A Museum Full of Airplanes!

Eden, UT

Yesterday we took several hours out of the middle of our school day and went to see the Aerospace Museum on Hill Air Force base. It was something I just found on one of my 'free stuff to do ' google searches that I do at each new place we go to. And it was really amazing. We are well into the traditional school year by now and for one of my sons the SAT is looming ever more near, only three weeks away in fact, so one could make the argument that a field trip just now to look at a bunch of airplanes was unwarranted and perhaps unwise and definitely an interruption to our school day routine, but I think that field trips are always a great idea.

Our kids stood underneath a B-17 bomber while their dad explained where each member of the crew sat and what his job was. (Is it redundant to say B-17 "Bomber?" The B stands for bomber, doesn't it?) Fionnula asked why would someone fly a helicopter instead of an airplane and how did they fly anyway, and luckily Kris was there to competently answer that question because my knowledge on the topic is vague at best. They saw a reproduction of the Wright Brother's 1903 flyer. There was a detailed display about the Vietnam war and specifically POWs. We watched a short video about Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber. We saw one plane that is in the midst of being reconstructed and watched as another that is on display outdoors was being repainted. Liam decided on a new favorite plane. Fionn decided she wanted to learn more about the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). And we all learned the name of the B-29 that did the weather reconnaissance over Japan and determined that the atomic bomb could be dropped. Now there is a fabulous piece of historical trivia for you. I know they also read and watched things that I missed.


If I was concerned about following a specific curriculum or scope and sequence, this short trip to a museum was definitely a bit all over the place. But we were mostly thinking that airplanes are cool and free museums are cool and taking a break from math on a computer is cool. The fact that Fionn came home and looked up articles and books on the WASP and that we started to put together a list of World War 2 movies to see was just a bonus.

Still Exploring in Southern Utah

Cedar City, Utah

This was our last week in Cedar City, Monday we head back to Colorado to meet another returning missionary, to visit Grandma and Grandpa for a couple weeks, and to get all our teeth cleaned. We had already done the big sites here that were within a reasonable distance and our options for adventures this week were: to go back and explore further in favorite places we had been, to commit to 3 hours or so in the car to get to destinations a little further off, or to find more obscure locales in which to adventure. With the encouragement and advice of Cheryl and Rob (or maybe Ron?), who we spoke with briefly in the hot tub at the local pool, we chose option three. Did I mention we purchased a one month membership to the Cedar City Aquatic Center? Well we did, and it has been fabulous and not only because of the travel tips provided by locals in the hot tub. Though I have to admit that, while I did get in a few laps here and there, most of my pool time was pretty lazy stuff.

So, this week we saw:

An abandoned iron pit mine, affectionately referred to by the locals as "2000 Flushes," because of the bright blue water that filled the pit when the mine struck underground water. As is becoming standard out here, the road in was a relatively rough dirt road that google maps did not even know existed. The plan was to hike down into the mine a bit and get closer to the water. The reality was that there were multiple groups out shooting nearby and there were so many spent shotgun shells on the ground that it was impossible to walk without stepping on at least some. The place was used as a convenient dump and just down the hill from where we stood were things like broken microwaves and a burnt out old car. And also there was a dead cow. For reals. So, in the end we took a picture and left.

The remains of an old mining town, creatively named: Old Iron Town. As far as ghost towns go, it was pretty sparse in actual buildings, but there was a short little trail weaving around and through the ruins and explanatory signs at each to help those of us who don't know what an arrastra is (basically, its a mill).   There were the remains of one house and a handful of industrial remains, like a chimney from the foundry, a mill for grinding sand (the arrastra), and most impressively a huge furnace for making charcoal to heat the iron. All pretty cool stuff, but I think our kids were most impressed by the jack rabbits they spotted out on the edges of the site. Those were some big bunnies.

