Christmas and more

 We celebrated Christmas a little early here at home before heading up to see Emily. Marian could not make it as she seems to be always at work these days.

We certainly didn't want to drag all our presents up to Idaho just to open them with Emily. I don't think we even had the room if we wanted to. Terry left us a Christmas card with our gift in it when he was up earlier for our Christmas dinner. Cheri sent Christmas gifts back with us when we were up in Oregon. Even Marian had previously left a few Christmas gifts for some of us when she was here a few months ago.

Since we opened  our gifts early, we let Emily open hers the same evening we arrived up in Idaho, even though it wasn't quite Christmas yet. It took us only 12 hour to get there!

Caitlyn basically got a lot of things for college. Emily got a lot of things for the cold wet winters of Idaho. Caitlyn made neat grab bar handles and a new keychain for Christian's TJ out of 550 paracord. They turned out really neat. I was the only one taking pictures this year so no pictures with my presents. 

All of Emily's roommates were gone for the holidays so we were able to stay with her at her apartment. We certainly would not been able to camp in that weather. It was so cold and the wind seemed to be always blowing.

The next day, we went out for a drive to see if we could explore more of the area. Unfortunately, as with previous explorations in Idaho, we could not find a whole lot of places off the beaten path to explore. None of the smaller dirt roads were plowed, so we could not even attempt to enter them as the snow plowed on the main roads would have piled up a huge burm at the beginning of the trail that we would not be able to go over. The only useable roads are used by snowmobiles. We even crossed over to Montana several times in our search.

We did find a road on the Montana side that looked promising and Christian put on the chains to see if we could get through, but the snow was too deep here. It didn't help that we forgot our tools and the tensioners for the chains so Christian froze his hands trying to get the chains on in the first place. We were able to get down a little ways and have some fun in the snow, but decided that the snow was just too deep in sections to continue. 

It was Christmas Eve. We stopped by the store on our way home to stock up on a few supplies to last us through our visit as Emily didn't have much at home. I had brought some groceries with us to make our annual "reunion" or winter solstice soup. We used the bowls that Marian gave us for Christmas. It's everybody's favorite soup and unfortunately, we usual eat until it hurts and then eat some more.

Even though it was butt cold, we went for a short walk around the temple while Caitlyn stayed in, hiding in Emily's room. We watched movies afterwards using Christian's laptop and Emily's bluetooth speaker.

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On Christmas morning, everyone slept in as there were no presents to open anyway. We already opened them all! We took a walk on campus and I forced everyone to pose for family pictures since we did not send out Christmas cards again this year since we normally take it in November to print cards on time. 

When we got back, we had lunch and sent pictures and greetings out to family and friends. Emily made us some curry for dinner. We watched another movie and called it a day. The weather forecast said that it would snow almost the entire time we were there, but it only snowed a little bit but mostly the wind just blew the existing snow around.

The next day, we decided to try our hand at exploring the area one more time. This time, we were just going to stay somewhat locally. We found some alternate camping areas for when the weather is a bit fairer. 

At one point, we were playing around and tried to get up a steep hill. We didn't quite make it at first and the vehicle started rolling back down the hill. We tried it a couple more times and we would have made it the last time, but the computer freaked out and put the transmission in limp mode. We couldn't get any real power to the drivetrain. We started to panic. We were not sure if something happened to the car or if it was just a computer problem...either way, we didn't have enough power to make it back to Emily's much less home. We tried turning off the car several times to try to get the stupid computer to reset. We were searching through the manual for a way around the problem. Finally, Christian just disconnected the battery to reset the stupid computer and it was fine after that. Emily had meanwhile found a fix on YouTube on how to get around the problem, but it was pretty convoluted. It's like turning around and doing the hokey pokey while holding down this button or something. 

Anyway, we were not very happy about the situation and it spoiled all our fun while inciting a great deal of stress. We would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere 1,000 miles from home in the middle of a snow storm because when all this was happening, we all got snow squall warnings on our phones!  As soon as we were able, we fled the area we were at and moved away from the more immediate weather systems and we went into the sand dune area. That area was fine for a while, but the squall moved in and covered our road with snow again. Caitlyn was getting some practice driving in snowy/icy conditions. At some point, the snow got too deep and she drifted off the track a bit. We got stuck in the snow. It was pretty deep. Christian went out to dig our tires out. While he was working on that, a beefed up Jeep pulled up behind us. Christian just told them to go around. The made it around us, but got stuck just ahead of where we were. They had huge knobby tires, so they tried several times to continue, but only got a few inches each time. They finally gave up and backed back out. They offered to pull us out. Although Christian had us mostly dug out, he went ahead and let them pull us out with our dynamic rope since we've never used it yet. It didn't take much to get us out. We got turned around to head back and the Jeep gave up and left as well.

Christian was hurting pretty bad from the cold and wind. He drove most of the way out and Emily took over as his head hurt too much. She would plow into these drifts and the snow would totally cover the windshield so that we could not see where we were going. It was a bit scary but she kind of got the hang of it and went a bit slower.

