New Grandbaby at Dugway!

Well, our plans for staying in St. George were interrupted by a new granddaughter! We only stayed in St. George for three days. Then we got a call from Sarah saying she was going into the hospital on the 26th to be induced.

So, we got there in time to watch the kids while Ryan, Sarah, and Ryan's mom headed to the hospital. At that point, only Ryan new they were getting a little girl. Sarah didn't want to know when she had her ultrasound, but Ryan did. He had a lot of fun with his "secret" her whole pregnancy.

Lindee Rae was born at 11:37 am on April 26th. She was 6 lbs 10 oz and was 19 inches long, with ten fingers, ten toes, and everything else perfect! It didn't take her long to get here. Sarah was ready, although she was still almost three weeks from her due date.

Of course, as soon as Ryan and his mom got home that evening, we had to take off to the hospital to see her. They had a little bow in her hair and they told Sarah that she was the best baby in the nursery.

Grandpa was even brave enough to hold her for a little bit. They will be home tomorrow. You can look at Sarah's blog to see more pictures.

We are camped at a little mobile home park ten miles from Sarah. It is just a mile up the beginning of the Johnson pass going towards Rush Valley and Tooele. The temperature is usually about 5-10 degrees colder than at Sarah's. Most mornings and evenings we see wildlife in the park. There are only about ten trailers and most of them are permanent residents who work at Dugway or have retired from there.

We see turkeys quite often. One morning there was a tom turkey that was really strutting his stuff and had all of his feathers out. I had never seen a wild turkey with all of his feathers fanned out before. But, I didn't get a picture of him. We don't spend too much time at the park. We go to Sarah's almost every day.

Jenna and Luke are both playing soccer and are on the same team. We took them to a game the day that Lindee was born. We got the news that they had a new baby sister while we were at the game. After we told the kids, they had a hard time concentrating on the game. Jenna was especially excited to get a sister.

Luke made his first score of the season at that game and Jenna scored at the next game. They usually have two games a week, so we have been going to a lot of soccer games.

Lake Powell

This is our second trip to Wahweap Campground on Lake Powell near Page, AZ. The campground is actually about 50 feet from the Utah boarder. I put pictures on the blog last year, so I didn't know what I was going to do this time. Well, first off, we took our "official business card picture." As you might notice, it is also our new blog picture you see every time you open our blog. We ended up getting in the very same site at the campground that we had last year. It has a great view. We walked down to the marina where they rent the houseboats. There just happened to be an open house so we got to tramp around all of the houseboats they rent out. They are really something! Some of them even have hot tubs on the top deck!
Well, needless to say, we got hooked on them. We took this picture so the kids could see the one we are going to rent in two years. We told them we would rent the houseboat if they would pay all of the other expenses. We haven't heard from all of them, but so far, the response has been pretty enthusiastic. We are so excited, we have even talked to some of our friends about renting one next summer. So, if any of you reading this blog want to join us, let us know!

I just had to show you some of the wildlife. There are a lot of jackrabbits all over the campground. And when you walk the many trails around the area (which we did a lot of), there are even more. There are also rustlings in a lot of bushes as you pass and lizards running everywhere.

One day we had been walking and came to an overlook. Terry saw what he thought was a little rubber raft floating out in the lake. He didn't think there was anyone in it. It was a long ways off, but it looked like it might float to the bank at some point, so we decided to go on an adventure and see if we could get closer to it. You can't see it in this picture, but by the time we got very close to the water, it had gone around the point of these mountains.

We had to "shinny" up slick sides of limestone rock. (This wasn't the biggest one, but it was the only one I took a picture of.)We had to go around or through several of these crevices.
We thought for sure it had gone into this cove, but it hadn't. So, we climbed clear to the bottom of it and started our trek around the side of the lake, close to the water. That way, if we fell, we would only get wet. (I can't believe Terry was agreeable to keep going. I guess we had gone this far--he didn't want to give up!)
After we had walked about a half mile around the mountain, we finally spotted "the raft." It ended up being a large ice chest. It was brand new, still in the box. Except that the bottom of the box was gone because it had disintegrated as it got wet. The rope handles were still inside in a plastic bag.
We put the handles on and decided maybe we could, together, get it back to camp. It was a little crazy because most of the ledges we had walked around the lake on were only wide enough for one person to walk on. We considered jumping in the lake, hanging onto the cooler, and paddling back to camp. That may had been a valid alternative if it has been any hotter!
We finally make it around the lake and headed up the mountain, taking several "rest stops" along the way. As we got near one of the overlooks, there was a couple there who had driven up in their sporty little convertible. They watched us carrying this huge ice chest up the hill. I am sure they must have thought we were crazy or terribly hungry! Actually, when we got to the top, they asked us if we needed a ride. We told them our story and then I am sure they knew we were crazy. But, they did offer to put the top down on their little convertible and carry our "treasure" to the campground. We were pretty pooped, so we really appreciated that. They were from New Hampshire and when we told them from Idaho, they probably decided there were some strange people in that part of the country! We reported our find to the Ranger Station, gave them our phone number, and told them we were leaving Monday. We haven't heard from them, so I guess we are probably one ice chest richer!

