December - End

Shortly after returning home from visiting with the girls, my new camera arrived. Christian took us out to Kelso Sand Dunes to try out our new cameras. Christian got my old camera...which isn't really that old but it is the last DSLR that Canon is making, so Christian is hoping to be able to stick with that for some time to come. 

We had not been to Kelso in a very long time. We actually have never even taken the girls here because it has gotten too popular. It has changed a lot...and not for the better. As soon as we arrived, we had a problem with the Jeep's brake lights. We parked and started to lock up before heading out when Christian noticed that his brake lights were still on for some reason.

Christian had to do some serious contortions to get under the steering wheel and check on the switches and electronics to see what the problem was. He managed to get it sorted out though and we headed out to take some pictures.

We found a ton of varmint tracks all over the sand where people haven't obliterated the tracks with their own. We think that the Kelso Dunes have become a sanctuary to all the Kangaroo Rats in California. There were just tracks everywhere.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a few remaining flowers leftover here.

We had a nice long walk, which is also what we wanted. It wasn't exactly peaceful since there were some very loud parties at the top of the dunes, but overall, it wasn't too bad, all things considered.

When we got back to the Jeep, however, we found a couple of vehicles had parked right next to us and had basically taken over the campsite that we were parked at. We were not there to camp but they didn't know that and we were there first. They just intended to shove us out of the way. We were happy not to stay there. We got dinner at our Ludlow Cafe on our way back home. This time it was open but just barely. Apparently, they also close super early, so something to keep in mind.

Christmas - Part 2

The next morning, Emily went to work, as usual. Since there was supposed to be a lot of snow this week, we told Emily not to worry about adjusting her work schedule since she only works mornings and needs the money. So far, we'd only gotten a few dustings of new snow here and there but we woke to some real snow this morning. 

We decided to head over to the campus with Caitlyn and take some pictures. The wind had stopped blowing and we were getting a nice peaceful snowfall. The conditions were pretty perfect. Christian had planned to get me a new camera for Christmas. He got the kids to help him justify it since I got a new camera only a few years ago or so. He wanted to get me one of the new mirrorless cameras but we were not ready to make the change last time since you basically have to get new lenses as the mounts are different. They used to have converters for a real good deal to entice people to move over to their new system, but apparently, enough people have made the change that they don't really care anymore and the converters are not really cheap anymore.

So since I would be getting a new camera system, Christian got to take over my camera and all its corresponding lenses and accessories. Since Christian was getting an upgrade to his system, Caitlyn would get to inherit his old camera, which is still an upgrade to what she was using, which was my very first DSLR. Emily was not part of the chain of camera juggling because she never put much effort into taking pictures. She had gotten Christian's old Kodak camera, but as far as we know, never used it the entire time she has been in college. We are lucky if she snaps a couple of pictures with her phone to share with us. Caitlyn showed much more interest in taking pictures, so she was the one that got to take over my old camera last time. 

However, since Caitlyn doesn't really need so many cameras (she also got an old camera that Cheri no longer used over the summer...it's kind of like the Kodak that Emily got), we asked Emily if she was interested in trying to get into photography now. We told her that if she was interested, she could take Caitlyn's old camera on a trial basis. If she used it, she can keep it....but if it just ended up in the back of her closet or wherever she has her other camera, she needed to return it to Caitlyn, as she would be happy to keep it. She has to take pictures and post the proof on her blog that we've been trying to get the girls to post regularly on since they went off to college (with very limited success). Everyone agreed that that was a fair enough deal and she would give it a try.

Anyway, we determined to bring Emily back later in the afternoon. First we had a quick errand to run in town before meeting Emily for lunch after she was done from work. We went out for our usual Mexican Burritos. Unfortunately, the best place the kids found was all the way in Idaho Falls. Afterwards, we picked up a few groceries for dinner before we could go back on campus. 

Unfortunately, it was a bit colder by this time so it wasn't quite as pleasant out here.

It got even colder as the sun went down shortly after. The wind also picked up a little bit.

Caitlyn was still having fun but I don't think Emily was quite prepared to be out here. She only had a couple of thin socks on and her feet were getting cold. Plus she hates gloves and I've never been able to get her to wear them, even when she was just a little tike.