By the time we got back, Christian got warmed up and was feeling better. Even so, we mostly just stayed in for the rest of the day. It was Sunday, so we didn't want to pick up any more food or supplies. Since Emily's kitchen isn't very stocked, we through together some pork fried rice for dinner and packed up our stuff to return home. 

Originally, we were supposed to head into Utah and do some camping, but because of the weather, we decided to just head home. We were supposed to have a small window (about half a day) of clear weather before the new system came in so we got up very early and headed out, hoping to stay ahead of the weather system. As usual, the forecast was useless. We got snowed on just after leaving Rexburg and it continued through most of Idaho. We had to deal with snow, ice, rain and a constant head wind but we made it through to Las Vegas okay. That's when things took a nasty turn. Not so much the weather, but the traffic. It was stop and go traffic all the way through to California. We finally jumped off the freeway and headed out into the Mojave on smaller roads and cut down into Joshua Tree and Yucca. Lots of crazy drivers on those roads still. Once we hit Moreno Valley back on the main freeway though, it became a literal parking lot. We just sat there with the engine off for a while before we were able to proceed the rest of the way home. 

It took us 12 hours to get there, but it took us 15 hours to get back! 

December

It seemed like we had a lot of things going on December. We hit the ground running by doing an early Christmas dinner with Christian's dad and Jackie at the beginning of the month because we only had a few weekends available and everyone gets busy this time of year. 

We had to smog Caitlyn's Jeep...which seems oddly early since we didn't buy it until after Christmas two year's ago. On top of that, we had to get Christian's Jeep smogged as well so that we could get it registered. After Christian replaced the oxygen sensor, we had no problems getting it to pass the smog check. We still had some problems getting the Jeep registered though. We went to the DMV add they wanted additional paperwork from the dealer saying that the vehicle was never registered in Oregon. The paper trail for that Jeep was really ridiculous. It was last titled in California but it was sold to a dealer in Nevada. I believe the woman traded it in for something else at the dealership since she worked there. The dealer didn't want to deal with it, so they sold it in an auction to the dealer in Oregon. When we bought it, they didn't even have the title yet, but obviously, the vehicle was physically in Oregon when we bought it and brought it back to California. Anyway, the paper trail was really sketchy. Christian's mom got a letter from the dealer stating the problem and Christian was able to take it in with the title and bill of sale to finally get it registered but we totally got reamed in sales tax for a vehicle that was not every sold or bought in California!!!

In addition, we found out that the key and ignition was worn out because, at some point, the key fell out with the engine running and the engine kept running without the key being in the ignition! We went to several locksmiths and the dealer to see how we could fix it. It was a costly nightmare in itself. The first locksmith wanted to get the parts from the dealer and wanted to charge a ton to get the work done. They e-mailed Christian a lower rate but quoted us a totally, much higher rate when we went in. We then went to the dealer to order the parts and decided to keep looking for another locksmith since the dealer wanted an exorbitant amount to do the work as well. We found out that the second locksmith we went to could have done everything for us at a much lower rate. He did a great job for much less so we went back to order some more spares.

It was raining the day we ran around to get all this done and we found out that the hardcover and door seals on the Wrangler leaks like a sieve. We are now looking into getting those replaced. Christian managed to change the engine oil, the transmission fluid and the back differential. The front will be next on his list.

In between all that and finishing up with school, Christian continued to work on Caitlyn's bumper. We originally started to put the thing together a couple of months ago but found that the bumper didn't fit. We thought that stupid JCR sent us the wrong parts again and since we bought it like a year ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it together, we were SOL. We cut some pieces of metal to extend the bumper so that it would fit the vehicle only to find out that we actually mixed up the main part of the back bumper with the main part of the front bumper, which is actually why it did not fit. We had to cut the spot welds off and switch the parts. Luckily, he had only spot welded the pieces together, so it was not too much of a chore. 

It still did not fit as well as it should have so we had to cut out notches in it and shim other parts so that it would fit better. We are pretty disappointed with JCR because of the quality of the products and their very crappy customer service. I don't think we will buy from them again, even with another Jeep to work on.

It looks nice now that Christian had to tweak the crap out of it to get it to line up and fit.

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Meanwhile, we found out Emily decided to drop all her classes even though she was nearing the end of the semester. A good friend of hers got hit by a car in the crosswalk near her apartment complex and died. She was pretty distraught. She really needed to be able to concentrate and pull through this semester with good grades since she did not do so well last year and she didn't want to risk it. This is the first time someone close to her has died. Her grandfather didn't really count since she was never that close to him.

We understand her choices but we are a little worried about her. Luckily she is still working at her temporary job and is able to stay and support herself, if only barely. They have agreed to keep her on a little longer after the holidays so hopefully that will turn into something good for her. She won't be coming home during her break though, so we will join her in Idaho for Christmas.

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Caitlyn finally hunkered down and filled out her college applications. Although, at the last minute, after visiting with our friends for a Christmas get together, she decided that she was going to apply to Provo as well as Idaho. Except Provo requires four essays in their application, so she was scrambling to get it done in time.

