Summer Adventure 2011

Day 17: 30-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Got up around 9 local time which is an hour behind where we were in mountain time as Arizona does not observe daylight savings time. So we seem to have gained an hours sleep.

It’s always interesting pulling into somewhere late at night where you can’t see the landscape. Especially when you know that the landscape is going to be so different. It really had changed since we last saw it in daylight. Red mountains and red rocks everywhere. Wild. Nice weather also. It was very windy last night. Looks like another really good day.

Had a nice breakfast with Janet and Ken then sat around and talked and looked at Janet’s scrapbook of their last trip out east to Nauvoo. The kids watched Pirates of the Caribbean. Ken showed Daynen and I some of his guns. Daynen seemed very interested.

Daynen set up his new tent. He seemed very pleased with it…

After lunch we went to the Pipeline Spring Fort down the road. We got a tour of the fort and saw lots of lizards. Way cool.

When we got back we all took a walk down the road to see what Moccasin, Arizona is all about. We determined not much. We walked down to the school. It wasn`t that old but was closed last year. There was a bit of the playground so the kids mucked around for a bit. We passed the church. For a town of this size (very, very small) it has quite a good size church. It has to be at least as big as the one in Peterborough. I actually can`t wait to see how many people show up on Sunday.

After dinner Daynen and I played ladder ball. Daynen won 21 to 20. After that we finished watching the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Ken fell asleep in his chair. J

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 16: 29-June-2011 (Michelle)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Brian slept in … again he didn’t get up until 9:00 (Brian) – Thhhpt!!!

(Michelle) – After packing up and putting thetrailer all down, we set off close to 11.

Our first stop was a visit to Blake’s office. Then a stop at the cemetery where Grandpa Michael is buried. We spent about an hour and a half there. I took us a while to find it… We found Grandpa Workman’s grave before we found Grandpa Michaels. We took pictures and did some rubbings of the grave stone. Then the kids drew pictures and taped them to the stone.

(Brian) – We had to stop in Lehi at a an outdoor store called Cabella’s to get Daynen a new tent as the wind pretty much put an end to his yesterday. The fibreglass poles kept breaking.

(Michelle) – Next stop was to visit Donald Wilson in Spanish Fork. He is Grammy’s cousin. We looked through a file of old pictures together. Then he gave me copies of a couple of census records he found while visiting Glasgow recently.

Then we started the long trek to Janet’s.

11:00 – Passed into Arizona.

(Brian) – Got to Grandma Janet’s around 11:30ish. They live in a very small town. They have a big toy hauler trailer that was pretty much setup with beds so Daynen slept in the house and Michelle, Breah, Caelan and I stayed in their trailer. Before we went to bed though, we got to eat apple pie that Janet made. Yum.

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 15: 28-June-2011 (Michelle)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was really windy when we got up, but the wind was really warm.

Caelan got up and dressed. Then went next door to play all day.

It was so windy it blew Daynen’s tent down. The poles broke, they fixed them and they broke again.

The second time the fly ripped, so he just took it down. He will sleep on the back patio tonight.

Gail offered to let us do laundry with her machines this time so I spent most of the day doing laundry. Now i remember why i do laundry every day at home…

At 3pm we went to look at houses in Stansbury Park. We called up the agent Becky used when she bought her house. She was happy to show us a few houses on short notice. The 3 houses we saw were all vacant so it wasn’t a big deal to get in to see them.

Aunt Gail made us another great meal.

After dinner we piled in the car and went shopping

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 14: 27-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I got up early and woke Daynen up and asked him if he wanted to go for a walk around the block. We left around 9:15 and walked out to the main highway and found a restaurant that I could get a coffee at. Daynen got a root beer. We got back to Blake’s around 10:15… so an hour around the block – not bad. Michelle was concerned that she would be ready to go before we got back. Ha! Fat chance of that!

Went to Saltair which used to be an amusement park on the Great Salt Lake. It’s pretty run down now. We let the kids walk in the water for a while. Down by the water front there were a lot (and I mean A LOT) of flies. When we walked through them they seemed to move in waves. We saw a lot of dead fish and birds also.

