Rainbow Canyon, Kershaw-Ryan and Elgin School House

 I got and extra day off (teacher prep day) for the President's Day weekend.  Paul and I enjoyed going down to Caliente, Nevada and then on to drive the Rainbow Canyon road and to see the Elgin Schoolhouse historic site and Kershaw Ryan State Park.  The Rainbow Canyon drive showcases a wonderful variety of geologic features to enjoy.  It's very colorful, as the name suggests, and surprisingly wet.  One place we had to forge the stream running across the road. There was so many boggy and wet areas all along the drive in general.  It seemed strange to see so much water in the middle of what is otherwise the dry desert terrain of this area of Nevada.  Caliente is a cute little town and I'd like to go back to visit the Boxcar Museum some time.  At the end of the Rainbow Canyon drive is the Elgin Schoolhouse historic site.  It's an old one-room school house that served the ranch families of Rainbow Canyon from 1921 until the last student graduated in 1967. It has been restored and you can set up tours, but unfortunately it wasn't open and was fenced so you couldn't even get a close look.  That's another thing I'd like to go back for sometime.  Then we drove back up the canyon and went to the Kershaw-Ryan State Park where we did a couple of little hikes and ate our lunch among the crazy big grapevines.  Then it was time to head for home again.  This day was a great finish to our holiday weekend!  

Along the way we finished a great book - A Walk in the Park.  It's a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of America’s most magnificent national park and the grandest wilderness on earth.  Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”  

We loved the two rim to rim hikes we've done in the Grand Canyon, so this book was very enjoyable to us. 

 

President's Day weekend fun!

We had a fun weekend with Jay, Brynn and girls and lots of the rest of the family. Saturday we did a fun hike - The Aspiration Trail.  I love this trail with all of its inspirational messages on rocks lining the path.  Afterwards all who could came over for a hot dog picnic and lots of visiting.  Juge made a cake for us for dessert and to celebrate Weed's birthday.  Jay and Brynn had some tough weather on the way down, but the rest of the time is was really wonderful.  Paul and I had a good time with the girls on Saturday evening while Jay and Brynn went out to dinner with Moss and Christie.  We ate pizza and played a fun card game.  Sunday we had to split up for church since we go to the Singles Ward, but afterwards Moss and Christie joined us for dinner and visiting.  On Monday those who could came to the annual Sears Invitational Art Show at the university and the kids had a great time doing the I Spy painting search.  After that we went to Arctic Circle for a fun time visiting and eating lunch.  Then Jay and Brynn had to take off after a quick visit to Grandma Kurtz (Anna Lou).  Then Paul and I enjoyed going to Eliza's Soccer game.  It was the last game of a weekend tournament and they won with Eliza making a great assist for one of their points!  It was a full and fun weekend!  

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area & Eliza's play

 Friday we made the trip down to spend the day at RRCNCA!  It's an awesome place just outside of Las Vegas.  It has beautiful geological features everywhere you look.  There's a 13-mile scenic one-way drive with stops along the way to hike to amazing things.  We did the drive and some short hikes as much as we could with the gale force winds going on that day.  Without that wind it would have been a balmy 71 degrees, but with it, we were very glad we brought our warm coats and gloves.  We still enjoyed it wind or not!  After that we visited Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.  It's a cool old ranch from days gone by.  Mostly just the old ranch house with history of it's many famous owners.  It's in a beautiful setting that shows what water can do for an otherwise very desert area.  Not really much to see other than that.  Not sure it was $15.00 worth, but now we know.  

The night before we went to Eliza's school play.  It was really cute and she was part of a very cute troop of ringtail lemurs in it.  Glad we got to see her do such a great job!

I love my 3-day week ends...and rocks!

 I've probably said it before, but again I say that I love my work schedule that gives me Fridays off. It's kind of like being semi-retired because it gives me the chance to have a day to do home stuff like cleaning, laundry, shopping, bill paying, etc. and then a day for recreation and then Sunday to go to church and spend more than the daily time studying the Gospel.  It's wonderful! It also help us to have some time to spend with Bean with him living up in Cedar right now at the Mountain View House facility.  

This weekend was a great example of using that time in this way.  On Friday we did sleep in (another perk) and then took an extended morning walk, instead of the usual one.  We went out to Snow Canyon and walked parts of the Hidden Pinion trail and the Red Sands Trail to reach the Overlook Trail which is one of my favorite short hikes there.  It turned into a longer hike when we came back via the West Canyon Road and part of the paved trail to get back to our parking spot.  It was a beautiful morning.  Then we headed back home and I cleaned house, did the laundry, paid the bills and worked on books, and then did the shopping.  It was a really productive, great day!