At the same time, she was getting ready for her finals and she had her last behind the wheel driving lesson. That's not to say that she was totally overwhelmed. She did have to study a little for a couple of her finals but for the most part, she could have nearly skipped some her finals and still gotten an A in the class.

After classes were done, she and her friends got together for a luncheon and gift exchange. They were also sort of celebrating her completion of her classes for high school. She won't get her final grades until the beginning of next year and no actual graduation unless she wants to return in May to walk with the rest of her classmates, but basically, she is done.

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Before leaving for Idaho, we had a little extra time and decided to go test out the Wrangler off-road and spend some time with Christian's dad. We met up and headed out to the Anza Borrego desert. We did not go very early though as we did not want to get stuck in the morning commuter traffic.

It was a pretty nice day out. Rain is expected soon so the timing was pretty good. We were trying to find a road out to a huge trestle bridge out there but apparently, you can only go so far in vehicles. The rest of the way needs to be hiked. I don't think any of us were ready to do that on this day.

We wandered through the trails a bit more and called it a day. 

We returned to Ramona for some Mexican food for dinner. Christian's dad sprung for dinner. We packed sandwiches and chips for our drive. The Jeep handled everything great, even though the suspension is shot and we put on Caitlyn's old decrepit tires on it.

November

Caitlyn signed up again to take her SATs at the beginning of the month. She tried to take it last year but they cancelled it on her. She studied a little bit but I don't think she took it that seriously. It's kind of optional for her at this point. The schools are mostly letting the kids slide on it because of the whole Covid situation. Some schools are getting rid of it altogether. 

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We got to celebrate Christian's birthday near the beginning of the month. Marian drove out to surprise him in the afternoon when he got home from work. We had dinner and dessert.

Caitlyn got him some special containers for his tools and drew him a neat picture. Marian got him some neat antique looking light bulbs from the places she worked at for a while. I got him a plasma cutter for his birthday/Christmas present. It was kind of big so it will have to do for presents for the rest of the year!

It works great and will help with his metal working a great deal. 

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Emily got a temporary job! We are pretty excited about that. She needed one pretty badly. She was really starting to stress out because she signed a contract to stay in her apartment during the winter semester already but has not been able to attain a job. She will only work until mid December but it will relieve some of the stress for a while. She is off-track in the winter so hopefully she will be able to put all her efforts and time into getting a full time job then. 

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During the Thanksgiving break, we drove up to Oregon to visit Christian's mom. It is a long grueling trip driving up through California but we made the 14 hour drive in one day. Christian actually drove the entire way. Caitlyn was supposed to get a lot of practice in but it didn't really happen. I think she slept through half of the drive. I offered to drive but Christian was obsessed in keeping his miles per gallon up. He actually managed to get an average of 28 mpg on that trip up.

Christian's mom moved to a new place since we last visited so this was our first trip to see the new place. It was very cute and quiet there. It was also very cold. It's has still been very hot in Riverside even though it is mid November now. We were still getting temperatures in the 90s and above 100 in our driveway.

We mostly just hung out and visited. Caitlyn got started on some puzzles Cheri brought out for her while we chatted. It was one of those 10 in 1 puzzle sets. After finishing a few, she was determined to finish them all during our brief visit. We all sat down and helped occasionally but she did the bulk of each of the puzzles. 

She was trying to decide if she wanted to make us a turkey or prime rib during our visit and decided to do both! We had turkey on our first night.

As we sat around and chatted on our first day there, somehow the conversation turned to Jeeps. I think we were talking about Emily's complaint that we all had 4x4s except for her. She had her eye on a used Jeep in a lot she passes often and tried to make a deal with helping us get the thing. We told her the timing wasn't right because of Emily's financial situation and the stress that she's been under. We know that her Ranger is working perfectly and is in great shape. Switching her out to a vehicle with unknown problems and history was probably not a good idea at this point. Plus, Emily has really used the space in her pickup to move herself back and forth to college (along with helping move some of her friends). A tiny 2 door Jeep just wasn't going to be that practical...although, we would be a little more comfortable with her having a 4x4 in the snow there. Cheri said that she would buy the thing and we can sell the Ranger and pay her back half and use the rest to fix up the Jeep.

We didn't have any plans, so just for the heck of it, we went to check out the Jeep Wrangler that first day we were there. It was mostly in good order and hadn't been altered much...which is usually a good thing. Just like Caitlyn's XJ, the suspension on the TJ was shot. It also had a few other hopefully minor problems like the heater and an engine code for a problem with the oxygen sensor but not too much else. The price was pretty good considering all used and new cars are pretty outrageous these days. Anyway, it was at the lower end of the going rate.

