Memorial Weekend Days 3 & 4: Great Basin National Park

On Sunday morning we had a family devotional.  Then we all took our camp chairs off to a quiet place and read a church book or church magazine.  Emily and Addy read The Friend together.  I found a lovely spot and sat and read my book for a few hours.  I might have dozed a little.  It was lovely.  It was quiet, peaceful, I had a wonderful view, and you can't tell from the picture but there is a lovely little stream providing the perfect soundtrack.

That afternoon we went to Lehman Cave.  We tried to tour it the day before but they were all sold out for the day.  We arrived early for our scheduled tour so we could go on the little nature walk around the cave.

 They had a little pamphlet at the cave that explained the different things you could find around the cave.  Emily acted as tour guide.

The original entrance to the cave.  I wish I had taken a picture of this entrance inside the cave.  It is literally a hole in the top of the cave that you drop down through.  I can't remember the exact year but I think this is the entrance they used for tours through the 1930's or 40's.  

Our tour guide "Ranger Austin".  I don't really know his real name but he reminded us all of our nephew and cousin Austin so we nicknamed him that.

 I almost backed out of this tour at the last minute.  I was already nervous about it.  Then to begin the tour we had to walk through this hugely long narrow tunnel to get into the cave (I think I would have preferred the original entrance better).  The door at either end of the tunnel was shut tight and I kept thinking, OPEN THE DOOR!  OPEN THE DOOR!  OPEN!  THE!  DOOR!  But the tour guide wouldn't open the dang door!  He kept blabbering on and on and on.  Then he asked how the tunnel was making us feel.  I wanted to scream out, "IF YOU WOULD OPEN THE DOOR IT WOULD MAKE ME FEEL A WHOLE LOT BETTER!!!!  OR YOU CAN STAND THERE AND IN ABOUT 10 SECONDS I WILL CHARGE YOU AND OPEN THE THING MYSELF!"  But I just stood there trying to remain calm gripping Steve's hand.  Ranger Austin S L O W L Y explained that they like to torture claustrophobic people by making them stand in that tunnel for extended amounts of time.  I was about ready to claw his face off.  He said he was just kidding.  ha.  ha.  freaking.  hilarious.  OPEN THE DOOR!  He then  S L O W L Y  explained that they use it as a test for claustrophobic people because if they are uncomfortable in the tunnel, they have the chance to turn around there and go back outside before getting too far into the cave.  I turned to Steve and told him I thought I should go out and wait.  He helped me to be brave though and I decided to stay.  Once I FINALLY got into the cave I was fine, except for a few tight squeezes we had to make.

After the cave tour we enjoyed a little ice cream on the lawn.

And the girls had fun wrestling.

 Addy took a break from wrestling for another lick of ice cream.

And then she was back in the middle of things.

There was a dog sitting on the lawn waiting while it's owners were taking a tour.  The entire time we were sitting there, Zac kept eyeing the dog.  I finally said, "You want to go over there and play with that dog don't you?"  He said yes.  So I told him to go on over.  Pretty soon all the kids were there loving on the dog.  

We had to stop for gas in the middle of nowhere.  Literally.

Back at camp we played some games.

Zac taught us a fun version of Frisbee.

Addy took one too many Frisbees to the head and she went to pout inside a sleeping bag.  Zac took care of that.

That night we went to a Dark Sky Program.  The Great Basin National Park is one of the few places left in the United States with a truly dark sky at night.  Their motto is, "Half the park is after dark."  It was a fun night and we learned a lot.  We were also able to look through a telescope and see Saturn.  It was so awesome!  It didn't look real.  We could see the planet and the rings around it.  It was so cool!

I didn't take this picture, I stole it off the internet, but here is a picture someone took at Great Basin.  We didn't see that many stars when we were there because we had some pretty cloudy nights, but what we did see was beautiful.

Monday, Memorial Day

We had cell phone coverage for a brief moment the day before when we were getting gas in the middle of nowhere.  During that brief moment we found out that there were some people trying to get a hold of us.  Steve's two Uncles, Dave and George were in town.  Not the town we were in at the time, but the town where we would be returning to once our trip was over.  It has been over 15 years since he has seen them.  Everyone was getting together Monday evening at his Uncle Harold's house.  We were so glad we got this message.  Otherwise we would have packed up and left just a few hours too late.  We woke up early Monday morning and started packing up camp so we could get on the road and get home.

The town's stop sign

On our way out of town we had to stop at the Visitor's Center so Aubrey and Addy could be sworn in as Jr. Night Rangers.  They had completed a packet they received the night before.

 It was a long drive home.  We were excited to get to this sign, but we still had a ways to go.

We passed this interesting tree on our way out on Friday and I had to take a picture on our way back.  Those are shoes hanging on the tree.

And we made it!  Just barely.  We got home, showered real fast like and left for Harold's house.

Uncle Dave, Uncle George, Aunt Callie, Uncle Harold

These are Steve's mothers siblings.  Steve's mom, Myrle, passed away 24 years ago.

Aunts, Uncles and the cousins that were present (plus Zac)

The next generation

 Hey!  It's us!

Steve and his cousin Steve who was visiting from California

Telling fun stories of their younger years growing up in Blanding Utah.  And we also got to hear some Cowboy Poetry.

We had a wonderful weekend topped off with a wonderful night.  It was so fun to visit with family and hear fun stories.  I am so thankful for the  family God has given me and for the fun memories we were able to make together last weekend.