On Saturday morning, for our recreation, we went and picked up Bean and then drove over to Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada.  It's a really unique place and we enjoyed the small Visitor's Center and then loved hiking the little slot canyons back into the eroded rocks.   We ended our visit by going to the Miller Overlook where ate a very cool picnic lunch before heading back home.  Bean wasn't too into it, but he wanted to go, and it was good to spend some time with him.  We also drove over to see Bullfrog pond, a warm springs swimming hole and an arch that are in Panaca (Siri says it "Panica") as we were leaving town.  We had all swum in the pond long ago.  It was a great day and so fun to enjoy a place that we hadn't thoroughly explored in past visits.   

 

January Birthdays - Eden #18, Bryan #49, Afton #14, Brady #20 and Brenden #16

There are some pretty significant age changes in this group this year.  Eden started them out by turning 18!  The age of majority is a term used to describe the time in life after which a person is legally no longer considered a child. Historically, the age of majority was set at 21 in most states. But after the 1971 ratification of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving 18-year-olds the right to vote in federal elections, most states, including California, lowered their age of majority to 18.  So, Eden, this is an important milestone birthday for you!  We got to enjoy seeing her open her gifts via Facetime.  She's a senior in high school this year, so soon she'll be done with that chapter of her life and moving into even more adult choices.  

Bryan spent his actual birthday at work and then at the play that Ellie was directing for their homeschool group - Treasure Island.  Lou Anne and Afton were in the play. It was very funny.  We went up to see it.  Ellie invited the play's audience to sing Happy Birthday to Bryan.  #49!  Last hurrah before #50! This is number 14 for Afton.  That's a big one church wise.  Now she can go to Youth Conferences, dances and FSY!  Brady is leaving the teenage era behind with his 20th birthday this year.  That's another big step. We took Brady out for lunch last week for his birthday while he was down here and stopped by for a visit.  Happy birthday to all!  We love you!  

Last of all is Brenden who is turning 16!  He'll get his driver's license, and maybe even start dating! Those are some big milestones as well.  Brenden also got ordained a priest and a car was delivered for him to drive that same day!  Big things happening for him!  Unfortunately we couldn't go to his ordination because we had other church responsibilities in our ward right at the same time.  Noah, Koen and Zade were also ordained priests.  Paul was sick when the big day came, so we had to do a drive by drop off of the birthday present and be happy with a picture.  Happy Birthday Brenden.  You are a great young man and we love you and are very proud of you!

Another exciting thing this month was Eliza getting her braces off!!!

Roxy - RIP - 1/2025

Derek and kids had a hard blow this week.  

Kaebri's tribute:

“A goodbye is not forever, farewell is not the end; they simply mean I'll miss you until we meet again.”

These past 8 years have been crazy and chaotic, but through it all we had Roxy, a beautiful Border Collie/Aussie mix we adopted from a shelter. The first time we met her, she was so happy and cared for all of us. We adopted her on Christmas Eve in 2016 and she never stopped caring for us. Roxy was so smart and emotionally intelligent, she knew when you needed her. As a descendant of herding dogs, Roxy would usually be walking around the house checking on each one of us and making sure we were safe. Her happy howls were her way of saying she is having a great time or she was successful in ‘herding’ us all into the same room. She loved making people happy and there are so many people who love her. After limping with a fractured femur head for a few months, we scheduled a surgery to get it fixed. While the surgeon was in there, they found cancer. She had one back leg amputated and lots of cancer removed from her tummy. She was healing very well for the first few weeks, but then her incision got infected and the cancer came back with a vengeance. She accomplished her mission and we let go of her on January 31st. Roxy, your family loves you and can’t wait to see you again on the other side.