We went into one of the buildings on campus and warmed up a bit before finishing up.

We had some nice hot chicken noodle soup after returning to their apartment. We also got our junk in order as we planned to head home the next day as some more serious weather was moving in.

The next morning, we said our goodbye's as Emily got ready for work. On our drive over the mountain passes to leave Idaho, we saw at least three vehicles that had wrecked. One of which, was a jack-knifed semi truck. There was ice and snow on the road. This is why we needed to leave before it got worse and why we don't really want the kids to drive this road in the winter when there is any chance of weather.

Christmas - Part 1

We finally headed out to Idaho. We were originally going to try to take it easy and take two days to get there, camping along the way. However, a storm was supposedly moving in and we didn't want the camping equipment to get soaked before we even arrived to the frigid temperatures of Idaho. We hoped to stay with the girls because of the snow and because all the roommates were supposed to be gone but we didn't know if it was really going to work out. 

One new roommate moved in a few days ago and the worst roommate was supposed to move out but her stuff was still there. She was supposed to get married and move away but towards the end of the semester, she postponed the wedding. She also got a contract supposedly at another complex but they were also saying that she was moving upstairs for the winter break so nothing was definitive.

We got there without running into much weather. There was actually a lot less snow than we anticipated and less than there had been in years prior at the same time. The new roommate was supposedly on her flight home for the holidays. The dreaded roommate that was left had not been seen for two days and so we thought we were in the clear.

Caitlyn made us dinner and it was waiting for us when we finally arrived. After we settled down to relax, the new roommate returns from the airport because her flight was delayed because of fog. Emily talked to her and told her we were there and she was totally fine with that, although we were still a little uncomfortable with the situation as they didn't know her that well yet. We stayed up chatting kind of late and when we were talking about calling it a night, the dreaded roommate returned to move her crap. It was 11:00 pm! She spent the next couple of hours thumping around, going in and out of the apartment and making all kinds of racket. I think she was a little ticked that some of her stuff was moved to make room for the new roommate. But here's the thing, the new roommate payed to be there and she was supposed to be out four days ago! We just stayed in the kids' room until she stopped stomping around. It's not like anyone could sleep through all that noise anyway. We could not even start to try to sleep until well after 1:am and we did not know when she was going to come back as she left a handful of things behind, probably just so that she can keep coming back in, even though it was no longer her appointment. Emily is super ticked and e-mailed the apartment manager that they need to just get the rest of her stuff out and get the key back for the apartment from her because she didn't want her coming back in to her apartment when she no longer lives there at any time of the day or night as she wished and that if she didn't do it, she was just going to leave her stuff outside in the hall for her to collect because she is not allowed back in the apartment.

The next morning, Emily had to get up for work (now with very little sleep, by the way). The new roommate heads out shortly after to head back to the airport, but then the dreaded roommate comes back in to retrieve the remnants of her stuff and is looking for other furniture that she stashed in the other empty room (not her previous room). She makes all kinds of more noise and now Caitlyn is extra ticked and e-mails the apartment manager to get the key back from her. We found the desk she stowed away in the empty bedroom and I helped her move it out to the hallway with some other furniture that was stuck out there for the manager to retrieve. The dreaded roommate was just supposed to be upstairs for ten days and then she supposedly was supposed to move to her new apartment complex but her moving the stock apartment furniture out of her new room for her own is not something someone who is leaving is going to do...especially since she has to carry it down the stairs! At least she is not staying in Emily's apartment but the girls had so much trouble with her that they will not be happy that she may be staying in the same building. It is not that big of a complex.

So, everything was not going well. Everyone was tired and disgruntled. While Emily was at work, we went shopping for some groceries for our stay. Marian arranged with Caitlyn to buy everyone steaks and stuff for our Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Christian went out to just work on Caitlyn's XJ. She needed an oil change and Caitlyn had not been keeping track of how many miles she had driven since the last one. I didn't think she should have had that many miles on it already but had forgotten that she got her oil changed when she got home for the summer. Since then, we had take the big camping trip in the Sierras and she and Ty had been driving back and forth visiting with each other every week during the break...then she had driven over 800 miles to get back to Rexburg, so yeah, there were quite a few miles logged in since her last oil change! 