Caitlyn texted Emily about it to see what she thought. She thought her sister was pulling her leg at first, but after the initial shock, she decided to stick with the Ranger for many of the same reasons we thought. We were really happy with her decision. It was very well thought out and responsible. We know what a temptation it would have been to choose the Jeep. We told Cheri to forget about it, but she decided that she would just buy it for Christian instead as his toy/project car. We were a bit flabbergasted and shocked and I think the temptation to accept it was a bit much for Christian. He had already been talking about getting a TJ this past year for us once the XJ was done and Caitlyn was off at school. Either that or he would get another XJ for me if the Trooper died. He loves working on those old Jeeps. They are simple and accessible. You can get parts for them almost anywhere and you can customized them however you want. Plus, they are so very capable off road.

Plus, I think she kept separating me from him during all of this so that she could overwhelm him into accepting it. She really wanted to do something for him so I guess, in the end, he just let her. The whole thing was so crazy. Caitlyn and I just kind of sat back and shook our heads, while working on puzzles, but secretly plotting to take it out for a joy ride while they were out. 

Anyway, Christian ended up getting to spend a lot of one on one time with his mom, which was really good and we sat around and watched movies and relaxed the rest of the time. 

We know that all the craziness kind of wiped out his mom, so we suggested that we just continued to eat the turkey leftovers instead of slaving away at making more food when there was plenty to eat still. She sent to prime rib back with us in the end along with the rest of the turkey as she is really unable to eat any of it these days.

We did stop by to visit his brother, Mark and his wife on the second afternoon. We did not spend a lot of time there though because he didn't even go to bed until we got up and had breakfast that day. We got a tour of their new place though. It was a fairly small house but certainly big enough for just the two of them, plus it had a decent plot of land and a nice big shop plus garage and extra storage so I think it works out well for them. 

Unfortunately, I did not take too many pictures. It was actually just the one as we were getting ready to leave. Because it was safer for Christian to just tow the Jeep back, no one else could help him drive or get any driving practice in. We decided to take the long meandering way back as Christian had never towed before and didn't know how difficult it would be to change lanes and haul all that weight up the grapevine.  Unfortunately, it took a lot longer to get back and we ran into a bunch of really sketchy and scary situations with the other cars. It was kind of a nightmare but the truck had no problems pulling the extra weight, although, we only got 16 mpg coming home (which was still a bit better than Christian anticipated).

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We got back super late. It was really windy when we got back. It was pretty awful. The next morning was Thanksgiving. Christian got up early to return the trailer to U-Haul. I got up early to start cooking. We were expected at my family's house that afternoon. 

We had an early dinner and ate outside as my brother's family is still worried about Covid, even though they have all had shots.

It was still a bit chilly and breezy, so after we ate, most of us retreated back into the house to chat. The food was great, but as we get older, we can't really put it away like we used to. Even though we had an early dinner, it was still pretty late by the time we left.

Emily had Thanksgiving with a bunch of her friends at their apartment. She only had Thursday and Friday off, so it's not like she had time to come home. She feels the most homesick on holidays though, which is understandable.

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We really only got the Friday to relax a little and do our own thing, but not completely because we had accepted an invitation to meet up with friends Friday evening for a little Christmas get together before we even left for Oregon. It was nice to chat with friends we don't see often though and of course, once again, we stayed way too late chatting and didn't get home again until after midnight.

October

 Another month of busy nothings. Everyone is just on survival mode...just making it from one day to the next. Christian was forced by our tyrannical government to get a covid vaccination; much good that will do him since a lot of people who have gotten the shot have still gotten sick and some have even died still. The only thing we can hope and pray for is that he won't have any ill effects from it.

Caitlyn had her second behind the wheel driver's lesson. She is still slogging along. Since we have not gone anywhere in a while, she has not had a whole lot of practice. I have been forcing her to go out with me on most weekends to do her practice. She is doing good and is slowly getting the hang of driving in traffic.

We had the new organ in our church building dedicated finally. The organ builders finally put the work into putting the finishing touches on the organ. They did some tuning and put a few last design elements to the cabinet work so it looks a lot better now. Andrew Unsworth, an organist for the Salt Lake Tabernacle, came to play on the new organ for us. It was really something to behold. Who knew our little organ could even sound like that? Christian's father and Jackie came up to attend the dedication as well. Mr. Unsworth is also a very nice guy. Apparently, he invited us to call on him if we are ever in Salt Lake and he would give us a private tour of the Tabernacle...too bad we don't really care for visiting Salt Lake City much. 

Apparently, Emily got the Covid from one of her roommates at some point. She had a horrible headache when it first took hold and a bit of a cough but basically she said that she has had colds that have been much worse. The slight cough persisted a bit but the most troubling thing was that she lost her sense of taste and smell for about two weeks. She was pretty pissed off about that! 

Christian was pretty burned out by the end of the month and had to take a day or two off.

On the bright side, the last part of my birthday present finally arrived. Only several weeks late! I am just lucky I think that it went through New York and not California or who knows when I would have gotten it.

It is a handmade bunka style knife from Russia. It is so nice and sharp! It is such a pleasure to use. I love it!

Halloween came and went. Caitlyn didn't bother dressing up and we didn't get any trick or treaters, so it was a pretty average day.