We went to the Saltair gift shop and bought a few things. Then we drove out to the marina but they wanted $2 per car so we didn’t get out. We then drove west a little bit along a very rocky road out to a funny rock formation that we’ve seen from the highway. We’ve seen cars parked at it so we figured it might be interesting. Daynen climbed up to the top (of course) and the other two collected rocks. There was even a weird tombstone thing there also. All in all, kinda strange.

Went to Michelle’s uncle Allan and Aunt Laurel’s. Laurel said that we were early and that she had to go out but we were welcome to stay and swim. And stay and swim we did. The kids spent from about 2:30 until 6:30 in the pool! They pool was super heated so it was wonderful. Where else could we be swimming outside and see snow covered mountains in the distance? Caelen got to meet another cousin, Houston, who is one of Nicole’s kids. Unfortunatley Michelle’s Aunt Laurel didn’t get back to the house until about 5 minutes before we had to leave. It was nice to visit with her Uncle Allen who came home early from work…

After that we went to see Michelle’s Grandmother’s house one last time before they sell it. Even though they had redone the kitchen it still looked pretty much the same and brought back a lot of memories for her. Chris, tThe renter who is there now was really nice about letting us see it. See apparantly wants to buy it. Her daughter, Erica acted as a hostess for us and then her and our kids ended up playing in the back yard. On the way out of the house Caelan asked for a piece of watermellon that Chris had just cut up so all of our kids had some. Her kids weren’t allowed until after their dinner so Caelan said that he wanted to stay for dinner too. Sometimes, that kid…

From there we went to find a Five Guys as that was next on our agenda. Mmmmm, it was good!!!

We went to visit Michelle’s Aunt Dianne next. It took us a while to find it as Michelle forgot what street it was on. When we got there it was almost dark so we got a tour of the back yard first. The kids were in awe as the back yard is really like a jungle with fish ponds and water falls and bridges and stuff. Wild!

Dianne and her husband, Jerry, who passed away last August, used to have Macaws but now they have smaller birds like a bunch of budgies and cockatiels and even the odd love bird. The kids were equally in awe of the inside of the house also.

Dianne’s mother is now living with her so we got to meet and chat with her. She’s a really nice lady. In fact, we think we talked with her more than Dianne. J

We left there around 10:30 and drove into Salt Lake City to see the temple all lit up at night. It looked pretty cool. On the way to the highway we got kinda lost and ended up going north on the east side of the airport. Oh well.

Got back to Erda quite late… perhaps around 11:30. Everyone else was asleep.

Another fantasitc day.

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 13: 26-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Morning – Ah, it was so nice to sleep in until 10!!! Got up and went to church with Michelle’s aunt and uncle. I am grateful that their church starts at 11. They also have to drive a bit to get to church as the chapel that they were in was overcrowded so their ward got moved to a chapel that only had one ward going to it. Often the chapels will be used for 2 or 3 wards all starting at different times. They also had the classes first and the sacrament part last. Sounds complicated to me…I even went with Daynen and Uncle Dick to the classes. Not something I often do.

After church we went back to Michelle’s Aunt and Uncle’s and had a wonderful dinner. We then headed over to Michelle’s cousin Brent’s to visit the International PEZ Museum of Erda, UT. He has hundreds, if not thousands of different PEZ dispensers. I asked him if his wife, Alexis, knew him prior to him starting this. He happily told me that she gave him his third one and that he told her that once you have three of something you have a collection. J

Had a quick desert there then went to Michelle’s cousin Blake’s (Brent’s twin brother) and had strawberry pie for desert. Yum, it was good.

What a fantastic day! Spent the last couple of hours doing some banking and paying bills. Nothing like that to bring you back to reality.

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 12: 25-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Morning – Went to visit Martin and Maureen in West Jordan by where Michelle used to live when she was a kid. She was just cooking dinner (for lunch) and invited us to stay. How could we say no? We called Donald (who we were going to visit this afternoon) to tell him that we’ll have to reschedule as he lives down at Spanish Fork which is even further south than where we were the other day when we went caving. We’ve arranged to pop by his place on the way down south when we leave.