Lava tube caves: Utah's Mammoth Caves, which are just holes in the ground from the outside but huge caverns once you venture inside. The only real caves I have ever been in before are Carlsbad Caverns. These are no where near that size, but they also are not artificially lit, so once we went through the opening and then around a corner it was completely and totally dark. We all had flashlights, but they lit only a little path right around us, even standing near the opening still, the light penetrates only a little way into the cave. We turned all of our flashlights off a couple times just to experience the intense darkness. Supposedly there is a way out at the end of the main cave, but we didn't go that far, the further back we got, the more the floor was littered with large lava rocks that made walking difficult, the drippier the walls and ceilings became, and the lower the ceiling was getting with still no end in sight, so we turned back to the entrance. One of the side caves, Ronan did climb all the way through, the last quarter crawling on his belly out the other end, but the rest of us again went out the way we came in.

Lava Flows. Pretty much the whole canyon was full of lava, and we stopped at two great places to view the immensity of it all. First at a canyon overlook near the caves where groves of aspens were looking spectacular in their fall foliage against the lava rock landscape. Next we drove out along possibly the scariest dirt road yet at the bidding of a tiny wooden sign reading: "Lava Flow," to view acres and acres of lava rocks as far as we could see.  I sincerely never expected to see lava anything in the Rocky Mountains of Utah.

Short Trips near St George

Cedar City, Utah

Thursday we went to a few more places on our 'short trips' list. There is no official list, its in our heads. But there are a handful of things we have read about or seen pictures of that we want to go see but which are not all day trips on their own. Thursday happened to be a day that we needed to go back to St George. Again. Because Cedar City has no Costco. Or Target. Or lots of things. So it seemed like a good chance to also see a few things that we had a vague idea were near St George.

First was the Glitter Pit. Or Sparkle Mountain. Whichever name you like, it is part of a once abandoned gypsum mine. I say 'once abandoned' because everything we saw online said it was abandoned, but signs at the actual site would indicate that that is not accurate and that it is indeed owned and the owners have all rights to the gypsum located there. It was however empty when we got there with no indication that anyone was actively mining it or taking precautions other than a sign to keep anyone from at least exploring the pit. So we did. The dirt that has been dug up and then piled in hills all around the pit it was removed from really does glitter and sparkle in the sun as it is absolutely full of loose pieces of gypsum. It looks like piles of broken glass. And down in the pit, the red rock wall is broken up by a huge vein of pure white gypsum. Funny that on the wall it looks bright white, but the small pieces when separated from the wall are clear like glass. All this sparkling beauty and it turns out that the main use for gypsum is in dry wall of all things.

After exploring the mine pit for a while we headed off to stop number two, the Warner Valley Dinosaur tracks. The glitter pit is just barely over the Arizona border outside of St George. The dinosaur tracks are near Hurricane Utah. As far as I can tell the only route to those dinosaur tracks though is a long dirt road heading north from pretty much where we were. It started out relatively friendly but became increasingly rough as we went. There were several places where the road is obviously at least occasionally under water. It was a super pretty drive though and we barely saw another soul the whole way. Luckily the dino track site is marked, so we parked and walked out to it. Dinosaur tracks in red rock ground. Exactly as promised. Somehow it is especially cool to see them there on the ground as compared to seeing a piece of rock with a print on it in the museum.

The last visit of the day, if you don't count hamburgers and Costco I guess, was the Brigham Young winter home in St George. Its exactly what it sounds like. A tour of an old house with some church history thrown in. We met missionaries from Texas and Canada and Ireland. And learned that pomegranates can grow in St George, a fact that I am sure has contributed to Kris's desire to live there. They have palm trees, it doesn't snow, they grow pomegranates. Basically it is paradise on Earth.

Bryce Canyon

Cedar City, Utah

Tuesday's trip was to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was amaaaazing! We made sure to wear long pants and real shoes and even brought light weight jackets this time so we would have no need to abort the whole trip. For at least part of the day we were glad to be better prepared. It wasn't super cold or particularly windy, but it is plainly not summer anymore and there was still a chill in the air.

The main feature of the day was the Queen's Garden trail. We stopped at the visitor's center when we came in and debated whether or not to use the optional shuttle to get to our trail head. We were even in line for the shuttle when Liam noticed a sign telling us to move our car from the main parking lot before boarding a shuttle as the visitor's center parking was restricted to one hour only. So we walked back to our car, intending to move it, but decided instead to drive on to the trail and just see if maybe there was enough parking. There was. Our trail began at Sunrise Point and there were (luckily) signs leading us there from the parking lot, so off we went. There is a fabulous canyon view from Sunrise Point, they call it the amphitheater though and say 'canyon' is wrong. I thought amphitheater was 'outdoor theater,' I guess that isn't all it is. It is also a canyon full of cool stuff to look at, in this case hoodoos, a word I love. The view from above, though, was quickly overshadowed as we descended on the trail down into the canyon and actually walked among the rock formations. The queen of Queen's Garden, by the way, is a pink formation named Queen Victoria. I am still unsure why she gets a garden in southern Utah.