September

Another seemingly uneventful month. It's still super hot. Gas prices are through the roof along with prices for almost everything else. Caitlyn and Christian spend most of their time trying to survive school.

I think I need to just start writing notes about what happens during the month since it's getting increasingly difficult to remember. I usually rely in part on the pictures that I take, but I have hardly taken any pictures since our last trip.

My ankle is getting better. It's been a very slow process. I can walk now with minimal limp and don't need to wrap my ankle or anything anymore, so now I need to just get stronger and finish healing so that I can get back into shape. 

I did celebrate my birthday this month. Christian took us out for Poké again. It's always fun and different since we hardly go out. I got some presents and Emily called home to wish me a Happy Birthday. On the weekend, Christian's dad and Jackie came up to celebrate. Since they wouldn't really want to eat most of the foods that I would want to go out to eat for, I decided that it would just be easier and tastier to whip up something myself. I made us some Kalua pork. I guess the theme for the month seems to be Hawaiian food for some reason. 

Emily is doing good in school and has a much better living situation with her roommates this semester. She has still not been able to find a job yet though so we are praying for her.

Caitlyn is doing well in school so we hope she can keep it up as she is coming in to the home stretch now.

Since the schools are so short of substitute teachers and so many of the teachers that are there are either lazy or burned out, Christian has been subbing a lot during his prep period instead of prepping for his lessons or grading. The school is pretty desperate and have been trying to make it worth the existing teachers efforts to help out. Christian decided to do it whenever he can so that he can get his mill. He is super excited about getting it...now, if he can only find the time and energy to use it.

I guess that's it. I can't really remember anything else going on. I will update if I remember but time has been passing in somewhat of a blur these days.

August

 Unfortunately, August was fairly uneventful. Both Emily and Caitlyn had to help me make meals and things when we got back as I could not put any weight on my right foot. They went to DI to get me a pair of crutches as well. 

School started for Christian and Caitlyn shortly after. Emily continued to help me around the house and to take her sister to school and pick her up as well. By the second week, I was able to put some weight on my foot and limp a bit with one crutch. Emily took me shopping and I was able to help out a bit more.

By the third week, I could limp around without a crutch for the most part. Emily continued to drive Caitlyn back and forth from school and she also continued to drive me to the market. 

The girls took a trip to the beach one day. Emily has been planning to go since she got back. She's always loved the beach but we never enjoyed the traffic and the crowds to take her. Marian came by to see Emily while she was here and brought a bunch of Korean food over.

We drove down to San Diego one weekend to see Brandon. He is back from his mission and was giving his return Missionary talk. His whole family planned to descend on Ramona to see him. It was nice to get together with the whole family again. Luckily, it went off without too much drama.

Emily and I went to see my mom and have lunch with her. We also spent some time going around the asian stores to look for goodies. When we were done, we stopped by to grab a couple of boba drinks for the road and ran into Debbie and Collin. They went to the bakery next door. We said hello but we were already pulling away when we saw them and we had to hit the road as we were running a bit late. We had Caitlyn go home with a friend and needed to pick her up. Christian got back home before we did and ended up picking her up himself. 

After a couple of weeks of school, Caitlyn was able to drop her first period English class and take an English class at RCC instead. That way, she will only have the class for just this semester and will be done at the end of the year. It satisfies her graduation requirements and gives her college credit to boot. The only other two classes she needs to graduate will be Economics and Government. Both of which she is also currently taking and are both only semester long classes. She has sent in a petition to graduate early as her school does not offer anything else she wants or needs. She is basically done with school. The whole shut down pretty much ruined her high school experience anyway.

I spent some time working on some food that Emily missed. She spent some time working on getting her own car insurance this year. She also got her first credit card to work on her credit history. Plus, she got her card number stolen about a month or two ago, so we wanted her to make most of her purchases on a credit card instead of using her debit card in case something like that happened again. Luckily, the bank denied the fraudulent use of her card right away and closed it for her so she just had to just wait a week or so to get a new card issued to her. 

At the end of the month, Emily decided to head back to Rexburg. With having to pay car insurance and will have to pay her rent tuition for the fall in a couple more weeks, she returned to school to try again to find a job. We pray that she will have better luck this time.

Utah

 Shortly after we returned from our last trip, Emily finished finals. She stayed in Rexburg to take care of a few things and have fun with her friends. Unfortunately, she had a huge falling out with her roommate. I guess it has been building up for some time now. Luckily, the roommate is moving out and Emily won't have to share rooms with her anymore but it ended very badly...let's just say that we recommended that she report her for her "unethical" behavior if she didn't move out.

Meanwhile, Caitlyn got her driver's permit validated. She had her first behind the wheel lesson. She went with the same company that Emily used and we even got the same driver. Caitlyn is feeling a little better about driving down the road.

