Bon Voyage

Donadagohvi, Hagoonea', Ahoj, Sayonara, Tschüss, Viszlát!, Arrivederci, Au Revoir, Adios, Hejdå , Aloha, Le'hitraot, Paalam, Hasta La Vista, Valete, Ha det, Doviđenja, Ćiao or in other words - GOODBYE!  Yes indeed, goodbye to the lamest summer ever.  I'm certainly glad to see it go.  Glad it is over, glad I survived, and especially glad to MOVE ON.  So, to properly say goodbye to the summer, Matt and I watched "Summer Magic" last night.  We ran and got the ultimate summer beverage - Slurpees and put our pjs on and got ready for some "Magic":

One of my favorite movies growing up was "Summer Magic" 



A widow moves her family from Boston to Maine into a run down yellow house where crazy antics ensue and a little magic can make everything wondrous. 
It was a great night, and a perfect way to tell the summer to "hit the road!!"

Book Cliffs Day 2 & 3 (Again, by Matthew Morrill...Not Abby)

Alrighty then. Day number two started out pretty good. We got up, at our leisure, and turned the horses loose for some grazing and water.While the horses were getting their fill; Lynn, Jeremy, and I enjoyed a couple beverages and talked about the days plans. It was also a bit interesting to watch the horses for a while. Poor Sonnie was picked on relentlessly by Nebo. After a little while we decided to head back to camp and make breakfast: Bacon and scrambled eggs. Mmmm...so delicious. I accidently over cooked the bacon a little bit and Jeremy informed me that he didn't like it when the bacon was so crispy. Now it wasn't burned, just really crispy. After breaksfast was eaten, we saddled up the our horses and got ready to head on out.

We headed out of camp and had a run in with a couple of guys riding together that will from now on be referred to as Wyomin' Mark and Bishop Brown (they were both named Mark) We stopped and talked with them for a bit and found out that they were headed in the same direction we were going. So we decided to all ride together for a bit. Lynn knew a lot of Bishop Brown's family (he was from Elk Ridge) so they had a lot to talk about. Wyomin' Mark and I talked for a while, he and I were about the same age. We talked about horses, missions, Utah wilderness country, etc. We rode up to the top of the ridge on the east side of She Canyon and headed north towards 3 Springs (that was our destination). While riding around the side of a mountain I looked up under a big pine tree and saw four bucks bed down under it. When they spotted us the got up and kind of made their way up the mountain. We rode a little bit more and saw them standing on the mountain side watching us. Wyomin' Mark and I got off our horses and tried to get some pictures. We were able to get within about 40 yard of them before they decided to leave, but were able to get some pretty good pictures. Now keep in mind that these were taken with a digital camera with not much of a zoom. It was really exciting to see them.

We kept riding for a bit longer before we came to the infamous "Jump Rock". It's a rock in the trail that sticks up so tall horses sometimes have to kind of hop to get up them. Just before we got to the Jump Rock, we heard some elk whistling. We looked across the ravine and saw a heard of elk that were stirring. Bishop Brown had an elk call on him so he'd whistle and bugle back at them. They got organized a bit and started over the top of the ridge they were on. I estimate there were between 60 - 80 of them. So we came to the jump rock and I wanted to get pictures of Jeremy going up it so I hopped of Wilson and got above them to take some photos.

Wilson was kind enough to just follow Jeremy on up so I didn't have to go back and get him. This is the only picture I got with Wyomin' Mark and Bishop Brown so I thought I'd throw it in. We made it to 3 Springs and stopped for lunch. Jeremy was so excited to get going again that he got Lynn and I's horses untied and brought them over to us because it was time for us to be moving along. This is where we split company with Wyomin' Mark and Bishop Brown.

We made our way down a ridge trail called Rivegot. It was a beautiful ride that offered plenty of view. Along the way down, Jeremy found part of an elk antler and wanted to take it with us. Rivegot dropped us in She Canyon.

At the bottom, Jeremy wanted to inspect his found treasure a bit more, and to have some fun with it. We headed south again

back towards our

camp. When we got there we decided to let the

horses do a bit of grazing again. Jeremy was so happy to be with his horse that he wanted to spend a little more time with

her while I made dinner. Mmmm...Steak.

We spent the rest of the evening enjoying dinner, roasting marshmallow's and listening to Jeremy talk about all the fun he was having. The following morning (Saturday) we got up and made breakfast: bacon and hashbrowns.