A rough week

 This has been a good week in most ways, but rough in a couple things.  Mostly the rough was on Friday.  I had to go in for a fine needle biopsy on my left breast.  It had started leaking some fluid a few months ago and was concerning.  My GYN doc told me to get it checked.  I went in for an ultra sound and they spotted a thing that could be one of several things.  So Friday they used the ultrasound to guide the fine needle to take 3 very small samples and place a marker so they know that's the spot if they have to do anything else or for future reference.  It's pretty scary once you have had cancer to have weird things going on anywhere in your body.   But, it makes me very happy to know that they have lots of good ways to do these things instead of like when my mom had a lump when she was about my age.  Back then they didn't have the technology we have and even though they did the pathology on that lump she had and it came back benign, they still did a mastectomy on her because that's what you did then. She was left to deal with that the rest of her life.  They deadened the area of my biopsy, so I barely felt it.  Just waiting for the results to come in now.  The other thing that day was that I tripped and fell SUPER hard on my knees on our morning walk up on Owen's Loop trail.  I have tripped before, but never hit so hard.  Both knees are bruised and swollen pretty badly.  I was about to think I needed to go to the doctor to have the worst one checked, but they are getting better now (Sunday) with ice and ibuprofen helping it along very well.  Paul basically sat with my all day Friday after my biopsy and brought me ice for both chest and knees every 20 minutes for the first few hours as they had told me to do.  We watched movies all day and had leftover chicken soup for dinner.  He made the biscuits.  He took really good care of me and I so appreciated it.  Saturday we attended the funeral of sweet Helen Bauer, an old member of our ward in the morning, and then, since hiking around was not a great option because of knees and really cold weather, we went on a wonderful drive around the backside of Pine Valley Mountain.  We saw lots of cool places and enjoyed the afternoon.  We stopped off at Pinto Springs to eat a snack (in the truck...BRRR outside) and then got home in time for more rest time with a movie and dinner, which Paul helped make.  I'm so blessed to have a loving, caring and helpful, (and great cook) capable husband that supports me in my times of need.  I'm ever grateful for the blessing that he is in my life is so very many ways.  Pictures are of some sights along the way.  Good news from the doctor - the pathology came back non-cancerous.  I will still have to have the tiny growth of papilloma removed.  It's a precautionary thing and should not be a very big deal.  That's a load off my mind.  Another thing I did was to stop off at the urgent health care clinic for sports injuries to have my knees checked.  They x-rayed them both and didn't find anything more than what I already knew.  No worrisome ongoing injuries. It didn't cost me anything, and I'm glad to know that they will both "feel better after they quit hurtin'."

Loving our backyard hike and others!

 Since I have Fridays off we took a longer than usual morning walk yesterday and today.  We went up on the Red Hill and did Owen's Loop.  We usually do one that's a little shorter, about 2.20 miles, each weekday morning.  Owen's Loop is just a little over 3 miles...and the scenery is spectacular from up there.  We did our BeReal pics up there on Friday and again on Saturday.  Such beautiful panoramic views.  I feel so blessed to live where we do.  We are in town, but have the Red Cliffs Reserve starting right behind our house basically, and no one can build there.  It's like living in town, but also out of town.  Sometimes we get a little bit of wildlife like gila monsters, desert tortoises, raccoons, foxes, deer, squirrels and even a mountain lion in showed up in the neighborhood once.  The soil is not great, very sandy, with bedrock not too far below ground, but I love the red rock and panoramic views so easily accessible to our home.  Here are the views we used for our BeReal shots today and yesterday.  

Kartchner Caverns/Saguaro NP/Titan Missile Museum - Happy 2025!

 We left on New Year's day to go to Arizona to do Kartchner Cavern's Rotunda/Throne tour and later that day to visit the Titan Missile Museum and do the missile silo tour. (We went to bed early on New Year's Eve!) They were both really awesome. We also did a quick stop by Saguaro NP between the two.  We had a nice picnic there and enjoyed seeing the Visitor's Center and the little scenic route drive to see the crazy cactus! We took the scenic route on the way to Arizona down through Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon and a faster route for the way home.  Either way, it was a pretty long drive, but worth it.  Bean wanted to take a small vacation as a Christmas present, and going south to Arizona seemed like a good way to do that.  We have been to both places in the past, but were happy to enjoy them again.  (I didn't remember the museum visiting the museum at all.)  

We went through Jacob Lake on New Year's Day and it wasn't open, but on the way home, we did eat dinner there and got their delicious cookies and hot chocolate for dessert.  We stopped off at Navajo Bridge to stretch our legs both ways.  I love that view of the Colorado River from the bridge and of the amazing Vermillion Cliffs along the way to and from it.  It turned out to be a really quick, fun trip.  We left on Wednesday and came home on Friday.  (You can't take pictures inside of the Kartchner Caverns, so I don't have any here. This is a painting of an amazing formation inside the cavern - it's called Kubla Kahn. The other pic is one off the internet.