We set out to meet her at her cousin Austin's new house in Utah the next week. Emily arrived the evening before and she spent the night with them. We left early from Riverside and got to Austin's house in the early afternoon the next day. We were a little unsure of our exact plans as the forecast showed intermittent thunderstorms all over the state for this week. When we got there, we took Natalie, Austin and Mason out for a late lunch at Panda Express. Austin and Mason had to go to work afterwards and we had quite a distance to cover still until we wanted to stop to camp so we didn't get to visit long. We got to see baby Georgie but only briefly. I didn't end up even getting any pictures. We left Emily's truck there and everyone piled into Christian's truck for our adventure.

We were headed towards Escalante and wanted to camp in that vicinity. We awoke the next morning, broke down camp and continued on our way. Our goal for the day was to drive an easy but scenic trial called Hell's Backbone.

We finished around lunch time or shortly thereafter. We decided to head up the Hole-in-the-Rock trail. Apparently, Christian and I did part of this trail many years ago but was not able to do the last few miles in the vehicle we were driving. I think I was leasing a little 2-wheel drive Isuzu Amigo at the time. We had the clearance but we did not have 4-wheel drive.

It is a fairly long drive but most of the road is very easy except for the last 5 miles or so which requires high clearance and 4-wheel drive.

The road was built by Mormon Pioneers looking for a short cut to the San Juan Settlement. The families that forged this trail spent long days working on this wagon trail and evenings with music and dance at Dance Hall Rock.

Christian and Emily climbed up the back side of the Dance Hall. Apparently, there were really neat deep holes on the backside that Caitlyn and I did not see. It was very hot out, so Caitlyn and I did not follow along to the back.

As we continued down the trail, you can see the storm moving into the area. It was still afternoon when we finally made it over to Hole-in -the-Rock. Lake Powell is at the bottom of the trail. It looked pretty neat so we decided to make our way down to the bottom.

While Christian was busy taking pictures from the top, the girls and I decided to make our way down. Shortly after we started, Caitlyn decided that she didn't want to make the hike all the way down. It's really more of a class 4 scramble than a while most of the way. There were a few areas that was a little sketchy and you had to climb your way down so she went back up while Emily and I continued on our way down. 

Emily and I were starting to wonder if the trail was worth our while at some point. We were a little dirty, hot and tired and at some point, we started to smell Lake Powell and I gotta tell you, it didn't smell too nice. I made it about three-quarters of the way down when I stepped off of a small boulder and turned my ankle really badly on a small rock. Emily was quite a bit farther down from me. At this point, I saw Christian finally making his way down. We were wondering where he was and why it was taking him so long to catch up with us. Apparently, he took the wrong trail and came down the hardest possible route.

While I was resting, he passed me by on the other side to check out the bottom with Emily. I guess I should have started crawling my way back up instead of just waiting for them to come back up to where I stopped. I was letting the excruciating pain subside while partly still in denial of my circumstances.

Christian had Emily go on up ahead of us. She took my camera so I wouldn't have to drag it along with me. Christian tried to help me but in the end, I had to slowly drag myself up most of the rock as it didn't really allow us to walk side by side and it was precarious enough that he couldn't just simply carry me back up.

It took us hours to get back up and it was excruciatingly painful. Christian had to scout out the easiest route for me and pull me up some of the hardest sections for me to keep my balance using mostly one foot. When we were nearing last 25 percent of the climb, the wind started blowing really hard and we were getting sand blasted during this whole ordeal. We could barely see where we were going. I can't believe we made it back up. It was quite a harrowing ordeal that I will not forget for a long time.

When we finally made it back up, Caitlyn brought be some water near the top. Christian was nauseous. We had sand all over us. It was just everywhere. We had to move fairly quickly out of the area though as the storm over us looked eminent. There was only a small amount of daylight left and we had to make sure to get past the roughest areas before it got slick with rain.

We got through it okay but there was lightning all around us. We seemed to be in an area where two or three storm fronts were converging. We got a pretty spectacular light show. We were moving too much to try to capture any of it on film. The girls tried to get a movie of it but it was too difficult and our equipment isn't really good enough to capture any of it in the circumstance. We had to drive through many big washes on our way back out. 

It was pretty late by the time we made it back out to where we were comfortable enough to camp. Of course, it was raining when we decided on a spot so Christian through up our tents as quickly as we could and we scrambled into our tents as we were all pretty tired from the ordeal. We didn't even bother with dinner. We got rain on and off in the beginning but the storm moved off again fairly quickly.

In the morning, Emily taped up my swollen ankle and we decided that we would definitely have to cut our trip short and head home. Before leaving, we took a side trail to Egypt. That seemed like a pretty neat place to explore, but on foot, so I definitely wasn't going to be able to do any of that this time. We had originally decided to go back to the first area we visited to do a hike that next day but that was definitely not going to happen either. 

We passed the Cedar Breaks National Monument on our way out. That seemed like a pretty neat place. I would like to go back there some time as well.

We stopped back by Austin's house to pick up Emily's truck. Caitlyn drove back with Emily while Christian and I drove back together in his truck. 

Utah-Idaho-Montana Road Trip

For our biggest trip of the summer, we decided to head out to Montana to meet up with Christian's dad at Christian's uncle's ranch. On the way, we were going to pick up Emily for the weekend.

