Varsity Scout Camp in Moab, Utah

Day 1

The first week of this month I went on a Scout camp with the Varsity Scouts from our ward (that's the 14-15 year olds, Teachers Quorum.) It was organized by the Stake and each ward was represented by a boy and a leader to help plan the trip. It was decided that we'd camp at Gold Bar Campground just outside of Moab, Utah on the Colorado River. Here is a link to the road we used to get to our camp site. It just so happens to be a scenic byway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_State_Route_279

Our camp is the group of tents in the left corner of the campground with the blue dining fly. The river is flowing left to right and was quite high. It had rained the previous two days and had rained that morning we got there. I was talking to some kids who had been camping there the previous two days and they were wet and miserable and ready to go home. They packed up that afternoon and headed home a day early. The rest of the week was perfect weather for our camp...too bad they didn't stick around.

The first thing after setting up camp we climbed to the top of the bluff overlooking the camp and the river, as you can see from the photos of the campground and my photo here with the bluff in the background. The plan was to rappel off the bluff.

Here I am getting hooked up to go over the cliff. There is a guy in our stake that is a climber and owns his own equipment and lots of it. He had two ropes over the cliff. One was 75 feet long, which is the one in the photo above and below. It was actually a little more technical that the other because there was a lip on the cliff and you had to take a little hop off the ledge or lip for your first step. I was a little scary for your first step. But with my long legs it didn't take much effort.

I was joking around waiting for the line to die down for the longer 100 foot rope when I asked, "Can I go down face first?" The guy looked at me and asked if I had already gone down once and I answered positively and he said, "Sure. Since you've already gone once." Then I thought to myself that I'd opened my mouth and now I was committed. I looked this up when I got home and the style is called "Australian." I guess because you do it backwards of the usual?

It doesn't look like I'm actually going down face first.

This is a few feet from the ground. By this time my whole body was so tense that when I jumped to the ground my legs just about gave out. I had to put my hands on my knees and let the tension leave my body. I took a couple of minutes.

There were three arches within walking distance of our campground. One was Jug Handle Arch (which I don't have a picture of), then Bow Tie Arch and Corona Arch. After a big dinner of Navajo Tacos we hiked about a mile up a canyon right across the road from our campsite to Bow Tie and Corona Arches.

Bow Tie Arch.

Me under Bow Tie Ach. The water was running down the rocks from all the rain that they'd gotten the previous two day. They'd gotten almost 1 inch in two day. Quite a lot in the desert.

Corona Arch with the sun lighting the cliffs in the back ground.

There aren't any people under the arch for perspective, but the trees are about 15 to 20 feet tall.

The reason for hiking to the arches was to hold a fireside. President Orton from the Stake Presidency spoke to the boys as the sun set and lit up the cliff behind him. It made for a dramitic setting.

Future arch. And the close of the first day.

Day 2

Day 2 was river rafting on the Colorado. We hired a rafting outfit out of Moab and they took us upriver and floated back to Moab. It was about 8 hours in all. I don't have any pictures, yet. I didn't want to take my digital camera on the river, but Steve Gorski (our YM's first counselor) had a camera that he'd brought just for the occasion. When He gets me his photo's I'll put some in here.

But I did take some pictures that evening. After dinner we had some free time and Matt Morrise (our Varsity Coach) and I headed up a nearby bluff and searched out some petroglyphs that I'd been told about.

Jacob's ladder?

Bear being shot by Indian's with accompanying Big Horn Sheep.

200 foot spire. Can't see the top. Sorry.

Day 3

The third day was our last. The plan was to break camp and drive out to a trail that we could bike on.

Breaking camp.

The name of the trail was "Klondike Trail." It was about 2.5 miles uphill to a bluff overlooking Arches National Park. Couldn't see any arches from there but the ride was fun, especially downhill. It's all slickrock. It sound and looks smooth, but believe me, it's not. You have to stop every once in a while to let your arms recover.

On one of my stops I noticed something on the ground. It looked familiar. I knew I'd seen something like it before. Then I started noticing more and more. They were dinosaur footprints. They were everywhere. I'll bet there were 30 or more in the area I was looking. I put the shoe there for perspective.

Someone had put rocks around these prints that were in a straight line. They did the same thing a couple of other places.