Yesterday we went to the Glen Canyon Dam and took a tour inside the dam. It is the third highest dam in the United States and was finished in 1960. It was built for the purpose of controlling the waters of the Colorado River, along with about ten other dams, and for electricity. Because of it, we have Lake Powell.
We took an elevator from the Visitor's Center (on the left) down to the top of the dam and walked along the top. It took a little encouraging to get Terry to look over the edge, but he did.
This is looking straight down from the top on the river side of the dam. The eight generators are in the buildings at the bottom. The green grass (which is the size of two football fields) was suggested to be planted in the dirt and gravel that was there, by first lady Lady Bird Johnson. Our guide said that it took a woman's idea to create a job for a man to mow the grass once a week.
This is a picture looking straight up from the bottom of the dam to the visitor's center. We rode in an elevator that took over a minute to get to the bottom. That is quite a while to be in a moving elevator.
This is the bridge that spans the Colorado. They had to build it before they could start the dam. At the time, it was the longest expansion bridge that had been built. What a story! There were 18 men who lost their lives during the eight years of construction of Glen Canyon Dam.

Well, we leave tomorrow for St. George, UT. We are scheduled to stay there for two weeks, but that will all depend on Sarah. A week ago she spent the night in the hospital in Salt Lake City trying to have their baby, but her labor stopped and they sent her home. She is not due for another three weeks, so we will see how long we stay at St. George.

Verde Valley

CAMP VERDE

We camped at our Thousand Trails Preserve in Cottonwood, AZ, in Verde Valley. Jill and the kids followed us and stayed for a few days before they drove back to Las Vegas and caught the plane to go home.

There was a really nice pool and the weather was good enough for Jill and the kids to swim several times (Terry and I opted to just watch!)
Boe did some "aerials."
Kamber wasn't quite brave enough to jump in, but she had those legs a kicking!
We all played a little golf. I think Terry, Jill, and I all took a turn at being the winners. Boe got several "hole in ones" although no one ever saw him do it, so we just took his word for it.

Kamber had a technique all her own.
The kids had fun playing at the little playground. They usually get along pretty well together.

OUT OF AFRICA

One day we went to "Out of Africa." I took so many pictures that it was hard to decide which ones to put on the blog. It was a lot of fun. We spent all day there.
The first thing we did was take a "safari" ride where we got to feed a giraffe some carrots.
We sat in the very back seat of the open-windowed bus and there was this pesky ostrich who kept following us. We were a little afraid it would take a little nip out of us! It got really close with it's head right in our seats!
The zebras made really funny faces as they were being fed by our guide/bus driver.

I think on of the favorite things of the kids, at least Boe's, were the snakes. After learning all about them, they got to pet them. There was a huge yellow python and this boa. I think the tigers were my favorites. We went to a program where several workers "played" with them in a big pool of water. We stayed around until feeding time and followed the feed truck around. We were able to see all of the animals up close. I think the kids will talk about this for quite a long time.

PAYSON

The day before Jill left, we went to Payson and spent the day with Travis' family. We watched Nic and Nate each play a soccer game and then we went to Travis' new office. It is really nice.
We went back to their house and ate before we left to go home. Ryan was with us for the weekend, also. (He must have been filling his plate!)
This is Travis and Shannon's older boys, Spencer and Nathan.
Nicholas, Josh, Boe, and Kamber ate out on the deck. After playing some pinochle, we left Payson and went back to the campground. All of the kids left the next day. It sure was quiet being by ourselves again, but be kept busy sightseeing!

MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE NATIONAL MONUMENT

We went to Montezuma's Castle. It really is not a castle and King Montezuma was never there, but it was named that before the timeline was established, and the name just stuck.
A prehistoric culture called the Sinagua lived in the Verde Valley and built and lived in these cliff houses between 1100 and 1400. There is a stream down below it that they used to irrigate their crops. They used ladders to get up to their home and ladders to go between stories through holes in the roofs. It was really something to see and imagine up to 50 people living in these 19 rooms.

MONTEZUMA'S WELL

We also went to Montezuma's Well. It is a limestone sinkhole formed by the collapse of the ground into an underground cavern. It is spring-fed, but no one has been able to find the source of the water, which is always an even 74 degrees year-round. No fish live in it because it has too much carbon dioxide in it.
There are cliff dwellings that were built around it during the 1000's to 1400's.
There are also some cave dwellings around the bottom of it.
It was really amazing to think that people actually lived in these kind of homes.

Where the water comes out of the base of the well, it is very pretty and green. It has a constant flow of over 1,400,000 gallons a day, which is used for irrigation.

TUZIGOOT NATIONAL MONUMENT

The Tuzigoot Monument is the ruins of an entire community who built their homes of rocks, all sharing walls. It probably housed 250 people in about 100 rooms. The people didn't spend much time in their homes. They were outside most of the day, working and hunting.
They possibly built it on a hill to save the needed farmland and to watch for visitors coming into their valley.
The roofs, which were floors for the next story, were made from and supported with the Arizona sycamore trees that grow along the creeks. With no windows and such thick walls, they were cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
The rooms were all fairly small and some of them still had the clay pots buried in the floors for storage and there were still some maize grinders in some of them. I decided we have it pretty soft living in our nice RV!

SEDONA

We drove through Sedona one day. The red rocks are just beautiful. These pictures just do not do them justice!

I couldn't stop taking pictures. I think I must have taken at least 50!

JEROME

We also drove up to Jerome. It is a mining town that is built on a hill. It has been there since the late 1800's. It kind of reminded me of Bisbee down by Sierra Vista. It is pretty much a tourist town now. A cowboy singer/poet that entertained one night at our campground sang a song about Jerome and how "it is not where it used to be." I guess several of the buildings have kind of slid down the hill.
There was a ghost town above Jerome, up by the mine (which is still being worked). We went into the gift shop, but didn't go through the ghost town. There were very few vehicles in the parking lot and there were some kind of strange people hanging around, so we decided to just go back home.

We are now leaving Camp Verde Preserve in Cottonwood and are heading to Lake Powell in Page. The weather is in the 80's for a few days, but it is supposed to cool back down in the next few days. It is pretty nice weather when compared to the snow some of our kids are still getting where they live!