Trip to Utah

UtahSmall

Mason had "Spring Break" this past week and we wanted to go somewhere. My brother Craig and Mandy were winding up their big road trip through AZ, CA, NV, and UT so we decided to meet up. Mom and dad caught wind of it and decided we all could be together so they hit the road for a 2500 mile trip across the country. The meeting place was Green River, UT and the whole thing went down on Wednesday. We went to Goblin Valley State Park on Thursday and then camped there that night in a full campground with 30 Boy Scouts surrounding our site. After a cold, loud, deflated air mattress, wet-bed night, we decided to head back to a nice hotel room in Green River for the next night. We stopped to hike Crack Canyon in the San Rafael Swell on our way. Good times.....
Despite a forecast that had predicted sunny skies through Sunday, we got rained on for the tail end of the hike and it continued all night and the next day. We headed for home on Saturday afternoon with plans to return in the future.
Click the picture of the two handsome guys for the link to the pictures.

Saturday in Taos

We went over to Taos on Saturday to meet Scott & Holly and Roger & Bonnie. Quinn had a hockey tournament there over the weekend. We ate at Outback Pizza and then went to Overland Sheepskin Co.

The kids played on an old truck
An artist painted
Arden flashed a sculpture
Mason caught a snake
The kids all fell asleep on the way back home.... Good times.

The new (old) armoire

Here is the new armoire we bought at an auction in Texas. Sara had been looking for something to store coats and shoes in and could only find kind of cheaply made stuff that didn't look that nice. Ann went down to Ft. Worth to visit her brother Wayne and went to an auction with her sister-in-law. We had looked at a few of the items online and thought this looked nice so they put a bid in for us and we/they won. I think it is probably 80 to 100 years old and mostly made of solid mohogany. Made in England. Ann won't say what it cost to ship to us, but assures us the whole deal was less than the cheaply made one we were looking at. We are happy!

A visitor at the office

Here is what was waiting for us when we got to the office this morning. A cow elk. She was acting really strange and wouldn't move off even if you walked up to her. Her head was under the railing going up the steps when we first got in.

Pretty funny reading.

I find this funny.

So, you don't want to sell us your house?

A house in China whos owners wouldn't sell to a developer

A trip to the Sand dunes.

Saturday came and I didn't want to spend the day sitting around the house, so we headed north to Alamosa, CO and the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. It started raining a little before we got there but partially cleared just as we started hiking. We drove to the end of the 4-Wheel drive road this time and went to an area we haven't been to before. Here's some pictures:

There is still a lot of snow at our house. I like the shades of color in this.

A place we are looking at in Conejos, CO. A real fixer-upper.







An interesting road sign on the way. I doubt either is the Majority in town.

The rain on the plain

The kids started climbing

More Sand Dunes pictures

by bugsyboat (click the picture)

Got 4:32 to spend?

This is good stuff:

Treasure from the Florida beach

So, it turns out that shark's teeth aren't the only fossils that wash up on the beaches of Venice. Every day that I was out picking up teeth, I would collect pockets full of small fossils too. A lot of it was tortoise shell, various bone fragments, or mammalian teeth (horses, camels, etc.). Most of it was sort of "best guess" as to what it might be. Every night around the dinner table we would have a discussion of what had been picked up and then I would turn most of it over to Uncle Ed for "safekeeping".
Anyway, he did some research when he got home and sent me this the other day:
This piece is one of the bigger ones that I found on the second to last day of our trip.
It is amazing to think that 2 to 5 million years ago there were ancestral camels roaming our land.

Why I love where I work....

We just got news that since the local boys basketball team is in the State Tournament we will get 1/2 a day off on Wednesday for employees to attend the game. If they win (likely) we will get the whole day off on Friday for the next game. Can't beat that... GO HAWKS!

A hike to the river.

Sara wanted to clean the house so we got out of her hair for a while and headed for the river.

We got a little tired on the way.....
We finally made it to the river. And eventually, the train bridge.

Friday pictures

The twins waiting for Mason's busWatching a scary movie

Sunset/Moonrise

A coyote track (not that interesting, I know, but I thought it was a lion track when I took the picture)

A real trophy (in a few years)

Big boys

It's hard to believe these two are in school as I type this. Time flies......
(Mason and Quinn Simmons)
I was going through some old photos.