Peaches

I have lots to catch up on now that the behemoth trip is finished. 

First, a little slideshow I threw together after going peach-picking with friends yesterday. We had so much fun (minus Anthony & Aaron, who were at gymnastics camp) and came home with 20 pounds of peaches! (Not too hard to do when the peaches are large & juicy, each one weighs nearly a pound by itself!)

Enjoy!

Road Trip 2010: THE END!!!!

Can you believe it???? This is the LAST POST of my road trip! Hallelujah! I've been singing "This is the song that never ends" only it's the "posts that never end". But rest assured, this IS the last one for this trip. It only took 32 posts. Are you as happy as I am, or did you tune out a dozen posts ago?

So we stayed one last full day again in Utah before returning home at last... And we spent that day at a little water park in Lindon, UT. Way fun...it had a few little slides, a lazy river, a hot tub, kiddie pool, and George's favorite: the surf thingie. It was very much like the place we went to play in Topeka with George's cousins. If we lived there in UT (or Topeka) I'm sure we'd buy season passes for that place...way fun.

And this is George on the surf thingie. I will post this pic and not the 2nd one as the 2nd one was not too flattering. Let's just say he needs some practice.

And we came back to the house for one more great big delicious feast with the family in the backyard.

Zachary camped out on a blanket while we ate.

How the boys love their cousins...they are quite the gang when they're all together.

And they love their Papu too.

So good to spend time with Vovo too (George's grandmother). She speaks a little English--more than I can speak in Portuguese anyway--so we have very limited conversations together. 

I enjoy visiting with her.

Sorry to the family members pictured here...I know it's not your most flattering photo, but it makes me happy anyway. I love our evening meals together outside!

What says summertime more than a fresh, buttery cob of corn?

Little Nora...I have some of the most adorable nieces in the world!

And that, my friends, is the END of our happy road trip story.

Fin.

Road Trip 2010: Flaming Gorge

On the last leg of our trip back into Utah, we'd originally planned to drive straight back to the in-laws but George detoured us through Flaming Gorge instead since it was on the way...and there were impressive things to see there.  

We took the wilderness loop (I can't remember the name..."Sheep Ranch" sticks out in my mind) and saw this:

And this:

And a teenage boy deer:

And then we stopped at this viewpoint of the gorge... It's 'gorge'ous (ha!)

We stopped again at this next viewpoint. George had wanted to do one last hike but you can just barely see in this photo in the right hand corner that a very big storm cloud was threatening (and the boys & I were mutinous...we wanted to get back to play with the cousins!)

This pic really didn't turn out too well...it was a drive-by shot as we went through Vernal, UT...there were so many of those flowers lining both sides of the street in pots and in hanging pots too, very pretty!

Another drive-by shot as we cruised along...I was happy to see just a few little thunderstorms on our trip. We hardly ever get thunderstorms here so it's a real treat to see one.

Road Trip 2010: The Mammoth Site

After not seeing Wind Cave, we continued on down the road to Hot Springs, SD, to see the Mammoth Site.

The Mammoth Site is supposedly the only place in the world where you can see an "in-situ" mammoth dig. And it's huge. There are so many bones in there.

You get to see it by tour, and because of all the noise in that large open space, the guide uses telephones to talk to you...funny, huh? (I think that may be the first time my boys have ever really used corded phones...isn't that crazy? What a wireless world we live in!)

See that guy sitting way at the top of the photo? That's one of the paleontologists there working to uncover and study the mammoth bones! Pretty cool to see the scientists at work there before your eyes. There are more there toward the left digging away.

Boys and bones (artificial, by the way.)

There are so many mammoth bones collected here because it was a sinkhole--water collected inside it and the mammoths came for a refreshing drink, and while leaning down for a sip, slipped in and became trapped. Over a period of several hundred (or was it thousand) years, many mammoths were trapped and preserved until they were discovered by a developer who found it while bulldozing the land.

Next to that dig exhibit, there's a small museum to learn more about mammoths.

This is a hut built entirely of mammoth bones and skins.

I snapped this pic because it showed so clearly why so much of our drive was in WIDE OPEN spaces--it's all part of the "American Serengeti"!

Near the gift shop is a smaller area just for kids. Fun place!

Road Trip 2010: Custer State Park, Day 2

I can't believe I forgot to add this in before...I missed a bunch of fun stuff! Sorry for my sporadic posting too. Life is what it is.

Before we arrived in Wyoming, we hit a few more spots in South Dakota. We drove part of the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park on our way out of the Black Hills area.

