In Which We Go Camping With 33% of the Grandchildren

In light of the fact that Paul and Bethany and their family have relocated to Utah, we decided that it was time to put our camping equipment choices to the test: "we must buy this trailer because it has these extra beds for the grandchildren."  Grace and Alice are now old enough (and responsible enough) to come on a camping trip with us.

So we saddled up and went to Smith and Morehouse campground in upper Weber canyon.  We set up said trailer and began the adventure. It turned out that the trailer DID have the right number of beds for the grandkids.

 

We warmed up a fire pit (no restrictions yet)...

...and put on the dogs.  Both girls were pretty good about cooking over the fire and eating campfire food. Of course, it is hard not to like Nathan's hot dogs. Not shown are the ears of corn we steamed right in the husks. Delish.

 

After dinner we went up to the reservoir to see if the fish were jumping and to see if there would be stars.  Winners on both issues.

We ended the evening playing "Authors" in the trailer.  So nice that all of us can read the cards.  I'm sure someone won.

We had tickets the next day for Timpanogos Cave, which those of you familiar with a map will realize are not right next to each other.  The extra driving turned out to be fortunate, however, because we ended up stopping in Heber to get some non-pinchy shoes for Miss Alice. Grace worked on her photobombing skills, which are already prodigious.

Before heading up the trail, we fortified ourselves with the picnic lunch of champions: string cheese, naan, lunch meat, cucumbers, fruits, etc.

The trail was 7800 feet long.  The ranger told us.  And they had little copper buttons in the pavement every 100 feet so we could gauge our progress.  

Both girls (and the grandparents) were good hikers. Nary a grumble nor a murmur the whole way up. Here we are near the top. And still smiling. Mostly.

The cave was relatively unchanged from the last time we saw it, which was when the girls' father was about Alice's age.  Most of it was relatively unchanged from the last 750 million years, so there's that.

After the cave, we rested a bit.

Then a bit more.

Then headed down the hill.

Some of us rested a bit more in the car.

For a reward, we stopped in Kamas for a world-class burger at Hi Mountain Drugstore.  Really one of the best ever.  The secret ingredient might have been hunger...

Cookie dough shakes were also the order of the day.  Hey, there has to be some reward for all of that hot hiking.

 

We played more games in the trailer, and then read books by lantern light until our eyes fell out of our heads.  The next morning we got up to fish.  First time for the girls.

 Alice was the first to catch a fish, but everyone caught several.  They were too small to keep, though.

Both of the girls got the hang of casting and had a fun time practicing.

Not too much expensive tackle got lost, and it was a record low amount of cussing for Grandpa.

 

 We went back to camp, closed down the trailer and headed home over the Alpine loop.  It was a pretty windy road, and jam-packed with other nature lovers, but it was a pretty drive.

So with one successful trip in the bag, we all decided we should plan another one! Can't wait for the other grandkids to get older.  So many places to explore, so little time.

Some Random Pictures Not Previously Made Fun Of

Charlie played African drums at Hogle Zoo.

 

 Grace and Alice got in on the gig, too.  Everyone chose a drum suited to their size.

 

 For Mother's Day, Terisa got a tower o' chocolate. Amongst other swag.

 

Shifting gears, here is the coral pool at Baltimore's aquarium.  Well stocked, well cared for aquarium.

Yes, that's a real shark.  And so is the fish in the tank.

Fort McHenry was cool, even in the rain. In the plan view, it is star-shaped.  If you remember your history, it was the assault on Fort McHenry that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the star-spangled banner.  The assault took place on a stormy day (and night), just like this.

 

The fort's cannons couldn't really reach the ships in the harbor, which were about 2 miles out.  And you really couldn't see more than a few dozen yards in this rain.

This is what they would have seen. Fog.  Still, they kept firing and making it so the ships couldn't advance up the river to support the troops waiting to attack Baltimore.   So the attack never happened and Baltimore was saved.

 Fort McHenry was mobbed by grade school field trips.  Mobbed is not too strong a word.