Our first day was spent just traveling, mostly through Nevada. We passed by some pretty nice little towns and some nice camping areas, but we wanted to put a little more distance in for the day. By the time we got near the Idaho border, the nice camping places kind of ran out. It was slim pickings at the end, but we found a nice enough emergency campsite for the night. 

We got into Rexburg in the afternoon the next day. Emily was done with classes for the day, so we went to her apartment and met some more of her roommates. She had another roommate that she didn't like and no one got along with. One of her new roommates has become a pretty good friend. That, however, has irked her old roommate and they don't seem to be getting along as well anymore. Apparently, she wants Emily to just stay at home alone when she isn't there even though she has a job and a boyfriend on top of school that doesn't include Emily since she is an education major and Emily is an engineering major. They had one more roommate which seems nice but none of which are super close to. 

We took Emily out for dinner that night. Our favorite Chinese restaurant, Fong's closed down since we were there last unfortunately, so we went to try out a Thai restaurant instead. It was fairly good, but a bit pricey.

Afterwards, we dropped Emily back off at her apartment before heading out to our camping area out in the Dunes. Emily and her roommate, Laney, decided to come out with us.

We hit a pocket of rain on our way there. When we got there, we found someone had taken our usual spot. We were a bit irked. Apparently, Emily even knew them. I guess she has a class with them. We had to go in further to find another spot. In the end, we liked it a little better because it was a little further from the road. Even though it was getting late, there was still some daylight left, so we waited for the ground to dry up a little before setting up camp. Even though we were not getting any more rain at the time, the sky was lit up with a ton of thunder and lightning in the distance. Emily and Laney left shortly after.

The next morning, we took down camp and headed onto campus. We had Emily arrange for a tour of the campus for Caitlyn while she finished her last class for the day. We tagged along with her. We had a short tour of the campus and got to see one of the neat pipe organs in one of the chapels. Caitlyn got a BYU t-shirt and a bag of miscellaneous goodies. Afterwards, we went into the music department to take a peak around. A nice lady there gave us a tour of some of the practice organs available. We are hoping that Caitlyn will continue her organ training at BYU.

When we were finished, we went to get Emily. Emily was going to drive her truck and caravan over with us so that we could change her oil when we got there. Christian ended up driving her truck and the girls and I went in Christian's truck. We stopped by the temple to take a few pictures and picked up lunch on the way.

We got to Montana around 5:pm. Unfortunately, our idea to show Caitlyn the Montana Big-Sky Country pretty much failed. Apparently, there were a lot of fires in Montana, and all we got her hazy, smokey views. I think we had more blue sky in California. It was pretty smokey in Idaho as well. 

We went with Terry to pick up burgers for dinner and we watched the sun set at the ranch.

On the first night, we got to stay in one of the bedrooms in Tony's basement that we've heard so much about from Emily. It was nice and cool and quiet. We got some much needed showers!

In the morning, after breakfast, I made a coffee cake for everyone while Christian helped Emily change the oil on the Ranger. Then, Terry gave us a quick tour of the ranch.

Afterwards, Terry wanted to go to Phillipsburg to his favorite sweets shop, so we piled into Christian's truck. Tony was out working in the fields when we left. As luck would have it, the sweet shop was closed, so we left disappointed. We stopped by the local market on the way back to pick up some things for dinner.

At the last minute, we had found out that we were not the only guests for this weekend. We found that Christian's Aunt Linda and her husband was also expected...or decided to visit, anyway. I don't know how many of us were actually expected! Terry was supposed to pick them up from the airport in the evening. I decided to make a pot roast for everyone for a late supper. I brought some of our apples to make an apple pie as well. Dinner turned out to be quite late indeed, since their plane was delayed an hour. Christian went with his Dad to drive them back and forth from the airport.  Tony paid the girls to help clean the upstairs shower. He also wanted us to move upstairs to the bedroom on the other side of his. Apparently, he didn't want his sister and her husband in there because he claimed that they made too much noise. 

I guess Tony normally eats supper pretty late anyways as he goes back out to work before the sun goes down since it is a little cooler then. He takes a break in the worst of the heat during the late afternoon. Emily got a bit of homework done.

Between the smoke and the unseasonably hot summer Montana was experiencing, we did not get to explore much of Montana. Unfortunately for us, it was much hotter up on the first level bedroom than the basement room with half the space for the four of us. So, we frankly didn't get too much rest. Luckily, we decided to leave a day early with Emily. Tony is a bit of a grumpy old curmudgeon and was a bit of a pain to live with. Plus, we didn't want to impose on him too much since he is used to his solitude and apparently, so many of us decided to descend on him at the same time during haying season. All of it turned out to be bad timing.

In the morning, Tony bade us fairwell and went out to work. We had breakfast with everyone else and stayed outside chatting a bit too long as usual.