I was more carefull with the bacon this morning and Jeremy was nice enough to compliment how much better I did. We packed up the horses and headed on out of camp.

We

stopped at the DWR cabins again on our way out to see if I could have a little better fortune at getting some pictures. It worked out much better.

We took a little different trail back

to the truck. We headed up Bogart canyon and got on the new Totem Pole Trail. It dropped us back out on the Went Ridge Road. From there we made it back to the truck with no problems. We unsaddled the horses, packed up the truck and trailer, loaded up, and made our way home. It was a wonderful experiance to be able to share with Lynn and Jeremy. On the way home Jeremy kept talking about and planning our trip next year. It was a great time full of excellent memories.

Book Cliffs part 1 (by Matthew Morrill…not Abby…Abby didn’t write this, her husband did)

The trip started out with the usual preparation of spreading everything out and putting it all together:

Lynn and Jeremy crashed out a little bit after we got everything loaded up in the truck. I stayed up and spent some time with Abby before we left. She crashed out at about 11:30 and so I decided to head out to the meadow and load up our horses and let Lynn and the boy sleep a bit longer. I got back into town, loaded up the boy and got Lynn and we were on our way out of town at just after 1:00 a.m.
The drive was pretty good. The boy slept most of the way down.

He woke up around Green River so we needed to stop for a drink and a potty break

.

We were back on the road and on our way to Thompson Springs and up Sego canyon. The road was terrible and almost washed out. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive up to the top. So we got to the parking lot at a bit after 6:00 a.m.
I know it's hard to read, trust me. We unloaded the horses and started saddling everything up. Jeremy insisted that his horse be saddled first.

So after Nebo was saddled up, we started on the others.

This was a familiar sight the entire trip:

Just about every time we stopped he was still riding her around checking out new stuff and crossing creeks every chance he got. After all were saddled and packed up we headed out on Went Ridge Road. Jeremy was jabbering on and on to Lynn about all the great stuff that he wanted to do and Lynn would talk about all the history and Indian territory that we were going through. I think both of them were equally excited. It was great for me to see Jeremy bobbing along the road in his little cowboy hat. We turned off to Bogart Canyon and made our way down the DWR cabins (Please excuse me Louis if my naming isn’t entirely accurate, I’m still learning ;D )

While we were there we got a couple of staple pictures for the trip that Abby had requested.

I thought that this trip to the Book Cliffs would bring me better fortune than my last one, but this moment wasn’t very encouraging. I hooked my thumb on a piece of chicken wire that they put on the posts for whatever reason. Ouch!!! And we didn’t bring a first aid kit. Further on down the canyon we rode until we came upon She Canyon. We turned up it and headed to our camping spot. We arrived at our spot and started setting up camp

Gotta have cold drinks you know…and we didn’t pack light on them either. Again, Jeremy insisted on staying on Nebo and exploring his new found territory.

After everything was set up and the horses tied up, Jeremy decided that he and I needed to take a little nap. I hadn’t gotten any sleep so I decided that I would go lay down with him for a minute until he dosed off. An hour later I woke up and Jeremy was crashed out. I could hear this snoring that wasn’t coming from the boy. I got out of the tent and saw that Lynn had crashed out in the supply tent that we brought.

I thought that I’d head down by the creek and have a little time to reflect to myself. I built a cozy little fire and leaned back against a fallen tree in the shade.
I spent a lot of time thinking about and missing my darling wife. She was the one who really made it possible for us to go on this trip. She was the one insisting that we go. She supports me in the things that are important and she wanted Lynn, Jeremy, and I to share this experience. Love you honey. I had to get proof for Abby that I did think of her:

We had a quick lunch of chips and pulled pork sandwiches after Jeremy and Lynn got up. We decided to hit a little ride before it was dinner time. We headed up She Canyon and made our way over into East Willow Canyon. I rode down the canyon while Lynn and Jeremy chased each other down it. We turned up the hidden trail up a steep path that lead to the top of the ridge. Once over the top we headed straight down the other side (Louis can attest to the nastiness of this trail). Things were going pretty good until about half way down the mountain (and in a particular nasty spot) the dirt and rock gave way underneath my horses feet and he went tumbling over (with me still on him by the way). Cursed Book Cliffs luck! I was able to get free of him before anything serious happened, but it still threw me on the ground pretty hard. Yellow (the horse I was riding at the time) rolled over a couple times and got stuck on his back with his feet straight up. I thought he was seriously hurt until he kicked his legs over and got up and looked around. After an inspection we found that the only thing that broke was a snap on the breast collar of the saddle. We were very lucky. I decided then that it was a good thing I didn’t bring the camera on that ride (hence that lack of photo’s) because it would have been smashed to tiny bits.We made it back to camp without further incident. We cooked up our tin foil dinners and spent the rest of the evening roasting marshmallow’s and talking about the upcoming ride.
Further more to come tomorrow…