After Emily got back from work, we had lunch and we tried to relax and settle down again...and what do you know, the dreaded roommate returns once again to get the rest of her stuff because the manager contacted her and basically yelled at her to get her shit together because it was "inconveniencing" her old roommates. Emily went out and talked to her and tried to be nice an not confrontational. The girl tried to make excuses about why she had not taken care of all this stuff before. She was looking for the desk again and wanted to finish cleaning her room so that she didn't get penalized for leaving it dirty. Emily told her not to bother because the manager had already started cleaning it (and besides, she didn't pass one single clean check the entire semester, the likelihood of her actually doing any real cleaning was nil). Emily told her the manager already retrieved the missing desk so the dreaded roommate supposedly went to turn in her key to the manager.

We hoped that that would be the last we would hear from her but we were not holding our breath. We tried to salvage our visit with the kids and decided to celebrate Christmas. Marian got us a prime rib steak dinner. We prepared and had that. Then we had the kids open up their presents on Christmas Eve.

Much to our relief, we had no more interruptions from former roommates.

On Christmas morning, everyone slept in a bit as no one has gotten a whole lot of sleep thus far. We eventually had to get the kids up if we wanted to do anything. It was Emily's only day off from work and we would likely be leaving soon, so we would not have a ton of more time together. 

Eventually, we decided to go for a drive to investigate an area in Idaho. With such a late start, we knew we would not be able to get too far down our trail but we wanted to at least make sure we can find the area we were aiming for. It isn't that close though so it would take some time to get there but the predicted weather was supposed to be nice Christmas day, but they hadn't been that accurate about the weather thus far.

The view from the Middle Butte area was stunning with clouds that would flow over the mountain ranges. There was mostly blue sky early on, but the clouds increased as the day went on. We stopped in the Cedar Butte area. Since the kids got up late and we didn't know what we were going to do, I didn't make and pack the sandwiches that I had planned for the day. We had water, but basically didn't bring any food for the trip. All our portable food was in our truck and we decided to take Emily's JK.

So since the days are short, combined with the fact that we started late and everyone was starting to get hungry and we had no food, we decided to call it a day and go back to have dinner.

December

The winter break could not come soon enough for Christian. As soon as it was over, we had Marian come over for dinner. We did not know when we would be able to visit with her as we did not know what our schedule was going to be like for the rest of the month. We were anxious to go up and visit with our girls but they had nearly another week of school.

We had a nice dinner and exchanged a few gifts with Marian. We got to catch up a bit as we do not see each other as often as we used to. She brought over some things for us to take over to the girls as well.

I didn't put up a tree or even put up lights on the outside of our house this year, but I did put up a few token decorations on our mantel. 

Over the next couple of days, Christian worked on getting the back seat of the TJ put back in so that we could take his father out for a drive. The back seat has never quite worked right since we got it. We would take it on and off depending on what we were doing. It is such a little vehicle that there is very little room for storage with all the seats installed. The last time we took it out, in was such a pain in the butt that we swore we would not put it back in until we figured out a way to fix it. On top of that, a bolt broke off and will need to be drilled out or something in order to fix it.

Christian had taken the seat apart last month or so and finally figured out what the problem was. A spring had popped off. That is what releases it from the bracket that holds it down. Actually there is one on both sides and both were not engaged. Luckily, it was still attached though, so Christian had to figure out where it was supposed to be attached to. Then he removed on the rust on the frame and painted it so that it would be protected. We also steamed the foam at the back of the seat so that it restored some of the fluffiness. We didn't end up doing the other part though because it was too difficult to remove from the covering without possible damage. All this took a lot longer than we anticipated and we frankly put it off for weeks after that because the dog next door would just bark and bark at us as we tried to do anything in our own garage or driveway.

When everything was ready, we drove down to visit with Terry. We drove him out to Coyote Mountain. We came here with the girls a couple of years ago and it was really neat. Christian wanted to bring his dad but I thought the trail might be a little too rough and scary for him. The trail turned out to be worse than we remembered. It has definitely taken a beating over the last couple of years. 

