February

It's been a mostly uneventful, yet stressful month. We haven't really gotten to do much. We haven't really gone anywhere, but my brother had a series of mini strokes one morning. Three, to be exact. We aren't really sure when it happened, but he woke up one morning and basically fell out of bed because the left side of his body was not working. 

Everyone was home, thankfully and they managed to help him down the stairs and into the car and they actually took him to the hospital themselves! They put him on blood thinners and whatever else to help with the blockages in his blood vessels but it got worse before they got a handle of it. We didn't really realize how bad it was at first as my niece said that he was okay and that they were going to keep him overnight to watch him. He didn't really want visitors and we didn't want to stress him out by forcing ourselves on him, so the kids gave us updates occasionally. 

They approved him for some special physical therapy program so he will be there for a couple of weeks at least. I ended up taking his kids some meals. His kids haven't really had to cook for themselves so after about a week of eating leftovers and fending for themselves, I figured I would bring them some things so that they would not have to worry about it. Apparently, my sister came into town the same day and was wondering the same thing so everyone was able to get together and check up on the kids. We took them out to eat and they ordered them some extra food to take back with them as well. Then my mom took them shopping for some groceries and my sister attempted to help them with some meal prep ideas. 

In the end, I think they had more food than they could manage...especially since my brother had a lot of frozen items that he normally keeps stocked up around the house but the kids hadn't really had to figure out what to do with them yet. 

His wife mostly just stayed in the hospital with him. The kids aren't used to being on their own, but they are working on stepping up to take care of things as they are not young. They are both in college, same as ours, but they live at home and their oldest is going to graduate in a few months actually, but she doesn't even drive by herself. She did eventually manage to get her license but she isn't really comfortable driving on her own yet...and her parents aren't really comfortable with her doing it on her own either. Collin, the youngest, was between semesters, luckily, so he was able to take her to school and pick her up that first week and run errands to bring his parents things at the hospital. 

Anyway, the whole experience has been a bit of a shock and has given everybody quite a scare. My brother has a long road ahead of him, but we are very thankful that he is still with us.

January

We spent the rest of the time cleaning up from our trip and Christian worked on finishing up his 3D printing robot. We got it technically working before Christmas but there were still lots to do. At least it is looking nearly finished now.

There is still a bunch of stuff he needs to do before he applies for a serial number. He has already found some things that he wants to change on it though so I think it is going to be a while. That is the beauty of the open source project that you build yourself. You can modify it any way you like...but so far it is working so much better than the Ender. There were a few parts we forgot to print but besides that, we have not even turned the Ender on since we got this one running and we don't miss it. We were originally going to give the Ender to Emily afterwards, but after hearing all our nightmarish problems with it, I don't think she wants it anymore!

The rest of our free time for the month was spent mostly visiting family. January is usually a busy month for visiting with my family depending on when the lunar new year lands on the calendar. My mom's birthday is at the end of the lunar year cycle. Whoever was in town got together to celebrate her birthday early.

We went out to eat and returned back to her place to have cake.

Unfortunately, most of us did not feel that good the next day from the food. We think one of the pork dishes was not so fresh. It is a restaurant that we've been going to every time we go out for several years now. I believe Tommy's family goes there often as well. My mom reached out to the restaurant afterwards to talk to them about it but they just said that they would talk to the kitchen staff about it but was not apologetic at all, so we will not be going back.

Wendy took my mom back up to Pacifica with her. She got to go take walks along the beach and visit with extended family, so that was nice. She spent nearly two weeks up there. They did not plan to fly back down until the day before we were supposed to get together again to celebrate the New Year.

Since they were going to be out of town, it was up to me to make the stuffing again for the dumplings if we wanted to make it this year.

I was going to make a concerted effort to take more pictures of us making the dumplings but once you get there and get started, it's hard to stop to take pictures. Especially since we've got like an assembly line going and you have to extract yourself from it, wash your hands, take pictures and the wash again before getting back into the production line. There's too much going on. 

It's nice that everyone knows what to do now and can chip in. I seems like we are so much more efficient...even though I feel that Christopher was only there half the time and Collin was at work still. Plus Emily and Caitlyn are in Idaho.

My sister has also been growing shark's fin melon for the last couple of years. She got her original seeds from a friend and has been growing them ever since. She brought back a few melons to share with whoever wanted them to make soup. Christian chopped one up so we could cut them up and bag them to distribute. 

We pretty much just eat and make food all day. Because my mom was out of town with Wendy prior to this though, we only planned to make two different kinds of dim sum. We actually kind of finished earlier this year because of it. Christian and I were going to nip off and go to the asian market to get a few treats to send to the girls for the New Year. My mom decided to come and get them some things instead. She got them a few more sensible things along with a few treats. 

When we got back, Wendy and her family were meeting with her in-laws to go out to dinner. Norman had picked up some duck, chicken and pork for lunch and we had what was left for dinner along with some fresh vegetables we picked up when we were out. By the time we were done, Wendy and her other sided of the family came back. They decided to stay and chat awhile. Since we had been eating all day, we needed to go for a walk. Christopher took us through his neighborhood to a spot that overlooked the city on a hill. It was drizzling a bit when we took off but after we got there, it started to come down for real so we figured we better head back. We were pretty wet by the time we got back. It was kind of refreshing and none of us minded but I knew my mom would not be too happy with us. She made us dry off when we got back. 

Collin wanted to know how to sharpen a knife and had asked Christian to teach him. Christian had taught Wendy's family one year a couple of years ago. Jared had finally actually tried it on his own this last summer.

Afterwards, we showed them a few of our videos that Christian had made from our trip over the summer. When that was done, we called it a night and headed home as it was getting pretty late.

Chinese New Year was actually on January 29th this year. I made the shark's fin soup from Wendy's melons for our dinner along with some har gao (little shrimp dumplings).

The shrimp dumplings are not so very different than our traditional New Year's dumplings. They are just a little more elastic (more starch) and have a different stuffing. They are also much smaller. The filling is simpler though, so it's easier to whip up a small batch...although it is mainly just shrimp, so it is more expensive.

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.