Click here for days 1 & 2

Memorial Weekend Days 1&2: Great Basin National Park

 Steve has been wanting to go camping since the end of January.  I have been wanting to go camping since mid February (because I'm a tad bit more sensical that way-it was in the single digits here most of January).  When the camping fever hit me though, it hit me hard!  I have had this burning desire to forgo the things of the world that keep me moving at light speed most days, and sit by a campfire and  just be, with my family all around me.  Unfortunately in mid February when I was hit with the camping bug, we had something on our calendar every weekend all the way through Memorial Day weekend.  Steve and I decided that no matter what came up, when May 23rd rolled around, we were packin' up and getting the heck outta Dodge.  I've just been biding my time since then.   Steve did some research and found a lovely National Park that we have never been to: Great Basin National Park.  

 Finally the day came!  Life was pretty hectic up to the very moment we sat in the truck and drove away.  When we told our children on Thursday that they were going to get to  skip school on Friday so we could get away early, they freaked out.  But not in the way I was expecting.  All four of them wanted to go to school???  Steve and I couldn't quite make sense of that one.  Zac is the only one who had a valid reason for wanting to attend school that Friday (I can't believe I even just typed that sentence).  He is on an A/B day schedule at school and Friday would be his last real day in Machine and Art and he had projects that needed to be finished and could only be finished in the actual classroom.  We relented and let Zac go to his first and second period classes.  He went to school early enough that by the time we were loaded up and ready to go, so was he.  We forced the poor girls to stay home from school and help us load up.  

When we got there we found a lovely campsite that was just perfect for our family.  We don't like to camp near people and our nearest neighbors were a mile away in either direction.  It was a beautiful campsite with a lot of trees and a lovely bubbling brook in the back half.  That night for dinner, we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, beans and corn on the cob that we roasted over the fire for the first time ever.  We all agreed that that was the absolute best way to eat corn and that from here on out, we would forevermore roast our corn over a campfire before consumption.  Zac is the best marshmallow roaster ever in the whole history of marshmallow roasting.  He seriously spent a full 15 minutes roasting this mallow to perfection.  He definitely does not inherit that kind of patience from me.  

Our family's most favorite thing to roast over a campfire is Starbursts.  Oh yes, quite the delightful treat.  The girls have turned it into an art form as you can see in the next two pictures.

On Saturday we set out for a beautiful hike that was to be the grand event of the whole trip.  We would be hiking the Alpine Lakes Loop Trail.  A lovely little hike that would take us not by one, but by two beautiful pristine mountain lakes.  We took the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive to get to the trail.  The higher up we went on the mountain, the colder it became.  We stopped at a scenic overlook and the girls couldn't resist the urge to get a little planking in.

When we arrived at the general vicinity of the trail head, we had a bit of trouble locating it.  Mostly because it was COVERED IN SNOW!  What???  No one told us it would be like that!

Emily decided she wanted a pet squirrel and so she tried to camouflage herself as a tree in order to attract one.  I tried to tell her that even if by a long shot her plan worked, did she really want a squirrel jumping onto a tree branch in her face?  But in typical Emily fashion, I don't even think she heard me talking to her.  Zac, our resident winter enthusiast was in heaven the entire time.

 Aubrey lost a shoe deep in the bottom of a snow drift.

Addy found a few places where the snow was a little too deep for her.

Despite the conditions, it was absolutely gorgeous.  The pictures just don't do it justice.  I felt like I had just walked into an absolute winter wonderland.  It made me crave Christmas right there in the middle of May.  This was an awesome picture with Wheeler Peak in the background but some people were not cooperating and by the time everyone was in place the Peak was covered with clouds (it did rain on us a tad).

 We did our best, but there came a point when :

A) We were just too darn cold and wet

and 

B) There was just too much snow and we could not find the trail

So we decided to start heading back.  Zac, who was having a blast, wanted to go on.  I'm sure he would have done just fine if he had.  But instead he carried his little sister out since her feet were frostbitten by that point.

We found a picnic area and stopped for lunch.  The sun came out and it was lovely.  And bonus: there was leftover firewood in the fire pit.  So we got a warm and toasty fire going.

It took some convincing, but we finally got Addy to give us her soaking wet jeans so we could hang them out to dry.

 I'm not gonna lie.  I was huffing and puffing my way along on the hike.  

This might have something to do with it.  The elevation where we live is a measly 4,304 ft.

Next stop?  Some caves featuring Fremont Indian pictographs.  

 And some more recent carvings: circa 1906

 Twiners!

We decided to take an adventurous route back to camp.  

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood....and we totally took the wrong one!  That's OK though, we finally found our way home.  And as soon as we got back onto the main road, we looked back and saw a sign stating "Authorized Vehicles Only".  All I'm sayin' is, there was no sign like that back where we started!

 Let's play Frisbee:

A) Right over the top of mom's head

B) Right over the raging fire

C) All of the above

Since they chose C) All of the above, and I was not OK with that, I made them take it out to the road.  This turned out to be the perfect place to play and many many more games of Frisbee were played here over the next few days.  Zac might not have inherited his marshmallow roasting patience from me, but there are some things he did receive from my gene pool.

Hobo dinners and banana boats for dinner that night!

This was my absolute most favorite part of the whole trip.  It was what I had been craving for months.  A roaring campfire (courtesy of Emily)  and  no TV, no computers, no iPods, no cell phones, no appointments, no meetings, no laundry to fold - no where to be but present.  And I was surrounded by my most favorite people in the whole wide world.  I was in Heaven!

That night we did get all snugly in the camper and watched Walter Mitty.  Actually Steve and Zac watched Walter Mitty.  The rest of us couldn't stay awake that long.

Days 3&4 coming soon to a blog near you!