We explored a bit trying to figure out the trails. It didn't really pan out as we expected and it took us a while to backtrack back out. We picked up a quick dinner on the way back as it was getting a little late. We visited for a few minutes with Jackie when we dropped Terry off at their house and headed home.

Christian spent most of the next week working on his 3D printer. He has not had the time or inclination to touch it in months. He mostly needed to wire up all his components. He actually got it up and running...at least mostly. It was enough to at least print PLA. And even without really tuning it, it was printing better than the tuned Ender...which was already pretty damned good (at least when it worked, which was not consistent or often).

We had been watching the weather all week, trying to decide when to make our trip to Idaho. Of course, as our luck, there was a storm system moving in for the week we intended to be there so that we could actually spend Christmas with them.

Christian printed me a few ornaments. They were pretty neat. He printed a few kit cards to send out to a few friends. We had plans to visit my mom the next day to celebrate the winter solstice. My sister and her family were driving down from S.F. Since the printer seemed to be working quite nicely, we decided to print the younger niece and nephew a puzzle for them to work on. I say "younger" but they are in college. We only got Collins done in time. It was a saber toothed tiger.

Anyway, we went early to help my mom with the food. Norman and Lauren showed up shortly after. Debbie and Collin were working and would arrive later and Wendy and her family were a little delayed from the traffic but all made it safely at some point.

Thanksgiving Break

We had lots of ideas for the Thanksgiving break, but one by one, they got eliminated. We tossed around the idea of going to Idaho to visit with the girls, but they never get more than the extended weekend off and they are usually busy anyway. Those professors never even give them the slightest break during the holidays. In fact, often times, they give them more to do because they have an extended weekend to do it, right?!

Our next couple of ideas went out the window because of the weather system moving in. It was going to be super cold everywhere we thought to go. We finally decided to just keep it semi-local and head into the desert as it was a little warmer than the other ideas we had. We were supposed to leave shortly after Christian got out of school, but they forecasted a lot of rain and wind that was supposed to sweep through the area. Most of it ended up on coming down this far south. We got the tail end of the storm and it didn't amount to a whole lot where we live. 

When we finally got the all clear to head out, it was already halfway through the week...which was okay as we did not plan to go far but we would miss Thanksgiving with the family. We headed back out towards Nevada but as we jumped on the freeway, we knew we made a mistake traveling so close to Thanksgiving. There was quite a bit of traffic on the roads. At some point, we were down to bumper to bumper traffic and decided to jump off the 15 and onto the 395 because if we had to sit in that any longer, there was a good chance we would just turn around and go home. Traffic wasn't great on the 395 either but it was moving for the most part. It did clear up, the further we went. We were supposed to head towards the desert when we got to Big Pine but ended up getting cut off by a train of Toyota "Overlanders" that were headed that way after we got gas. We decided not to get stuck in back of them as they were most likely headed to the same area we had planned to spend the night. 

After a while, we found ourselves all the way up in Bishop. There was not quite as much snow as we had expected up in the Sierras. It was getting late at this point, so we decided that maybe we would camp at the staging area for Coyote Flats, where we took the kids over the summer. We had never been there in the winter before and we wondered at the conditions of the road. Since they had obviously graded it somewhat recently, we wanted to find out how far we could get before the snow was too much.

It was very beautiful, but we got a bit uncomfortable with the trail about halfway up and decided that we didn't want to go any further. But instead of camping at the base, as we had previously planned, we decided to just go as far as we can towards our destination. We were also hoping that we would find a place lower and warmer to camp.

We ended up camping in the Piper Mountain Wilderness area. It was cold, but not too bad, all things considered.

We headed to the Reveille Range, stopping by Warm Springs on our way.

Because it was so cold out, the warm spring water looks pretty steamy, but by the time it travelled under the road, to the other side, it looks like it cooled off significantly.

Originally, we wanted to explore the area, but we also wanted to look for a possible camp site for when we travel to Idaho so that we don't have to do it in one day, which is pretty excruciating sometimes. The Nevada guidebook we brought along with us showed some interesting trails, but the explanations and directions were rather terrible at times. We were looking for short trails and Christian told me to choose between four that were in this area. The information in the book was a bit deceptive though. One trail claimed to be something like a 9 mile trail, but doesn't take into account that this trail starts halfway down another trail that is over 30 miles long. Most of the trails are just old mining trails. There are lots of old abandoned mines dotted all around the Nevada mountains.