Lunch was terrific – meat loaf, mmmm….

We visited (we chatted as the kids watched TV). We found out that their neighbours have chickens and the other side has rabbits. They said that they can have chickens but they can’t have a rooster. OK.

We left their place around 3ish and drove by the place that Michelle lived when she was a kid. Caelan has been interested in seeing where Mommy was boring ever since he knew that we were going where Michelle grew up.

Arrived in the general area of where Michelle’s cousin Becky’s young women’s carnival is. Got totally lost in the subdivision which is Stansbury Park. At this time I couldn’t find the map that Michelle’s Uncle Dick drew on the back of the carnival flyer. So, we had no idea where we were. Drove around some streets more than once. Stopped and asked some guys (and a girl) on motorbikes where the street that we need is once we saw them twice. They told us then the one guy asked where in Ontario we were from as he spent some time in around Bracebridge…

Found the church and when I was getting my wallet out of the console in the truck I found the map!!!

Had a great time at the carnival. The boys really liked the BB gun range. They both did pretty good. Michelle and I even tried it.

When the boys and I went back to try it a second time there was one little girl who was doing pretty good. The guy running it said she was a “dead eye” meaning that she was pretty good. She said “Yeah, I’m a Jedi”…

The funniest part was when Michelle’s cousin Anna got paint from the face painting all over her face. She then took the plate of paint and put it in the girl’s face who did it to her.

On the way home we drove through Stansbury Park looking at houses. They have quite a few that are for sale and are really cheap. The whole neighbourhood is build around a windy lake system. There are houses on the lake for less than $250K. The kids got board so we went back to Michelle’s aunt and uncle’s.

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 11: 24-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Late morning – Went into Tooele to get some supplies at WalMart. After yesterday’s hike up the mountain hurting Breah’s feet we needed to get her a better fitting pair of shoes. We also needed another phone card as we’ve used up the bulk of the 140 minutes that we started with. Apparently we’re using it a bit more than we thought we would.

Afternoon – Went to This Is The Place Monument. This is where the Pioneers from Nauvoo came through Immigration Canyon through the Wasatch Mountains and Brigham Young said ” Enough already. This is the place…” Then when the other pioneers saw where they were going to live they put it down to sun stroke. When Brigham got better and the pioneers realized that he was serious they beat him up…

It was hot but the village was interesting. We took a train tour around the village first then walked to the shops and got ice cream. Caelan, Breah and I went on a little train ride around a pond that they have. We saw some Canada Geese. Everyone had to scream as the train went through the tunnel.

Went to the gift shop and bought a few things (a piece of petrified wood and a cool rock coaster and a book about the elevations around Utah) and then had to head back to Michelle’s aunt and uncles as there was a birthday party for their great grandson who turned one.

The party was fun. There was a lot of games for the kids and the adults. Nana and Granddad called right in the middle of it to tell us that everything was ok back home and that the weather was awful – lots of rain. Too bad, eh?

Daynen, Breah and Caelan had a good time playing with their cousins. Caelan had a lot of fun next door where there was a ward party going on. He spent a lot of time bouncing and running around on the trampoline with the little boy from next door. I got to meet Michelle’s cousin Brent for the first time. He runs the Pez museum. We’re going for a tour there on Sunday.

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 10: 23-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Morning – Yesterday we decided to go to the caves at Mount Timpanogos – a place about 1 ½ hours south of where we are staying (by American Fork). Michelle drove and Breah navigated. We only missed the exit twice… so all in all, pretty good.

Afternoon – We got there around 2ish as we had to stop at the WalMart in Tooele as Caelan needed shoes and we needed a new card for the SLR camera as the one that we had was full and I, Brian, forgot the cable to dump it to the laptop. We bought a 4 gig card and a cheap multi-card reader so that we can dump it if we need to.

