Zion National Park, UT (Wed.4/16)

The Canyon View hike is one of the first you come to as you enter the park. With a great view frequently comes a mom about too nervous to enjoy it.

For the afternoon, Mom, Shae and Kobe did a ranger's program and a couple hikes around the valley. Dad, Levi and Elan did Angel's Landing. This was the best hike I've ever been on. I snapped the photos but Elan wrote the story below.

Zion National Park was one of my favorite National Parks. Amazing rock formations carved from the Virgin River: Zion Canyon. Tall and magnificent cliffs of rock seem to touch the sky. One in particular, called Angel's Landing. Pretty name, right? Well the hike and the name are very different!

Me, Dad, and Levi, the hikers, took the challenge of this strenuous hike. It started out on a sandy trail following the Virgin River. The first ascent was fairly easy. Then, well, it's like this: If you cut open an anthill, there would be a network of tunnels going up and down. Except for us, it was only up. Whew! Hard work! After we finished that part, we went to an area where it seemed like we'd only gone 20 ft up. How demoralizing! Finally we arrived at Walter's Wiggles. Backtrack after Backtrack! About every step to the side was a step up! We were then at the place where the wimps turn back, and the brave (foolish!) go on! Now, I'd never forgive myself If I didn't go, so what could I do? Levi described the upcoming part, (the real Angels Landing) like this: “ A key of rock, you go over one hump, then there's another. And another. And.. well, you get the point. We climbed so close to the edge (an immediate drop 1500ft drop) you were clinging to the only thing that kept you from falling: the chains. I was very, well, petrified! At the top (which I can't believe we made it to) the view was so spectacular! I wish I'd have brought my camera! When you looked down, the road was no wider than your pinky! The wind was the only factor, which made it pretty cold, considering I only had a long sleeve! I can see why they call it Angels Landing. If I were an angel, I'd want to land up there.

the pics: Canyon View and Angels Landing

Glen Canyon Dam, Page, AZ (Tue.4/15)

Enough cement to make a 4 lane road from Phoenix to Chicago - it's a big boy. Glen Canyon dam regulates the flow of the Colorado River before it enters the Grand Canyon -- as it does, it creates Lake Powell, which has more shoreline than the entire west coast.

We enjoyed the Glen Canyon visitor center: a couple movies and lots to look at. It was too windy for a tour today – they didn't want anyone getting pushed off the dam. It was that windy. The boys enjoyed leaning into the wind with their arms out and their eyes closed (because of the sand) which would have been a bad combination at the top of the dam I suppose.

Elan, Shae and Kobe completed a junior ranger program and were sworn in for the badges again. We've got to work on knowing which hand to use. I think Kobe holds up his left hand as it's the thumb that he sucks – it helps dry it out a bit.

After the visitor center, we drove over the bridge and hiked around for a while – one organized hike (using the term loosely with our crew) and one spontaneous hike.

We went back to the visitor center to see one more movie. “Leave only foot prints” they say – that's what we did when Kobe emptied his shoes on the floor at the Dam movie.

It's all about power (1320 megawatts to be exact)

On our way home we took a back road to see the location where Gunsmoke was filmed. This one's for you, Grampaw!

Zion National Park, UT (Mon.4/14)

With a variety of sandstone cliffs it rivals Yosemite in beauty.

Top Left: Kim relaxing after we made it to the top of a little waterfall
Top Right: Kobe “relaxing” after getting to the same point
Bottom Left: further relaxing while hiking
Bottom Right: Kobe getting cooled off from the dripping water above

Our hikes led us to little waterfalls and incredible scenery

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT (Sun.4/13)

With no real churches in the area, we had church at home. Listened to “Life is like a cigarette, smoke it to the butt” by Steve Treichler – a great sermon kicking off the “Don't waste your life” series. When Trike (pastor Steve to the rest of 'ya) said “butt” - it was over... Kobe thought he had free license to say “butt” and “smoke it to the butt” -- we got to enjoy the sermon the rest of the day – or at least the title. Thanks Trike!

After church, we visited nature's church at Bryce Canyon. Shae dropped his walkee-talkee on the Queen's Garden Trail -- we bring these on hikes so the boys can communicate from 10 feet apart). It slid and bounced at least 40 feet over the edge. Dad recovered it and surprisingly it still works.

The edges made dad a bit nervous and there was a time when mom said they were all in my care and she couldn't watch.

The many columns in Bryce Canyon are called Hoodoos – well, it's official; the English language with about 1 million words, is all out of good ones.

Bryce Canyon - What a place – bright oranges with green and white snow!

Antelope Island, UT (Fri.4/11)

Antelope Island is accessed by a causeway extending well out into the Great Salt Lake (a bit of false advertising as we didn't see any Antelope).

We planned on biking (Shae still has his rubber band on his right pant leg), but the biking was not what we were expecting. It was either hard core mountain biking or go along the road with no shoulders. We stuck to the hiking.

Plenty of rocks to hike on – a boys' paradise

A number of buffalo crossed the road in front of us. Previously native to the area they were brought back a few years ago. There are hundreds of these oversized cows on the island that are rounded up once a year to inspect and to sell some to other ranches.

One of my duller ideas went like this “Hey boys you should at least touch the great salt lake before we go”. Normally the concern is someone(s) falling in and getting wet – not to be so lucky this time. The boys hit the mud at high speed and suddenly paused with the same surprised expression.

