My First Horseradish!

 

A Boy & His Hounds (Again)

 You never know what you'll find on the couch after a school day or on a Sunday afternoon during football, but you can be assured that it will look something like this!

"Lap" Dogs...

Juno, the Boston Terrier, is a fine lap dog.  Steve, the marshmallow colored mutt, is NOT.  He thinks he is, but he thinks wrong.

 

Gone Muddin'

I had some dirt work done; down in the "swamp" closer to the road and also up by the house.  In winter time, we have issues with vehicles staying on the driveway, but apparently, it's not just a seasonal thing!

This is the area down by the "swamp.  Note the tire track that is about 6 inches off of the driveway.  Can't see it that well?

How about this?  Same rut...

And then, the dirt work up by the house, I found this the day that we fixed the rut down by the road! 

And, to not end on a negative note, a simple picture of my neighbors trees taking on Fall colors.

Vaca 2021, Day 13, Pt 1 - Goblin Valley St Park & Some Dino Fossils

Not gonna lie here... we were getting pretty fried by this point. Mama Chaos was the most eager to stop here and the ONLY one of us to actually hike down into the "goblins". Us boys were very happy to view them from a distance and remain in the bit of shade up by the picnic area.

It was SSSTTTOOOOPPPPIIIIIDDDD hot outside and being out of the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit's vessel was not a desired thing at this point...

 

This is from my phone up by the picnic area.

More of the same.  I think that Mama Chaos is somewhere in this photo, but I really can't tell you where.  She is hiking down into the Goblins even tho she had no male support for such an activity.

This is from Mama's phone as she's down among the goblins.

Same...

Same 2...

She appears to still be happy even tho we're being baked alive!  LOL!

From down in the trenches again.

This is the pic that I believe shows Mama heading down into the Goblins.  I think that's her just left of dead center.

Back on the road and a bit turned in directions as there's not a lot of landmarks to base directions on!  It was a small detour but I'm always disappointed in any detour as I can't make "good time".  Don't mock me!!!

I could NOT tell you where we're at by any means in this picture, but what I do remember is that there were tall rock walls on both sides of the road for quite a while.  We had put on the Dixie Chicks first album and as we crested this hill and everything opened up,  we'd hit the chorus of Wide Open Spaces.  Cool moment!

Caleb was driving here and nervous as crap!!  To be fair, it was his first Interstate driving experience and the speed limit was 80mph!  After turning off of Hwy 191, we see roads like this pic.  This is Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trails.  I'm also plotting the next spot where I can go pee...  I'm getting desperate!

 

   

I don't remember where we encountered the sign, but the sign read something like, "Deep, loose sand ahead.  Off-road vehicles recommended.".  We didn't think that that our Dodge Caravan would qualify as such so we had Calebber back the trolley up and park it. Then we would hoof it the rest of the way in...  after I pee'd in the desert!

The tiny red circle in the upper left quadrant of the pic is where we parked, and the yellow high-lighted area is the actual parking lot for the Dino Trails if you were driving an off-road vehicle. It was a bit of a walk.

Rob is dragging behind, not because he pee'd longer than I did, but rather that he didn't have shoes on and wasn't about trying to find them 1 second before we stopped to get out.  Even after the backing up episode.

I wonder what kind of vicious creatures live in those holes on the side of those hills.

Apparently we have a long way to go!!

Have I mentioned that it's hot??

Rob giving Caleb a piggy-back ride...  for some reason.

They had signs posted to let you know what you were looking for.  Most of the time I couldn't see it, but my bride, a former science teacher, would point out the goods.

Another pack-rats nest but also a vertebrae (if I remember correctly!), with the gray looking X'ish looking formation in the upper left quadrant of the pic.

I got excited as I had originally thought that we had a Sasquatch siting but it was just a unique looking shrub just to the upper left of Rob and Caleb.

Rob and Caleb reading the sign that appears in the picture below.

I tried and tried to see what the heck this sign was trying to tell me, but like in high school, I just didn't get it.  It was beautiful territory that we were in, and I'm sure there was some amazing history as well, but my water was empty and I truly didn't care all that much!  I wanted a fresh ice water out of the cooler!!!

The fams, happy that we're heading back to the van and should arrive within an hour!

A storm in the distance as we are heading back to the van...  that figures into part II of this post.

So that's it for this one.  We left here and headed for Arches National Park.

Snugglin' Stevie!

Cute boy!

 

Vaca 2021, Day 12 - Capitol Reef Natl Park & Resort

An odd thing happened in my journal on this day...  I wrote just over one page about waking up multiple times through the night, feeling like crap, non-working sinuses (and both bottles of nasal spray out in the van!), ankles and knees that were screaming at me and so on.  Yet I only wrote a single paragraph on Capital Reef National Park which was our focus of the day.  

I'll attempt to fill in some detail as I go...

With the boys still either sleeping or wishing they were, Lesley and I set off for a hike around the resort.  The following pics are a bit of what it looked like.

It was about this point when I started sneezing... and sneezing a LOT!  Shortly after that started, my eyedrums started watering and itching profusely!

Once we were all packed and in the van ready for whatever today held, we first made a trip to Dark Sky Coffee for some seriously good coffee.  NOW we're ready for a National Park!  So off we go.

These first several pics are just during the drive in, not that we really knew what we were doing as there wasn't a lot of planning that went into this day (Lesley may have something different to say about that last statement!  She plans ALL of this stuff...".