 

I found this tomb, though my own fascination with him was limited to a few months early in junior high school when I read all of his gruesome and grotesque stuff obsessively.  But he was definitely an odd dude.

After seeing the grave, I thought I would walk over to the house he was living in when he died.  It was in a bit of a sketchy neighborhood. I didn't stay long.  

Not sure where this spelling comes from.

The Orioles were my favorite team when I was about 8. I'm not sure why, except I wrote a report on the Eastern Oriole about that time. Cause or effect?  Anyway, the field at Camden Park is beautiful.  The game, what we could see of it between the fans in motion all around us, was kind of slow, going to the Os 1-0 on a 7th inning homer.

 I stopped in to see this drunkfest in a park.  99 booze concessions, 2 food concessions.  And I felt very old in this crowd.

 The Baltimore and Ohio RR museum had this collection of watches.  If you were a railroad man, you had to have an accurate timepiece, though you had to buy it yourself.

The first real engine was this vertical boiler engine called Tom Thumb.  Fun fact:  the B&O railroad was the first in the US, and ended up pioneering just about everything about railroads. In fact, it was the B&O RR where stationary (civil) engineering split off of mechanical engineering.

Other fun fact: it was a train about like this that went through Ogden late one night (?) that helped inspire me to become a mechanical engineer. Air planes and space ships helped too.

Why Birthdays Should Come More Than Once a Year

Lynne and Addy came to Utah the week of Tamma Terisa's birthday (amongst others: happy birthday, Bethany!) and took Tampa to the aquarium.  There were some fish and some penguins and sharks and fish.  And colored birds.

 And colorful poison frogs in an aquarium.

Addy hauled her toy collection around the house in the largest container she could move. She practiced collecting eggs.  Then, too soon, it was time for her to move on to her next engagement in Ogden Valley. She left the toys and the eggs for us to use for Easter festivities.

For Terisa's birthday we took a long weekend down in Moab.  Yes, it was during Spring break, and yes, the jeep safari was gearing up, but it was a birthday; we had to go.  On her birthday we hiked Negro Bill's Canyon.  After we hiked up to Morning Glory Arch, we bushwhacked through a small side canyon to find this little gem of a waterfall.

On Saturday we drove to the Needles District of Canyonlands to hike the Chesler Park loop trail and the Joint Trail. We had never spent much time in Canyonlands before and it felt very adventurous. We started off in parkas in the morning.

As you might expect for a  national park, the views were stunning.

The trail wound through fins and joints and formations.

The trail was well-marked and reasonably uncrowded. I guess the spring break crowds might not get out this far...

We hiked for miles,

and miles,

 and miles.

 

Then we climbed down a staircase to the Joint Trail: over a half mile of a 3-foot wide trail between the fractured faces of 40-foot tall boulders. 

 Like a slot canyon without all of the scour turns, but just flat, straight walls rising up to the blue sky 40 feet above.

There were rock falls to negotiate

and boulders to squeeze between.

Sometimes we couldn't tell how we were going to get out.

Also, we found the cairn factory at the end of the Joint Trail.

Then we completed the loop. The formations were spectacular.

There were lots of trees, mostly Pinyon Pine and Juniper.

The landscapes are as alien as any other place on the Colorado Plateau. Notice Terisa is wearing a t-shirt in the afternoon. Overall we had a great 10-mile hike.  Unfortunately the trail was 11 miles long. Just kidding, we made it energy to spare.

On the way out, tired and sore, we still stopped at Newspaper Rock.  By now the sun had set and we were bundling up again.

On Sunday, we took the diversion we have been meaning to take for 35 years: through Nine Mile Canyon. Chock full of petroglyphs, pictographs and Fremont culture. It seemed like every surface had pre-historic graffiti on it. Or messages about aliens.  Hard to tell.

Also, there was a picture of a pregnant buffalo.

A fun week and weekend made us wish birthdays came around more than once a year. We are already planning the next adventure.