I wanted you to see the blooms on the cacti in the area. Where we were camped the blooms were all yellow. When we drove 10 miles away to bike near Arches National Park the blooms were all red.

When we were done we made some sandwiches and loaded up the bikes and headed for home. Three days, three activities and a lot of fun.

Sarah's Graduation!

Well not really a graduation. It's only the 6th grade. But it's her last year at her elementary school. Junior High here we come.

Ain't she cute...and Sarah's kinda cute too!

Sarah sure does dress up a photo, don't she? We're very proud of her. She keeps up with her school work and she likes doing extra-curricular activities. She's just a well rounded young lady. Late that night we went out to dinner to celebrate. Sarah chose Pizza Factory. Eric was really excited...especially with the waitress. I kept trying to set them up, but he wouldn't have it.
Guess what Sarah and Mandy's favorite item on the menu is? No, really. Guess. Sarah's is the bread sticks, but Mandy's is in the previous photo...Apple Beer. Hah. Got ya. But she does like the bread sticks too.The proud Mom and Dad. Can you see gray creeping in on my temples.

Happy 17th Birthday Amanda

May 14 is Amanda's birthday, but I just barely downloaded the photos tonight. I know that she looks kinda serious in this first photo, but she really is having good time as you will see is the following photos.One of her many presents.

This was her favorite present. Janet was able to find a dressing dummy for more than 50% off. Now she won't have to put her dress on and take it back off so many times. She's already using it. It's kinda creepy though. I'll walk past her room and see this person standing near the doorway, or so it seems.Always the happy-go-lucky gal.
Her restaurant of choice was Los Hermanos. They have an appetizer called Grande Nachos. They should put a warning in the menu that says "Family Size." It has everything. We all tried to help after we'd eaten our own meals, and we still only finished about half. But boy was it tasty.
After dinner we started playing with the silverware.
The winner was Sarah. We didn't realize how talented she is. Can you imagine this table full of people watching and cheering on this little girl? We were boistrous and noisy, but we had a lot of fun.

Voila!!! She does it in this one.

Our Disney World Vacation

Day 8

This all goes backward. You can see from the beginning of this post. Day 8. If you want to start on day one you need to go back to April's list and start at Day 1. Thanks.

Saturday morning we slept in and relaxed because we'd have a nice long flight home in the afternoon. I think we had to be out front and waiting for the bus by 1pm. Can't remember the exact time. That meant we had a few hours that morning to spend in the Magic Kingdom. So we loaded on the Monorail and headed over.

About halfway over to the park Sarah realized that she didn't have her park pass. Janet decided to ride around back to the hotel with her and Eric decided to also. Amanda and I went on without them just to shop on Main Street. We bummed along main and looked at pins and other trinkets. Found some earrings for Tiff and a shot glass with Tinker Bell on it for Jess.

Amanda and I were just about done shopping when Janet called and said they'd recovered Sarah's park pass from her luggage and they were coming to join us. Instead we decided to just meet them at the monorail and ride back to the hotel with them and shop for pins at the shop in the hotel lobby. We found a few that were good for framing in a shadow box for a remembrance kind of thing. We'll have to get that done and take some photos for the blog here.

Rode the bus to the airport and found out that the plane was delayed. Actually the plane was broken and they were waiting for a replacement to fly in from New Jersey to take its place. It was okay. We had dinner at the airport and were on the plane by 5:30-6:00 and home by about 9:30-10:00pm. Don't remember the exact time, but there was still light when we got there. It was dusty though. Guess we had a really bad windstorm that day and it was dusty enough that you couldn't see the mountains. Linda was heading home to Cedar that same eve and she was flabbergasted at how dusty it was.

Got home, unpacked and got to bed in plenty of time to get up early for church meetings the next morning.

Our Disney World Vacation

Day 7

Friday morning we got up early and headed to the Magic Kingdom (early entrance for resort guests). We entered the park and stayed to our left and went clockwise and tried to ride every ride. There were a few that we'd missed in previous visits and we wanted to experience everything because we were feeling to the departure time fast approaching. Just a day away.

Talk about the typical tourist. Amanda saw the ducks sleeping on the sidwalk as we left our room and had to get down on their level to take their picture. It was kinda humorous to see her waddling into position to get a closeup. I wish I'd taken a video of it.