The Tale of Twinkle Toes

School shopping: thanks to our PTO we don't have to buy school supplies and the kids already have backpacks, so that left me just buying clothes. It was pretty easy . . . for the most part. Mom was out of commission so I had to drag Matt along. Honestly, clothes shopping is a two person task. I was given the responsibility of finding the clothes and Matt's job was to "encourage" Jeremy that they were "cool" enough. Bailee loved EVERYTHING I picked out so she was easy. Jeremy had to be convinced and INSISTED on trying everything on to see how it looked. He even wanted to try on his new underwear, but we convinced him that if we opened the package we would have to pay for it regardless of whether he liked them or not. After our excursion I was doing inventory on how many shirts and pants each child had and I noticed that Bailee did not have any new shoes. Fast forward to this past weekend. I thought it would be an easy up and back trip to pick up some shoes - boy was I WRONG!!
First store we went to I pick up several pairs of shoes: brown ones, black ones, with laces, without laces and Bailee turns her nose up at every pair. No problem, there are plenty more stores to check out. 2nd store: no takers. 3rd store: nothing she wanted. We finally make our way to sears and as we are approaching the shoes Bailee lets out a squeal and runs to the shoe department. As I approach her, I saw her holding THE most gaudy, awful shoes I have ever seen in my life. Here is how the conversation goes:
"MOM!! These!! I want these!! They are twinkle toe shoes mom! I want them!!"
"Uh, really?!? Look at these brown ones, they have a dangly thing on the laces. They look pretty cool."
"No mom! Those aren't twinkle toes! Look how beautiful these shoes are . . . they sparkle."
I was by myself. I had no backup, so I grabbed my phone and called mom. She looked at the picture I sent her and told me to find some that weren't AS bad.
I started to examine the shoes that she wanted, trying to find a fatal flaw in them. As I picked them up, they started to light up and Bailee squealed even louder saying those were the coolest shoes EVER!! Here is a picture of her beloved shoe:

Ah Hah!! I found the fatal flaw, so our conversation continues:
"Uh oh Bailee. Look! These have "peace signs" on them. We don't like peace signs."
"We don't?!? OK."
So we head to another store. Little did I know that there was an entire line of Twinkle Toe shoes. As we rounded the corner in Nordstrom there is a big sign that states "We have the ENTIRE collection of twinkle toe shoes!!" Bailee squeals and runs yet again and sees an entire wall of various twinkle toe shoes. I would say there were about 10 different styles and unfortunately ALL of them were in the price range that Bailee and I agreed upon before we left.
I start looking at the shoes for little girls, peace signs, skulls (yes skulls), swirls, flowers, hearts, guitars, and any other gaudy design you could possible imagine was on those shoes. All of the shoes that Bailee was looking at would totally clash with any outfit she wore. Unfortunately, she picked out some gold twinkle toes and here is what happened:
"Look mom!! Twinkle toes and there are no peace signs, skulls, or music stuff on them."
Through clenched teeth "Um, yup look at that. But wait! These shoes won't match any of your clothes. You want to match don't you?"
"Mom . . . . they're twinkle toes."
The shoe saleslady was eyeing me and she comes up. "It's your lucky day too, these are on sale!"
Bailee squealed again.
I looked at the saleslady and then over at Bailee and then back at the saleslady and said "Fine! Ring them up."
Bailee was dancing the entire way back to the car. She even told me that I can't throw away the box:

Who doesn't want a shoebox with a little girl holding a bunny!! Really!! A bunny!! I feel like a duped consumer. Here are the "beautiful" shoes Bailee insisted upon:

Yup, those are unicorns. At least they don't light up or have skulls or peace signs on them. Now some of you might ask why I didn't just say NO! Well, I learned my lesson with Jeremy and the brown shoes. I think he only wore them a couple of times. So after that little battle I told myself that I would only buy shoes that I knew my kids would wear everyday. Hence, the gold, jewel encrusted twinkle toes that Bailee is the proud owner of now:

I think I'm going to go lay down and be grateful I don't have go through that again until next year.