The trail winds back and forth and loops around and through the hoodoos and cliffs below. In some places the ground drops a bit dramatically off the side of the trail. At one point, we were stopped at a drop off where the ground beside the trail was just a lot of loose sand cascading between giant rock formations. We could see that our trail went around a curve ahead of us and continued way below us. Liam, gazing at the steep landscape between us and that trail far below jokingly asked; "Is that the trail down there? Why don't we just walk that way then?"  An older woman nearby overheard him and said firmly "Because you would die!" Then, perhaps deciding she was being a bit extreme, added; "Because your Grandma wouldn't want you to!" Haha. We stayed on the trail, for grandmas everywhere.

So we wandered along the Queen's Garden trail and then took the Navajo Loop off of it that took us to see a couple land bridges and through a few tunnels and then back up a steep, back and forth, trail reminiscent of San Francisco's 'crookedest street in the world,' (only we were going up... and walking) and up to Sunset Point. But there was construction at the view point and we were asked to wait 10 minutes before we could pass, in that 10 minutes we noticed that another trail was ending here also, and looking down that trail we could see that it went through a slot canyon way below us. So after climbing all the way up, we climbed back down the other trail so we could go through the canyon at what was, I think, the end of the Under the Rim Trail. It was awesome! We didn't continue on the trail but came back up the way we went down, giving us a chance to walk through the narrow canyon twice.

We finished our day in the park by driving the road up to Rainbow viewpoint and then coming back down stopping at most of the viewpoints along the way. The highlight of the viewpoints was probably the Land Bridge, but seeing things from up above was nothing in comparison to walking down among them.

Shakespeare!!!!!

Cedar City, Utah

Some months ago when we were laying out our plans for the summer we determined that after we dropped off Noah and Amik at school, and before we picked up Erin in Colorado Springs at the end of her mission, we  would spend a whole month just chilling in one place. There was a time when we had thought we would continue the road tripping life and head to the east coast, but when it came down to realistic plans we just knew that one month wasn't enough time to see and do half of what we wanted to in, and on our way to, the east. Also, our pre-BYU I plans had been rearranged to get us back to Boise in early August for a quick family reunion weekend and so we had missed seeing some of the National Parks we had hoped to see. And that is how we ended up in a house in Cedar City Utah for the month of September. Where we could rest a little from so much moving about, where Ronan could more seriously study for the SAT (hopefully), and where we could get to and from a few of Utah's national parks. I was just disappointed that we were too late for the Utah Shakespeare Festival that Cedar City hosts every summer. Except guess what? We weren't. They have plays going into October, and this year, one Shakespeare play would still be playing while we were here; A Midsummer Night's Dream. This became one of our exceptions to cheap and free activities and we bought tickets to a matinee performance. Wednesday was our scheduled play. I had given the kids a brief synopsis of the story of the play, but when I asked them if they wanted to read it or watch a version Liam was adamant that his 'first experience' with it be seeing the play itself.

The Shakespeare Festival is held on the SUU campus here. Its a relatively small university I think, but it appears to have a pretty amazing arts complex, including a Globe Theatre! Sadly our play was not in the Globe, but the little theatre it was in next door was very nice. As we approached the doors we were greeted by an older lady who asked if we already had our tickets. We explained that they were on our phones and she questioned if they could be scanned from phones. Yes they could (we had actually called way back when we first bought them to be sure that this was a possibility since we travel without a printer), she looked doubtful and said "we are all old here you know." Despite her doubts she was very intrigued by this technology and personally escorted us in the doors and around to the other side to explain to a handful of other white haired ladies that "these people have their tickets on their phones and they say you can scan them from there!" This generated quite a bit of excitement and momentary panic from the woman with the scanning device when she couldn't get it to turn on because she "really wanted to be the one to do this!" But, no worries, she got it to turn on and then it did indeed successfully scan the tickets right off Kris's phone and there was much rejoicing among her comrades. Haha.

