BBQ dinner at The Blue Pig.  Our motel here was really strange, but affordable and we gave it a go because it had great reviews.  It was not pretty at all on the outside.  Strictly no frills, but the rooms were clean and big and it was convenient to what we needed.  I'd stay there again.  There was not front desk.  They just texted you your room code to get in.  We located the place we needed to be for our next days' river rafting trip, took a long walk along the Colorado River and then got a good nights sleep.

 

Day six, Saturday, we got to the Moab Adventure Center and got our life jackets and water bottles, left our car keys there, and got on buses to go to our starting point for a day of river rafting down the CO River.  It had a few rapids sections and our guide, Izzy, made sure to take us through the roughest parts.  There were 11 of us on the raft.  It was fun to hang out with people from all over and enjoy the day on the river.  I thought it would be beastly hot, but the water was very cool and the breezes along it kept it just right.  We stopped halfway along at a resort where we had really good hamburgers, etc. for lunch and then went on down the river to our take out point.  We started about 9 am and got out about 3:30 pm.  We  had time to clean up, take a nap, window shop, have dinner and then take a great walk along the creek that runs through town.  They've made it into a great trail for walking or biking.  It was fun.  We located the church so we'd know where to go the next morning.

Day seven, Sunday, we went to sacrament meeting at a very nice ward and heard such great talks by the sister missionaries.  Then we went back and got everything packed up for the drive home.  We did lots of Sunday School lesson stuff along the way home and went through Panguitch on the way for some scenic enjoyment.  We listened to The Lost World at the first of the trip - a Michael Creighton book about dinosaurs!  It was the perfect prep for that visit.  And then we just enjoyed scenery talking the rest of the trip.  We got home late afternoon and were glad to get there and enjoy our own beds again!  Loved our vacation!!!