When it started getting late, we decided that we needed to just find a suitable camping spot. Unfortunately, we were a lot higher up than we had thought and it was very cold out. Even though we were losing light fast, it was still fairly early out, so after we set up camp, we had dinner in the Jeep. Our Thanksgiving meal was a pre-packaged, ready to eat meal consisting of a slice of turkey with stuffing which was drenched in gravy. All we had to do was put it in a water bath and heat it up. It wasn't too bad. We've had worse. Caitlyn will never us live down the dreaded Thanksgiving we had going down the white rim trail. We had instant mashed potatoes and some weird Spam spread. I admit, it was pretty awful. We finished with a jello fruit cup for dessert. Not quite a Thanksgiving feast.

Christian managed to scrape together enough twigs and things to have a small fire afterwards. That lasted about half an hour. There is not a whole lot to burn out here but it kept us going for a little while. We then headed back into the Jeep to get a last burst of heat and read a little before finally calling it a night. At least it was no longer quite so early any more. You don't want to turn in too early as it would make for a VERY long night. I didn't sleep too well because it was so cold. It was hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. By the time I got some sleep and got warmed up some, I heard Christian get up to use the restroom, then I had to start the process all over again. We both got up pretty early. I quickly packed up my stuff and Christian started up the Jeep for me. I warmed up while he started taking down camp. When I warmed up some, I jumped out to help him. Everything was covered in hoarfrost. He could not really brush it off the tents. We did what we could and put them away.

We decided to just finish the long trail that led to the so-called short trail that we were supposed to be on. We passed a bunch of old buildings and mines. Unfortunately, people have made a mess of most of it, so they are usually not that interesting. They either leave trash everywhere or they knock down and deface the old buildings and equipment. It's pretty sad. It took us longer than we expected to finish the trail as it branched off all over the place and the directions were not very clear. We had to backtrack a little when we thought we were headed in the wrong direction and try to get our bearings. We finally made it out to the old mill where they processed some of the stuff they mined. It was the closest water source near here, so they didn't have much choice and it wasn't very convenient for them.

The sun had been up for a while by the time we got out here but the water was still very icy. We were surprised to find a good number of fish in the pond out here. It looks like someone put them in there at some point and yet they were able to survive and even thrive in the harsh environment. It was a really nice surprise.

The way out from here was a pretty straight shot back to the road. Some of Christian's clothes got wet when our water bottle must have broken while being jostled up and down some of the trails on the first day. We had spent the previous day trying to dry them but some of it was still a little damp because of the cold. He also hadn't really packed quite enough clothing, so to lose what little he had was not very good. In the end, we decided to head home as it was just way too cold on top of it all.

We got a hot dinner at our usual stop in Baker before continuing on our way home. We got back late and took nice hot showers. We spent the rest of the weekend cleaning up all our gear and airing everything out to make sure everything was dry and relatively clean before putting them away and looking over our pictures and videos.

November

We had a little more going on this past month than the last one...mostly because we made a concerted effort to get out of the house, plus Christian finally got some time off from work this month for the holidays.

We celebrated Christian's birthday this month. I got him a Black Magic Speed Editor which came with DaVinci Resolve Studio. Or, you can say that I bought him DaVinci Resolve Studio and got a Speed Editor for just a little extra!

We also went on a short camping trip for Christian's birthday. Every place is crowded these days, too far or too cold. We ended up in the desert on the border of California and Nevada. We had several places that we wanted to visit while out there. Our first destination was the Chloride Cliffs in the Funeral Mountains, overlooking Death Valley.

It was very remote and beautiful.

It was a long drive up to this point and we spent longer than anticipated in this area, so we decided to camp in the area. We found a suitable campsite at the site of an old mine, not far from the cliff. Because it was still close by, we decided to go back up to the cliff to see if the view was a little clearer in the morning light. 