We were seated next to what appeared to be at least three middle school classes on a field trip. My reaction when we run into school groups while out on an adventure is complex; on the one hand I am annoyed that they are invading my happy homeschooling world, but on the other I am impressed by the school that is doing something so cool as to hike through a national park or attend a Shakespeare play in the middle of a school day. They were loud. So, so loud. And Liam was seated right next to them, he has come a long way from the days when we had to put noise blocking headphones on him to keep him from crying when a family game of charades got to be too much, because he was able to just block them out and read his book until the lights went down. And, to their credit, they ceased to be noisy once the play started.

The play was fantastic. The words were pure Shakespeare, the costumes and mannerisms were American jazz age. The actress who played Helena gave me an appreciation for the character I have never actually had before and Puck was, of course, absolutely brilliant. I had assured my family before we went that seeing the play would make the words so much easier to understand and they did indeed laugh in all the right places and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I would love to return next summer for The Merchant of Venice. Or Othello. Or both.

Cedar Breaks and Parowan Gap

Cedar City, Utah

It is no longer summer. For reals. We have had to change our plans several times in the past two weeks because of weather. And on Tuesday, we should have changed our plans, but didn't. Or rather didn't until it was literally forced upon us.

We were going to Cedar Breaks National Monument. I had never heard of it before picking up a map at the local pool, it looked cool, we have a parks pass, we decided to go. So I Googled a couple hikes of the under 5 mile kind and Tuesday morning we packed our lunches, donned our usual shorts and sandals, loaded into the car, set the GPS and were on our way. Its only about 40 minutes from Cedar City, which is probably why I didn't think to check temperatures before we left. The visitor's center is also at about 10,000 feet. As we got closer, the car kept reminding us of the outside temperatures which rapidly dropped from over 60 to below 45 by the time we parked. Kris and I had windbreakers/ raincoats. Only because he always brings them. For both of us. Not because of any preparation on my part. But none of the kids had any sort of coat and all were wearing shorts and t-shirts. And it wasn't just 42 degrees out, it was also windy enough out to knock a small child over. And that wind was straight from the arctic I swear.

Still pretty, even in the cold.

We scrapped the hikes and instead stopped at each overlook and then back down the other side of the mountain, through the recent burn area of the Brian Head fire, and on the longest route possible to Parowan, Utah where we knew we could find the Parowan Gap and dinosaur tracks and Petroglyphs. Good save I say.

One of many petroglyph panels in Parowan Gap.

Zion National Park

Cedar City, Utah

This week we went to Zion National park. We had planned to do Zion Canyon on Tuesday, even though we were feeling discouraged because we were reading that even though it is September, the park is still busy enough to require the use of shuttles in the most popular areas. And that meant Zion Canyon.

Heading into Kolob Canyon

We had had high hopes that with kids being back in school we would see lots fewer visitors in the parks. Then we left later than planned that morning (always, I know). Then we realized that the park entrance was further from our home in Cedar City than we thought. Basically it all  added up to us feeling generally a little grouchy and negative about the whole endeavor. So we changed our plans en route to the park. Instead of heading to the main entrance we decided to spend our day in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park, and that turned out to be the cure to all our grouchiness.

In Kolob we first stopped at the visitors center to show our pass and officially be allowed in to the park. The truth is, this is totally an honor system since it would be super easy to drive on past the parking lot and into the park. We weren't issued any kind of pass to hang in our window either. But we are honest people (who also have a parks pass and so didn't actually have to pay anything anyway) and also this was our last chance at flushing toilets after all. That's probably how they ensure honesty really, the lure of the flushing toilets.

View from the overlook

First we drove to the end of the canyon road and then walked about a mile to a park overlook. Then we drove back down the same road to a trail head back close to the entrance, the Taylor Creek Trail. The trail followed along the creek the whole way. Eventually Liam and Fionn mostly gave up walking on the trail and just walked down the middle of the creek, which was basically ankle deep the whole way.