Nobody touched the water, but the smelly, slimy mud was covering the boy's shoes. Ending process: apologize to mom, place shoes in bed of truck, lift boys into front of truck. No one to blame but Dad on this one. A bit of a rough ending to a great time on Antelope!

Ogden & Salt Lake City, UT (Thur. 4/10)

The kids decided to have our own game of Olympics including Soccer and Disk golf.

Elan burst out the national anthem (I would have gotten a picture but I had my hand over my heart – what do you expect!). I just wonder what all the other campers thought, ah...

the Olympic soccer game – Kids beating parents by a score of 10 to 6.

the goalie can be the photographer – especially when the opponent's goalie looks like this.

We ate out – and this time it wasn't McDonald's. Prairie Schooner had chuckwagons fully decked out to eat in. We had some free appetizers of fried mushrooms. The burgers and steak were quite tasty and we had plenty of leftovers for another day.

The Mormon Tabernacle choir practices are open to the public so we drove to Salt Lake City to see them. Purposefully we didn't talk about the Mormon religion before going – deciding to touch on it after we went. The older boys knew a little – enough to be dangerous but that's about it. There was a math convention in town adding thousands to downtown and hundreds more to watching choir practice making a line to get in when the doors opened. As we're waiting in line, Shae loudly pronounces Mormon without the middle “m”. So the parents are immediately in cover mode – trying to correct, smother, distract, and not laugh at the same time. Embarrassing, but no worries really as you probably know Mormons are some of the nicest people you'll meet.

The place was packed. There were many stops and starts by the choir director, hardly hearing a song in its entirety. That's probably what most choir practices look like, I don't know. They were very good – filling the large room.

There are many differences between Mormonism and Christianity, but one thing we did talk about that night was how we are thankful that the Christian Bible stands up to full textual criticism – it's based off the original documents - where Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible goes against the 20,000 manuscripts. I know this will never convince someone to be a Christian, but it's a blessing that the Christian faith is strengthened rather than hindered by the facts supporting your cornerstone document of the faith.

WA, OR, ID, UT (Tue.4/8-Wed.4/9)

We had the opportunity to drive in a little blizzard (no sympathy expected from the Minnesota folks). I had to take an exit to adjust the headlights down – otherwise all I was seeing was snow falling (very pretty but every once in a while I like to see the lines I'm trying to stay between).

2 long travel days in store for us to get to Utah. We review states, capitals, and Presidents on travel days – the boys know them quite well... yeah!...better than dad does... sigh...

Cruising through Idaho

When Shae was looking at the US map, he explained “Alaska should not be part of the US, It should be part of Canada. It's way up there!” “And Hawaii that should be part of... of... the Pacific Ocean!” He was convinced we should have 48 states and these stragglers just did not belong.

Leberts, Seattle, WA (Sat.3/29-Mon.4/7)

It's rained a lot. I suppose you get used to the rain, but who wants to stick around and find out. It sounds like getting used to Minnesota winters – now what have you accomplished? Boston and New York both get more rain annually than Seattle but Seattle allows you to spread out a nice afternoon shower into a week long event. No thanks. With that complaint behind me, we greatly enjoyed Seattle, but mainly because of the Leberts.

The boys were addicted to the “Wii” and Portal (actually I was a bit addicted to Portal).

We played plenty of cards (Twins on in the background) with the Leberts as we had the Wii as a babysitter. Hand & Foot was the game of choice but the guys were smoked by the ladies 5 games to 2.

I was excited to go to Mars Hill and hear Mark Driscoll preach. The music was very... I'll call it edgy, but it's more than that, or maybe it's a Seattle sound. I'll never listen to “Come thou fount” the same again. A bit distracting as I'm not used to it, but it was good. The preaching was up my alley with a new series started on Theology – what Christians believe. One thing that I was really impressed with was the children's program. There were hardly any kids in the downtown church branch (one Sunday Shae and Kobe were each solo in their class) but they had a great program with worship time for the kids.

Seattle has lots of dogs, more than kids I've heard. But I don't know if that's right, my local count has us with 4 kids and the Leberts with two dogs. We went to a dog park and laughed out loud as Digory showed off his swimming skills. He would paddle as hard as he could to try to keep his head way out of the water.

Thanks, Leberts, see you in Minnesota in a few months.

Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA (Sun.3/30,Thur.4/3)

There was a fortune telling cat, many street performers, the high class and homeless. It was that kind of place (though I hadn't seen a fortune telling cat before).

You wouldn't believe all the people taking pictures of the first Starbucks coffee shop, pictures of their loved one in front of the first Starbucks – it was really annoying, those people need to get a life.

Kim and Elan coming out of the first Starbucks

The famous Pike Place Fish Market. We saw them throwing fish. I'm sure they drop them once in a while but not on our shift.

They toss them hard and grabbed them every time. It was fun to watch but the fish / crab was all pretty pricey.

Klondike Gold museum, Seattle, WA, (Fri.4/4)

Seattle was known as the gateway to the Klondike gold rush. From Seattle, people could take a boat up to Alaska and hoof it from there. One in five that left for the gold actually found any.

Here's the boys spinning the wheel. The yellow sliver represents the probability of striking it rich. The blue section for those who found any gold at all. The majority, orange, didn't even make it and most of these lost their life. Ah, the lure of money.

A good place for an hour or two. I didn't really know anything about Klondike gold rush before coming.

Our prospecting family

Trivia question: is Kim laughing or is she sucking a candy?. Place your vote?