We then headed out to the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest to do an easy trail there. We wanted to see at least a little bit of Montana before leaving. We were originally going to stay an extra day exploring the area and camping one night in Montana but we had heard that there were thunderstorms moving in and decided to just go back to Idaho with Emily.

The area was beautiful with wildflowers and butterflies everywhere. It is definitely worth coming back to explore some more if we ever get the chance. We nearly even had some blue sky here and there.

We then made the long drive back to Rexburg. It's about a 4 hour drive. We saw a fire back in Idaho. It looked like that it had just started shortly before we drove by. Emergency equipment was just moving into the area to battle the new fire. 

We got back and had dinner and went our separate ways. Emily, back to her apartment and us, back to the dunes. We thought we were clever in finding a new area of the dunes to camp near. There was no one there and we had the whole place to ourselves. We explored and little and then set up camp.

Unfortunately, as the sun was setting (and keep in mind, the sun doesn't set until some time after 9:pm up there), we heard a huge group arrive just over the hill from us. They were yelling and screaming as they unloaded a bunch of quads or razors to race up and down the dunes on. They are not even supposed to be allowed to ride their vehicles on this side of the dunes...not that that ever stopped any of them. They road out there for hours! We tried to sleep but they were too noisy and we were too miserable until they finally packed up and left...but it was like 1:am at that point.

We were not too happy the next morning. Since we had an extra day, we went to explore the mountains near the Tetons. We went up and down the trails in the Caribou Targhee National Forest. That was beautiful as well, but there was just an endless maze of narrow trails. There were not many places to stop and most of the trails ended in dead ends. Many were just blocked off except for horse or foot travel but you can tell that it wasn't meant for that, the Forest Service just decided to block off certain areas for some unknown reason because there was absolutely no where to park your vehicles, much less horse trailers to use any of them. Christian mapped the area there as best he could for future reference.

The only area with enough room to stop without blocking trails was beautiful, but filled with clouds of mosquitos.

We then headed back to town. They were doing some road maintenance on one of the roads we took out of Rexburg. It was reduced to just one lane for traffic going both directions. It seemed exceptionally long for our turn to go. We've run into similar road maintenance everywhere we went. After about half an hour, cars started to turn around. They told us that they "think" there was some accident and that they didn't know when the road would reopen. We were told that it could be 5 more minutes or another hour. They hadn't the slightest clue what even happened. They vaguely told us that they think that there was supposed to be a road to our left that would take us around. At this point, there was a line of cars on our side at least a mile long. As we were aware of only one other major road that would take you back into Rexburg (but it would take us on a 50 mile detour), we decided to take our chances on that vague, unknown road to our left that may or may not take us into town. 

Luckily, it did indeed take us back to town in a bit of a round about way. We were tired and irritated and decided to go into town to pick up pizza for dinner. We got a hold of Emily to see if she wanted to join us for dinner. We saw two pizza joints on the main drag. One was super busy and packed, so we decided on the other one. We ordered pizza and Emily's roommate dropped her off to join us. We found out (too late) that the place is a Take 'N Bake shop. They make the pizza but they don't bake it for you! We were even more annoyed at this point. We went back to Emily's apartment to use her oven since we apparently had to cook our own dinner anyway! Frankly, the pizza wasn't even that good. It is slightly better than frozen pizza, but not a whole lot. It is comparable to uncooked fresh pizza at the market for half the price of what they charged us for this pizza. A total fail, but Emily broke out some ice cream for dessert.

Afterwards, we headed back out to our normal camping spot in the dunes. Emily had half a week left of finals. In the morning, we started on our way home. We saw another fire that looked like it just broke out moments before near the border of Idaho and Utah in the Sawtooth National Forest.

We stopped across from the TL Bar Ranch Preserve in Utah and saw a herd of elk. As they moved off, a herd of antelope came racing through. It was really neat but my zoom lens and photographic skills could not capture them to my satisfaction.

As we continued on our way, we skirted around the Great Salt Lake and popped back into Nevada. We drove though Dolly Verden in search of a possible campsite. We were originally going to try to get a bit more distance down but the area looked very promising. We saw a neat herd of wild horses .

Initially, we were a bit frustrated as it seemed like, although there was no one here at the time, that these were fairly well used OHV trails. We did not want another sleepless night of noise and aggravation. In the end, we did find a respectable spot and was able to get a decent night's rest.

In the morning, we continued on our way once again. One more day of travel! We decided to pop back into the edge of Utah to try a 4x4 trail there, west of the 15. 

We got to the general area without too much trouble, but we could not find the turnoff for the road we needed. We spent about an hour driving back and forth before just trying the only road that seemed like it could be it. The problem was that the name of the road on our atlas and trail book did not match what was on the actual sign and apparently google maps!!! Were so close to just giving up but we are so glad we finally found it as it was really beautiful. It was super hot out but the clouds made the views just perfect.

Indian Springs Trail, Beaver Dam Wash Conservation Area

We finally made it back home around 10 that evening. We didn't end up stopping for dinner or gas. We ate a small meal and cleaned up for bed as we were very tired from our weeklong journey.