We started up the trail to the caves around 2:30 with 3 cameras and about 2 gallons of water. It was a steep climb. It’s 1.5 miles long but goes up 1065 feet in altitude. We had to stop to rest many, many times. There were plenty of places where we could not stop for fear of rock falls. There were also several warnings about rattle snakes (there was one seen on the trail twice that day) and many places were the path had no wall or fence and you were right next to a cliff. There were a lot of switch backs and a couple of places where the path was tunnelled through the rock. We finally reached the top at 4:10. Our tour was slated for 4 but it didn’t seem to matter. There was a father and son waiting to go on a tour so we went with them. The ranger said that she preferred smaller groups. She did give us the option to wait until the 4:30 tour but we decided to go then. The tour was amazing. It’s really tight in some of the cave spots. Daynen has been to Warsaw Caves and said that these were bigger even though there was less caves in total. Also, these have many more features such as stalagmites and the other kind. It was much cooler in the caves so we all had to wear sweaters or jackets. The tour took about an hour. It took us the better part of an hour to get down. You’d think it’d be easier, and it was, but it was still hard walking.

On the way out we drove a little ways into the park and drove through one of the camp grounds. It would be a neat place to stay.

Our mission on the way home was to find a 5 Guys restaurant. The only one that we knew of for sure was in West Valley but the street wasn’t on our GPS software (a 2005 version of MS Streets and Trips) or on our newer GPS unit. After stopping and asking we got somewhere at the second gas station. We found it in the phone book but it was somewhere south of where we were and not the one we were looking for. Some lady said “why would you want to go to that one when there’s one right up the street?” So, we got her directions and off we went. We finally found it around 8:00. We ordered and sat down to wait. Michelle looked out the window to a sign showing the new plaza development where we were and there was the street on the map that we had been looking for. So, this was the one that we were looking for after all.

We got back to Michelle’s Aunt and Uncle’s around 9:30. Time for bed.

Just before going to bed Dick shows up. Seems that he was next door getting his finger stitched up which he cut open this morning. His son, Blake, who lives next door, is a doctor. He apparently stitched up his Dad’s finger while he was watching a movie with a couple of his kids. J

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 9: 22-June-2011 (Brian)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Morning – Went into the Conference Center in Salt Lake and got a personal guided tour from Uncle Dick and Aunt Gail. They took us up to the roof where it was pretty hot.

After the tour we went for lunch but couldn’t really find anywhere… Seems like there is a shortage of fast foody type of places in downtown SLC. Stopped at Subway for lunch. We were looking for the mall with a food court. I stopped and asked someone but they said there is no shopping mall… and the closest one was 4 blocks away at Gateway.

Caelan and I went for a wander around Temple square while Michelle, Daynen and Breah went to do baptisms at the Temple.

We wandered around for a while looking for the entrance to the baptistery. Daynen and Breah got to do five baptisms each.

On the way to the South Visitor’s Center Caelan and I met a couple of sister missionaries, one of which was from Lethbridge, Alberta. After that they went to the North Visitor’s Center where Caelan watched movies that they had as well as walked around a bit. We all met up again around 5-o-clock.

Evening – We spent the evening watching TV with Uncle Dick and Aunt Gail…

 

Summer Adventure 2011

Day 8: 21-June-2011 (B rian)

10:00 – Dunno about anyone else but this is when I, Brian, crawled out of bed. What a beautiful day. It`s nice to wake up and see the mountains.

Noonish – Decided to jack the trailer up and put a board under the one wheel to make it more level. When I got it off the ground I found that there was a bit of end play in the hub. A quick call to Grandad to confirm how to fix it, 20 minutes and a lot of greasy hands and it was fixed. I`m glad that I checked it. I`ll have to check the other side but I`ve got the trailer pretty close to the fence.

2:00 – Went to the laundry mat in Tooele. Washed everything. Daynen saw a tent in the hardware store in the same plaza that he liked. No surprises there… Went to a pet store in the same plaza. They had some really interesting things – snakes and birds and fish. They had a big spider (looked like a tarantula to me) sitting on the outside of its cage. We decided not to go too close down that isle. There was also a big tortuous (sp?) roaming around the store.

Evening – Hung around at Aunt Gail’s and Uncle Dick’s.