First half got a little warm, but as we got further into the canyon there was more shade and more trees. Eventually we arrived at a huge canyon wall with two partial arches. The canyon walls were, I am guessing, the source of the creek, as they were leaking water from above. We ate lunch there, took our pictures and then turned around and hiked right back the way we had come. The whole hike was right about 5 miles and we were all very thirsty by the time we were done. Note: one small bottle of water each for a five mile hike just does not cut it, we've proven that twice now.

The lower arch of the double arch

Thursday was our day for Zion Canyon, and after our relaxing day in Kolob Canyon we were ready! Then we awoke Thursday to a persistent thunderstorm that showed no signs of letting up. And it didn't until about 3 that afternoon. So we did Zion on Friday! We had to park outside of the park and take a shuttle into the park, where we had to catch another shuttle to take us up the canyon to everything we wanted to see and do. It wasn't quite Yosemite, but it was sometimes uncomfortably crowded both on the shuttles and on the trails. The shuttles though were much more dependable than those in Yosemite. We never waited more than 5 minutes for one. Not even when we got on going the wrong way, had to get off at the next stop and wait for another to come along going our way. By the way, there are only two ways the shuttles can be going; up the canyon or down the canyon, there is only the one road. Sometimes we don't read signs well. 

Looking out from under weeping rock

First we stopped at the Three Patriarchs, which was just a quick walk up from our shuttle stop and back to catch the next one going by. Then we hiked the Emerald Pools Trail, which goes up and up and up past emerald pools 1 and 2 and 3, each formed by water falling over the canyon wall and each one harder to get to than the last with the hike to the last pool being really quite challenging for such a well traveled trail. Next we saw weeping rock, where water seeping through the rock falls like raindrops from a cliff overhang and you can actually stand in the alcove and watch it fall in front of you. And finally we walked the mile River Walk at the end of the canyon. The walk leads to The Narrows, where lots of people go ahead and continue their hike right up the river. As in they walk IN the river, there really is no trail anymore. But we did not have shoes for river walking and instead just played by the water and then caught  our bus back to the entrance and then another back to our car and headed home to our crockpot dinner. I love it when the rental houses have a crockpot and I have the foresight to actually use them.

Two Weeks on the Road

Langley, BC, Canada

It has only been two weeks since we left my mother's with a trailer full of stuff destined for the apartments of our grown children. We have since delivered said stuff and shed the trailer, we travel now in a Honda Pilot and all our stuff has to fit in there with us. We are really doing it. It has been a fantastic two weeks:

We walked trails in Ogden and Missoula and Langley. (In fact we got ourselves stuck on the trail in Ogden, unable to get back to our hotel. Our morning walk lasted over 2 hours.)

Missoula MT Clark Fork Trail

We spent hours just hanging out at a hotel pool.

We ate fried chicken at Maddox in Brigham city, tacos at the taco bus in Rexburg and burgers at the Burger Bar (Ogden, actually, Roy I think) and The Hickory (Rexburg).

We posed at Wendy Peffercorn's pool.

Lorin Farr pool, Ogden Utah

We hiked R mountain in Rexburg and watched planes fighting a wildfire below us.

We watched a truly fantastic firework show in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

We rode a carousel.

We saw the Ogden temple,  the Brigham City temple, the Rexburg temple and the Vancouver, BC temple.

Vancouver, BC Temple

We swam in the Snake River.

We visited a ghost town in Bannack, Montana.

Bannack, MT Hotel Meade and Assayer's office

We hammered on ringing rocks outside of Butte, Montana.

We were chased down a mountain by a thunderstorm.

We were awakened in the wee hours of the morning by an earthquake.

We visited old friends in Couer d'Alene, ID.

We crashed my sister's family reunion in Washington and had a water balloon fight with cousins some of my kids have never met.

We swam in Lake Chelan.

Lake Chelan, Washington

We slept in a camper for the first time ever.

We saw the brilliantly green Lake Diablo in the North Cascades.

We walked across the bridge above Gorge Creek Falls, where you can actually see through the steel grating below your feet to the creek a million miles below.

We ate fish and chips purchased out of a double decker bus in Bellingham, Washington.

And we crossed our first international border.

US/Canadian border crossing near Lynden, WA