We rode the Monorail from the Polynesian to the Magic Kingdom. You can see the Poly way in the background just to the left and behind the Grand Floridian with its red tile roof. Janet looked into rooms at the GF but it was twice the price but from what she saw on the website it was really, really, really nice and big. If you decide to go there yourself you might look into it. By the way....see the nice white sandy beach? You can walk along them, but you can't swim in the lake. There are signs all along the lake saying not to swim. Don't know why.

Remember the Jungle Cruise from when you were a kid. The last time we went to Disneyland the ride was closed, so we jumped aboard and enjoyed the ride.

Everyone was excited at the start of the day...except Eric who was still half asleep.

Next was the Pirates of the Carribean. I really was having fun.

Pirates is also Eric's favorite ride. He insisted that we ride it the first time we entered the park on Sunday and every other time we entered the park. I'm not complaining, it's my favorite too. It's been my favorite since I was a kid and went to Disneyland the first time as a kid.

So we got off the Pirates ride and were bumming around the tourist shop and Sarah and Amanda found this great big sombrero. What that had to do with the Carribean I don't know. But they had fun with it. Can you see all the pins that Sarah had collected by that time? We need to buy a shadow box and mount them for her so she can show them off and appreciate them more often than when she opens her underwear drawer.

There is some missing time between these pictures. After Pirates we got some lunch. After that we decided to go on Splash Mountain. Well, they had fixed the water squirter that gets you as you enter the mountain. We got soaked. I mean really soaked. I'm just glad I was wearing a nylon shirt and shorts.

We then decided that we wanted to ride the train around the park to dry off. After some searching we found an entrance and hopped aboard. At the Main Street stop you could see our resort way across the lake.

While we waited for the train to get moving Janet tried getting us all in one picture.

Think we were feeling a little giddy?

After the train ride we bumped into Amanda's best friend from back in Provo. Actually they'd been texting each other for days trying to get together. They were staying in a condo outside the park and did water parks and other things. They just happened to be in the Magic Kingdom this particular day. And we forgot to take a picture. No evidence. We talked with them for a couple of minutes and compared notes and said our goodbyes. They were headed to one of the water parks for the afternoon. They left for Provo the next morning bright and early.

After meeting Mandy's friend we headed over to the riverboat for a relaxing ride around Huck Finn's Island. I thought for sure that Sarah would want to check out the island, but no. So we rode the boat.

And took some pictures.

And texted the friend we'd just seen 30 minutes before.

Janet is too cool.

We didn't spend too much more time in the Magic Kingdom because we had a dinner reservation at EPCOT. But before we left I recieved a phone call from Linda. I tried to call her back but she had turned off her phone because she was going into a class or performance or something. So I left a message.

Our dinner reservation was at the Morrocan restaurant. It was called Marrakesh. It was really good food. I remember Janet some chicken with couscous. Eric had a lamb dish called mechoui. I had a shish kebab of beef with some hummus. I can't remember what Sarah or Amanda had. But we did have pastilla, or thin fry bread with cinnamon and sugar, for dessert.

Sarah got ahold of a camera while at the dinner table and took my picture. Eric was checking out the belly dancer who was teaching little girls how to dance.

After dinner we were waiting for the girls to get out of the restroom when my phone rang. It was Linda calling me back. I guess I'd forgotten to tell her that we were going to Florida that week. She was in Provo and was just letting me know she was in town because I'd complained that she never lets me know when she's in town. Well, she was letting me know. I told her I was in Morrocco. She hesitated and said she didn't believe me. So I told her where I was and we had a laugh.

There are no more pictures of this night. We spent the rest of the evening walking through the various countries' markets and displays. Germany, England, Canada, France, Morrocco, Japan, US, Norway, China. We wound up in front of China to take in the nightly fireworks display.

After the fireworks the park closed except for those with bracelets. We went over and rode the Mission to Mars ride and the ride that goes up into the ball that you associated with EPCOT. Don't know what that's called. By this time Janet and the girls were getting pooped out. They decided to hang back and wait while Eric and I got one last ride on the Soaring Over California. By the time we had finished that it was midnight and time to head back to the hotel.