I believe this is on our first stop, which was a short hike up to Goosenecks Overlook.  My soul-brother was up there with his fams as well!  Dude had shaggy hair, a 1/2 ZZ Top beard, a light colored t-shirt and camo shorts!  Yes'sir!  We nodded at each other politely.

  

Squint hard and you can kind of see the water down there.

The fams!!!

Guess who took this pic??

And this one, frankly.  I was venturing pretty close to the edge as there was no railing for silly-arse people who wished to get closer than I did.  There's some very loose rock where I'm standing so I was pretty happy with my old weak-kneed self getting this close!!

Back on the road...

This was in a parking lot just outside of the Gifford Homestead, where we had stopped.  Rob had elected to stay in the van while the other 3 decided to get out and explore what the Gifford's had to offer us.

On the short walk to Gifford's...

Same...

First shot Gifford's.

That's Mama Chaos and Calebber waiting to go inside of the shop at Gifford's.  They are doing the whole distancing thing even tho they are still handling the same money/change and other b.s. that happens everywhere else... but, whatever floats yer boat!  I have no time for that crap so I go walking around the grounds.

Once back into our vessel, we see this deer/elk/whatever, near one of the parking lots with lots of people walking up to take pictures near/with it.  I'm good taking a shot from a moving vessel.

We were starting to pay attention to the thunderstorm that was rolling thru.  It was starting to make some noise at this point and we could smell the rain too.

We're down close to where we wanted to hike, but were thinking better of it with the storm this close.  We had watched enough vids on the fancy youtube's about people getting caught in these storms and didn't want to be the next family to film a new one!

We decided to not hike the narrows in the park due to the weather and to just head back to the CR Resort as Rob was super interested in the NBA Championship games.  We decided to stop at the 

La Cueva Restaurante Mexicano restaurant just several yards down the road from our room.

Big mistake, for Ted, anyway...

It took a long time for the single worker (I do have much respect for the restaurants who are staying open during the covid b.s. with a skeleton crew, but...)  to bring the basics to our table.  Once we had decided on what we wanted,  we waited.  And waited. And waited until he finally came back to take our drink and appetizer order.  Whew...

It took a long time to get our Nacho's appetizer out too us. We only had plates/utensils for two people and apparently that was lost on him.  We also did not have all of our drinks, most of which were water.

I waited and waited...  I will admit that I've been working out of my basement for more than a year at this point and my tolerance for my fellow human has been reduced to...  uh, not much.  

My family will tell you that my patience has been reduced to embers, at best, and they may be right.  I simply don't have two hours to be served a mexican meal that is likely 95% prepared in the back room, only to be assembled at notice of the waiter/waitress.  

After a long time of being ignored by the one guy running the floor with us and one other family, I chose to get the hell out of there as opposed to storming the kitchen and taking matters into my own hands...  I chose to go sit in the van and watch the storm cross thru the desert!  MUCH better choice!

The only problem with that was that I was the one who wanted the Nacho's appetizer, and my fams ate that crap down during the 3.5 hours they spent waiting for the rest of their friggin food.  

Oh sure, it wasn't 3.5 hours but it was WAY too long for food.  Long story short. I didn't get to taste the Nachos that I thought looked awesome and my fams thought that it served me right for leaving the sh!thOle restaurant.  

Maybe they're right...  but I hate rewarding such b.s. anywhere I go as everyone in these times are struggling with the same things.  This dude had 2, TWO, TTTTTWWWOOOOOOO, tables to deal with and couldn't come close to dealing with it.  Nope.  You should NOT get any of my money if not for...

I had much more fun outside in the van watching a thunderstorm roll thru a desert than I ever would have waiting for ineptness for average food.

From the door of our room, looking over the the parking lot and the storm rolling out.

Same vantage point of the previous photo.  This is where Rob, Caleb and I played some serious football catch, and where my favorite pair of cargo shorts split-out completely up the back.  I went into our room (about a 20 ft walk), changed my shorts, came back out to play more catch!  The dude right above our room asked to throw a pass, so I tossed the ball up to him.  He threw a DIME to Rob and also said, "I noticed your Iowa plates from Polk County.  I'm from Ottumwa originally, but I live in Las Vegas now.".   Crazy cool.  He was also into craft beer as I noticed his bottle, of which, I did NOT recognize the label.  He was also spotted the following morning wearing a Hawkeyes sweatshirt.

Evidence of some football catch before we got into the pool!

Man, look at my athletic self moving to catch the deep ball from Calebber!

We were hoping the pool was open, but with lightning still in the area, we had to wait, and wait.  Eventually it did reopen and we were on it!!  We got about 10 minutes alone before a few other kids showed up.  Then another family with even more kids showed up and once it became a bit dangerous to be throwing our football with all of the young'ins around, we got out and sat in the sun for a bit.  That was good too!


Mama and I went out and claimed the swing once the storms had moved on.  It was beautiful as the sun was setting behind the mountains and there was some seriously cool broken clouds for the fading sunlight to peek thru.  We also had a lovely little planet show up in the sky for our enjoyment!

Watching the sun go down!

I went for another walk after dark as I was a bit short on steps for the day.  I was rewarded with a very pretty moon!

I thought this was cool!  One of the teepee's that you could rent with the setting moon in the background.

That pretty much wrapped up Day 12 of vaca.  We spent the night in the room watching the Suns/Clippers NBA game and winding down for the night.  It's off to Moab, UT for the final wing of our vaca!!!