We found the herd of bison again...they'd spent the night in this field next to some cabins (I think maybe the rangers live there?) A lot of bison again, but not as exciting as the previous day had been with them all over the road around us.

The Wildlife Loop takes you out into some pretty grassland areas with rolling hills.

Yay!

Up over the next hill, we found these friends:

Custer State Park is home to a small herd(?) of feral burros, whose ancestors used to work in the park but were later set free... They're pretty friendly but still, they are technically wild so it made me a bit nervous to have those noses right there IN our windows! (Thank goodness again for the sun roof!)

Awwww!

Hi there!

Benno loved it.

We left Custer State Park and continued on down the road toward Wind Cave National Park. Along the way we saw LOTS of cute little prairie dogs popping up and down out of their holes.

We also saw some herds of pronghorns. This pic is not the best but it's the only one we took. We actually saw TONS of pronghorns in Wyoming around Martin's Cove.

Sadly, we didn't stay and see Wind Cave. It looked pretty cool but we didn't have time for the full tour (plus it cost a bit extra than we were ready to spend.)

Road Trip 2010: Martin's Cove & Devil's Gate

Just another mile or so past Independence Rock, going west is Devil's Gate (another landmark you might remember from Oregon Trail.) Nearby Devil's Gate is Martin's Cove. I'll explain what that is here for those of you unfamiliar with LDS history...

So people were joining the church from all over in the east and in Europe, and all of them at the time were encouraged to come join the body of Saints in Utah. The members of the church had come up with a plan for these new converts to be able to make the journey all the way to Utah by pulling handcarts (because many of these new converts were very poor and couldn't afford teams and wagons.) Under normal circumstances, the handcarts weren't easy but they did the job and many people were able to successfully cross the trail to Utah that way. There were 2 companies, the Martin & Willie Handcart Companies, in this instance, which were plagued with one problem after another, and as a result they began the journey with handcarts too late in the season. As a result, they hit terrible winter weather while coming through what is now Wyoming and hundreds of them died. 

Brigham Young, who was then president of the church, learned that the 2 companies were struggling along the trail in the winter weather, and he organized rescue parties to go and help the 2 companies. The rescue teams reached the handcart companies and moved them to the shelter of Martin's Cove to wait out the storm before continuing on to Utah. It's significant not only for the great story of struggle and rescue but also because of the incredible faith the people in these 2 companies had. Of those who survived the journey, not one of them ever fell away from the church or renounced their faith. 

Anyway...when we came to visit, we knew the site was significant but we had no idea that there was so much to do and see here.

The split in the rocks there is Devil's Gate.

There are handcarts there for you to try yourself (including these pint-sized ones!)

All of us with a handcart.

Now historically, people (and childredn) didn't usually ride in the cart unless they were sick/wounded/otherwise unable to walk since the carts were laden with their food and supplies. And of course they didn't have these nice gravel roads to ride on either.

We were allowed to pull the handcart all the way across a bridge but then we had to park it while we hiked the rest of the way out to Devil's Gate. We were entertained that a big white dog was accompanying us in our hike.

Dog's still with us, ha!

Devil's Gate itself is beautiful.

George took these pics--the rest of us were getting angry with him because the sun was going down, the mosquitoes were coming out, and we were ready to go. Glad he went back there though because the pics really are beautiful. The Sweetwater River runs right through Devil's Gate.

Finally, George emerged from Devil's Gate and caught up with the rest of us who'd already begun to hike back. We got back into the handcart and then George thought I should get a turn pulling it with all the boys inside, all by myself (so not fair! George had Anthony & Aaron both helping on the way out!) But I did it, so there!

This is the bridge over the Sweetwater River... Look how strong I am. : )

Anthony kindly hopped out of the cart to help me the rest of the way. 

Martin's Cove was so great and we definitely want to go back and do more there. If you get there early enough, they have a whole trail you can do a handcart pull around. Or you can hike all the way out to Martin's Cove and back (2 miles out...you have to cross BLM land to get out there.) We actually arrived just after 7pm when they closed...but the wonderful missionaries there took us into the Visitor's Center and showed us where to go despite our lateness.

So on this map, we followed the river out toward Devil's Gate...just a mile hike. The other direction you can see goes a lot further out to Martin's Cove (that green trail & loop).

Saying goodbye to Devil's Gate at sunset...

Pretty Wyoming sunset...a perfect end to the day (and almost the end of the road trip...)