It was a little clearer, but still not as clear as it could be. The skies are still hazy with smoke from fires for the most part. Afterwards, we headed to the end of our trail. Today's plan was to stop by Monarch Canyon on our way out to do a bit of hiking. It is an established hiking trail so we thought it might be a good option to get some exercise and push my knee a little bit to get some movement back in it. On the way there, we ran into our first signs of people in the Funeral Mountains. Two vehicles were heading in as we were heading out. 

However, when we turned into the area for Monarch Canyon, we found a couple of vans packed with people at the hiking area. We decided not to bother and headed back out. We decided to check out a different 4x4 trail further along in Nevada instead. It was still early and we were already way out here, so we decided to check off another trail from our Nevada trail book. Unfortunately, as we were traveling down one of the main roads in Nevada, the traffic came to a complete halt. We were wondering what was going on as we were still basically in the middle of nowhere with a line of cars as far as the eye could see and beyond. Even though we travelled a long way and was almost to our turnoff, we decided to turn around and head back before everyone else got the same idea and clogged up our road back out.

It was pretty disappointing and very frustrating. We started heading back into California and tried to make some plans for where we wanted to camp for the night. We stopped in Baker to pick up a quick dinner and decide once and for all, what we were going to do. Christian wasn't feeling that well and his back was bothering him. He was afraid that it was going to get worse and he didn't want to be stuck out here camping, not knowing how bad it was going to get. In the end, we decided to just head home, just in case. Of course, part way back, we discovered that the turn signal/brake light stopped working on one side of the Jeep, so that was a bit stressful. It was just a bulb that went out.

He did end up getting some rest and going to work on Monday, but he was suffering again by the time he got home and had to take the next day off. It was a bit more manageable after that and he managed to make it through the rest of the week before it got better.

We had Terry and Jackie over the next weekend. We got to visit and catch up a bit and celebrate birthdays.

We are kicking around ideas for the week of Thanksgiving already.

October

October was a pretty long and otherwise dreary month. We didn't do too much, at least not much we want to remember.

Christian recovered enough from all the repairs on the girls' vehicles to turn his attention to our own vehicles, which were overdue for some maintenance items. He had to change the oil on the truck and the transmission fluid needed to be changed on the TJ.

The maintenance on the F-150 went pretty smoothly, but he ended up having to change the transmission fluid on the TJ three times! He got on the pans and stuff off the bottom of the Jeep, cleaned it up and put it back together. But when he filled the transmission fluid, it was leaking badly, so he had to turn around and take the pan back off. We got some new RTV and new fluid and started over again, only for it to still be leaking! All that fluid is pretty expensive and it's all a pain in the butt to take the pan off and clean it up. So, the third time around, he saved the fluid and put a cheap and seemingly warped gasket on instead of using the RTV. Amazingly, it worked with the cheap gasket. It's not like this was the first time he's changed the transmission fluid on the TJ and he's done it on all the other vehicles, multiple times, so we don't know why this was such a problem. Anyway, it seems to be fine now and is shifting better than ever.

While the TJ was out of commission, we also did some work on the back seat. We were planning to take his dad out for a drive somewhere and we need the back seat in order for us all to fit in one car. The last time we took the back seat out, we had so much trouble and broke a bolt, we didn't want to put it back in until we figured out how to fix the darn thing. It's always been a problem. Christian dissembled the whole thing and finally figured out that there were a couple of springs that was not connected which allowed you to pivot the seat out of the way to either have more storage or in order to get to the bolts to remove it completely. He is now grinding some of the surface rust off of the frame so that we can treat and paint it so that we don't need to worry about it anymore. 

It is still in pieces, however, as every time we go out to work, the neighbors dog barks at us unceasingly and it's been pretty miserable. Every couple of weeks, it will just bark all day regardless if we or if anyone else is outside. We don't even want to go out any more. It's been pretty miserable. We've talked to the neighbor, but they really don't care, we will just get into an argument with them and nothing is done. The worthless cops won't do anything about it either, even though there are noise and dog barking ordinances. They just shrug their shoulders (figuratively), and say, well, dogs bark. Laws don't mean anything anymore.

So, yeah, we haven't gone anywhere this month. It's been horrible trying to do anything in our own garage or yard, so we shut ourselves in the house and try not remember there is a world of jackasses out there. It doesn't actually work most of the time...or not for very long anyway.