Mossy Cave & Waterfall Hike

We knew we couldn't do both the canyon country and Yellowstone all in one trip. Since we weren't leaving Ogden, UT for Yellowstone until Wednesday, Brent and I took Kim's suggestion that Bryce Canyon could be done in one day. I'm so happy we took her suggestion. Bryce is simply breathtaking.

We arrived in SLC around Noon, rented our car, and made the 4 hour trek to Tropic, UT which is just a few miles from Bryce. We stayed at a lovely B&B called the Bullberry Inn. Nettie was a lovely hostess and we had a great breakfast with homemade bullberry jelly. Yes, there is such a thing as bullberries. Who knew?

Anxious to take in as much as possible, we got an early start (surprise!) so we could do a short hike to the Mossy Cave and the Waterfall. These were our first views of hoodoos as we hiked in.

Beautiful, right? Yeah, but wait until you see the post from Bryce Canyon itself!

Anyway, continuing on, here are some pics of the Mossy Cave. It's really not much of a cave - more like a large overhang. But, there's springwater dripping in and it is very moss covered. It's probably a good thing that the view on the walk in and the falls were a little more impressive or I might have been sorry I made the hike!

Here are some pics of the waterfall. You can see there was a photographer at the bottom, just waiting for perfect light to snap some photos.

Above you saw the pic of these wind-blown arches from the other side. I don't think the pictures show how red some of these rocks really were.

Now, it's over to Bryce Canyon!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N WOOHOO!

Over the next few days, I'm going to try to post some pics from our long-awaited, whirlwind vacation. First, we hit Bryce Canyon in Utah, visited friends in Ogden UT, and they gave us an incredible guided tour of a small part of Yellowstone. We had a fantastic trip...until we got stuck in Cincinnati on the way home. Ike did plenty of wind damage and as a result were delayed a day returning home. Now it'll be back to the grindstone, hopefully a little refreshed.

High School Musical Weekend

Gwen's hectic weekend schedule finally had a break and we were able to have her overnight for what turned into a High School Musical weekend. It began when I picked Gwen up around 11:30 and we went to her favorite place for lunch - Isaacs. I never knew that everything tasted better when dipped into appleasauce. Apparently the sweetness of the applesauce makes everything, including pickles, more palatable!

We went to the Boscovs store which is closing just to check out the deals. The big deal of the day was 30% off the Troy and Gabriella dolls. A must have for any self-respecting High School Musical groupie. Oh, and also a very soft stuffed puppy dog. Perfect to sleep with at Grandma's.

Next on our agenda was a trip to a local theater where middle-schoolers put on a great production of HSM1. Gwen was very excited. She knew all the words to all the songs. We bought a raffle ticket and placed it in the basket for the HSM game. We were losers...no game for us.

We went home, logged into Webkinz, and fed/bathed Moona. Poor little racoon was lonely, and so happy to see us that she jumped on her trampoline, swam in her pool, and flushed the commode. Sweet.

The local Indian restaurant was the place to be for dinner. Gwen informed me she only wanted rice, chick peas, and dal. While the 4 year old knew exactly what dal was (she likes to dip her naan into it), we really had no idea. It was an educational trip for us. I ordered a paneer dish because I knew Gwen liked the cheese. I was lucky to get 2 pieces for myself as the little girl who only wanted rice, chick peas, and dal devoured all the rest of my cheese!

We were stuffed, but there's always room for popcorn, served in her special Disney bucket. I brought the bucket home from WDW several years ago thinking Gwen would enjoy it. Now she wouldn't dream of having popcorn without it. According to Gwen we could have popcorn and watch HSM2. "I know, Grandma, we can have a High School Muscial weekend!"

8/24/08 Brent Places 3rd

Pinchot Triathlon: .75 mile Swim / 18.2 mile Bike / 3.1 mile Run
He had a good day, placing 3rd in 45-49 age. He did 2 triangular laps in Pinchot Lake, two circuits of the Lake on rolling hills with a few short climbs, and a run on trails and paths along the lake.

Everyone needs a beautiful cheerleader.

He Makes Me Laugh

We all have bad days when we wonder what in the world we were thinking when we married that "special" someone. In this exchange, I remembered one reason I married Brent - he makes me laugh.

My E-mail to Brent: I’m sending this email because there’s no way I’d remember to ask you about this tonight. Jason would like to borrow a very small Allen wrench to fix his front door. How small, you ask? I don’t know, but from his drawing, it looks like about the size of a pen point or slightly bigger. I told him I was sure we had such a critter.

Brent's Reply: In the engineering/science/construction world we generally specify the dimensions of such things in commonly used units of distance such as feet, inches, millimeters, etc.

Luckily for the legal world we have invented devices like the “Smitty”, which contains a fold-out assortment of hex head wrench sizes ranging from “really really quite small” thru “bigger but not too big” so it’s likely the “very small” size will be contained in that set.

I’ll send a smitty with you tomorrow if we can remember.

No Such Thing as a Perfect Man

I'm so disillusioned.
The headline reads, "Toby Keith Backs Obama."
There are no perfect men.
Sigh.

Garden Gnome

Ah yes, yet another lawn ornament. Last week when Gwen and I were running through the sprinkler, I suddenly noticed something in my garden that hadn't been there before. A little gnome about 6" high.

I called my Dat, accusing him and Mom of being sneaky little buggers. He denied all knowledge of the gnome. Next on my hit list was mine brither, Rick. I called him and asked him if he placed the little gnome (pronounced guh-nome, of course!) in my garden. He laughed - it had taken me 4 days to find him.

Apparently Rick has been searching for a tiny guhnome (hehehe) for some time - even on his trip to Australia. Finally he found one in Borders, of all places. I think he's a great addition to the garden.