Cedar weekend

On Thomas's birthday, last Friday, Mike took the day off and we all spent it together with some of our homeschool friends on a field trip. We started the day by meeting up at the Renaissance Fair, where I (of course) ended up in trouble. (Thanks for taking photos, Joey -- my camera was buried in camping equipment).




Thomas attempted climbing the rock wall, we did some great people (and cat??) watching, and got to see the people who practice at a local park every week do some demos of medieval fighting. An interesting morning, for sure.

After the Ren Fair we headed up the mountain a bit for a picnic lunch with the group, including cake for the birthday boy. Our family ditched everyone for a bit to go further up the mountian to Cedar Breaks National Monument and snag a campsite for the weekend. We got our tent set up and joined back up with our crew in time to go to the Greenshow at the Cedar City Shakespeare Festival.

Every night of the festival there is a free performance before the plays. I have no idea what has been on offer in the past or if the show is the same every night. But the one we caught had a sort of German/Irish-pub/beer theme to all the singing and dancing. They were quite good and even the younger set were entertained by it all.

Some photos from the rest of our weekend spent doing the usual camping stuff in the amazing weather found up over 10,000 feet above sea level.

junior ranger hike

I think he's seen one too many Facebook photos of our teenage friends.

atop Brian Head

just having a rest

Kodachrome Basin

Mostly pictures - not too much to say about the trip. Had a great time with my guys and we wore ourselves out hiking.

Saturday - Panorama trail

Sunday - Angel's Palace trail

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the bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm spire as seen from our campsite

Grosvernor's Arch

Drove out there Sunday and had a great picnic supper with an incredible view before heading home.

This stuff is like crack!

I picked up a bag of the buffalo cheddar flavor last week. Thomas and I had movie night both Friday and Saturday because Mike was out of town. I ate the whole stinkin' bag over the course fo those 2 nights. Yummy! I think I'll pick up a bag for our camping trip this weekend. Because junk food consumed in the great outdoors doesn't count, right?

Apparently I dropped off the face of the earth.

But I'm back. And I have photos.

Thomas getting his Wolf badge

Mike & Thomas at the Dixie Scout Expo

We went camping this weekend. We first drove up to Cedar Breaks. It was super chilly and windy at 10,000 feet. The shutter on my camera is acting stupid, so there are no photos of that.

Then we stopped in at Kodachrome (everyone, sing along . . . gives us those nice, bright colors) Basin State Park. We took a short little hike out to Shakespeare Arch. Looks like a place we'll head back to sometime for a weekend. Nice campground & lots of nice trails.

Shakespeare Arch

Next we did a bit of a drive-through of Grand Staircase-Escalante state park. More nice campgrounds & trails for a future trip. But we pressed on toward our final destination & set up camp at a private campground in Torrey, outside of Capitol Reef National Park. Sunday we drove around a bit, though many of the roads were closed due to rain. We tried to hike a bit, but were rained out of most of what we wanted to do.

Panorama Point

Freemont River

We had intended to hike out to Sunset Point & catch the sunset. We decided against it because of the storms in the area -- not wise to be at a high point in a lightning storm. I so wish I had a fancy-schmancy camera with a wide-angle lens that could have captured this. We saw the entire arch of this double rainbow. So amazing.

More rain on Monday. We did attempt to hike to Hickman Bridge. We started in sprinkles and turned back halfway there because the rain just kept getting heavier and heavier with lightning and thunder.

Capitol Dome



turning back

treeboy

garden

So it's not much, but I'm glad to have it. Because we're renting here (due to being here temporarily for Mike's work), we can't make changes to the landscaping. I was so excited when I found this little raised bed in the yard. Last year I didn't take full advantage of the garden. Mainly I grew tomatoes. A few other things were tried but didn't pan out spectacularly.

Anyway, I improved it a little bit this year. I brought in 3 big bags of soil and put down landscaping/weed-stopper fabric. I changed out a few of the irrigation heads to see if I can get a better watering system down. Instead of using the green poles like tomato cages, I decided to see if a 'wall' might work. We'll see. I pruned the Lady Banks rose bush early this year and am using a little piece of decorative metal fencing that was back there to see if I can contain it a bit more this year. It definitely encroached last year.

I've got sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes & early girl tomatoes in the back row. Then 2 pepper bushes - serranos & bells. Then on the left up front is the flat-leaf parsley that wintered over. It died back some, but managed to make it. Then 4 basil plants. We use a lot of basil. Then in containers on the patio I have a few other things. Cilantro, which I vow to water the heck out of this year. It didn't make it in the bed last year, so I'm trying it in a container this time. Thyme, which may not make it because it likes shade. I have it up under the patio roof, but we'll see. Oregano, which I have hopes for since it likes full sun. I also have a small container I threw some summer crunch lettuce seeds in. I had the container & some soil left, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I think I might give some other things a try after these are through in the early fall. Any suggestions?

more snow

It snowed most of the night last night and we ended up with 3" or so of snow. Enough to really play in. So first thing after breakfast we blew up T's snow tube, bundled up and went out to the common area behind our house to play.

Thomas's snowman

snow angel

my snowman

T's snow train

hugging the snow man

Toroweap/Tuweep

A few weekends ago we ventured out into the Arizona strip to Toroweap point. The Arizona strip is the little section in the northwest corner of Arizona that is pretty much cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon. There are some rough 4WD roads from our area out to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It is isolated and remote, without services and a really long drive because the roads are so rough. But gorgeous, unspoiled and totally worth the trip. You can read more about Toroweap point here.