You Will Just Have to See it for Yourself

Despite Ari threatening to put a damper on our Mendon to Cutler canoe trip, we went anyway. Ari was not invited; instead he spent the afternoon with CoCo (aka the neighbors). I didn't realize it until we left that this was the first time Joe and I have been on an outing (aside from a short errand or two) without Ari. Pretty crazy. Gotta love great neighbors.

Because we were so engrossed in the rapture of not having to pack 1/2 the house for Ari we failed to do any sort of double checking...this resulted in no memory card for the camera. I know I know, I've disappointed you all greatly. Instead I will have to attempt to tell you what you WOULD have seen had the camera actually been storing photos.

First of all, if you like classic cars and yard sales you will LOVE this section of river. Picture with me if you will floating past entire river banks of cars; and sometimes even floating right over the top of them! It definitely gives the river a sunken ship, buried treasure sort of feel. You also got to float past other peoples junk; chairs, dis guarded plastic furniture, bottles, cement slabs, etc. You would have seen photos of me and K-So in the canoe, K-So and I swimming together in a (seemingly clean) swimming hole. You wildlife enthusiasts would have oohed and awed over the photos of deer (2 bucks with velvet), beaver, herons, egrets, great horned owls, king birds, geese, ducks, king fishers and on and on. Photos of us crashing through bushes only to emerge covered in spiders and their webs, fish swimming beneath the canoe in the clear cool water...then the water turning stagnant and mucky the closer you got to cutler, a metal pipe dumping water looking like urine into the river. I would have intersected the aforementioned gallery with a story of how we were gone much longer than we had intended so you would have gotten a photo of Joe tromping off into the bush to find the road (and get the car) as I continued on...then Joe calling me back because he hit a swamp, me paddling back upstream to get him; us finally finding a take out and hauling the canoe up a steep bank.

My favorite photos would have come at the end. Joe's first hitchhiking experience! Can you believe I don' t have that on film? He was such a natural...with a little coaching from me of course. He got a ride to the gas station off the main road where we had stashed a bike, then he used the bike to navigate through the side roads to get our car. The other greatest photo would have been of me pushing/pulling the canoe through an abandoned alfalfa field until I hit the highway. It must have been quite the site for highway travelers; some five foot two inch scrawny girl wrangling a canoe the size of nam to the highway.

All in all I don't recommend this section, unless of course your into birds or your favorite river is the Jordan River in SLC. I would be more inclined to float from Main Street in Logan to Mendon...in a Kayak.

It would have been a great post.

Ari VS the Canoe

We rented a canoe for the weekend in hopes of taking a little float from Mendon to Cuttler. Friday evening we took the canoe out for a maiden voyage; mostly to see the logistics of Ari in a canoe. Boy where there logistics. We were surprised to find that we had to bribe him into the canoe with milk; but figured once we got on the water he would love it. Not so. When the milk was gone he insisted on going back to shore (pointed at the shore and said "down" "down" repetitively). We were able to distract him with a stick for about 1.5 minutes then it was back to "down" "down", then came the "ddddooooowwwwwnnnn," flailing, crying... alas we went back to shore. It was so unexpected. Not sure what his deal was?

Instead of canoing Ari and Joe threw rocks from the dock and I took pictures.

1. Almost back to shore and Ari's still freaking.
2. As soon as his little feet hit the dry ground he RAN for the car.
3 & 4. Throwing rocks.
5. Land.

Shuttle Bunnies

I ventured out on my first solo run. Noting too extravagant; just the City Section of the Logan River. The most frightening thing that happened was when a HUGE 120 pound dog came running out at me, came right up to me in the river. I about had a heart attack. I spent a good portion of my time trying to figure out which house belonged to Harold and Lauren (they bought a house on the river). The only house I thought was a possibility was one that had a cool home brew looking bottle in a crate in the river. Sure enough.

The river was running pretty low right now but all in all I will definitely be seeing the more of the Logan River. It was quite enjoyable. A nice trip down memory lane (I ran this section a lot in College)...speaking of, does anyone know what became of Alex?

Anyway, the best part was coming up on the fine shuttle bunnies pictured here. Ari was waving like a maniac.

Joe Didn't Really Need his Glasses Anyway

This evening Joe, Ari and I ventured to one of our favorite summer spots. The dog park. Since it wasn't just me and Ari (like it usually is) I brought my camera along...usually I'm trying to keep Ari from going after sticks with K-So). Here is us at the dog park doing dog park things.


















































































This is a close-up of what K-So looks like when she shakes.




































These are the fellas


This is us walking the train tracks (or as Ari calls them the "choo choos)

















This is Joe on the rope swing; loosing his glasses.

















This is Joe looking for his glasses.

















This is Ari throwing rocks while Joe is looking for his glasses

































This is Ari STILL throwing rocks, still no glasses, note Joe in the background

















































This is Joe after not finding his glasses

















This is Joe Michael Phelps after a trip to Big 5 to buy goggles

































This is us heading home late in the evening...note that Joe is still not wearing glasses.

You Look Exactly Like an Elf

Joe was at the DI the other day and the lady at the checkout counter said "I really like your ears, you look exactly like an elf." This is Joe's ear.


Note, photo taken before the previously mentioned glasses incident...may they rest in peace.

Speaking of Friends

This was K-So and Ari watching Cars today.

Friends...and a Photo of an Ugly Truck

Friends...aren't they great.

This weekend I had the privilege of spending time with some great Friends. Some of you (likely those who went to high school with me) will remember Melanie and Amelia. On Friday Ari and I joined them and their kids at Amelia's for Pizza and chatting. It's so nice to have friends with whom are so great you can not see each other for years then just pick up where you left off; it's just so comforting. I had intended to take a photo, I intended to do that last time we got together too but something about three adults for 7 crazy children makes that kind-of hard to remember. Next time! ...it was just a really nice evening.

After hanging out with those ladies we spent the next day biking up at Alta and feasting at Lone Star with Claud, Bri and Myelle. Oh how I wish we still lived close to them; there like our couple soul mate; they even let us borrow their new outback so that we could make the last 2 minutes of my family reunion (we were late due to having too much fun...and car trouble; but lets not talk about that).

Anyway, some fine examples of friends. I left the weekend feeling pretty lucky to have the friends I have. Sigh. Thanks friends.

I will part with the only photos I took this weekend.

1. Alta with C&B
2. An ugly truck (no offense if this is anyones brother or anything)
3. Our car just after hitting 55K (note be bought it in March with 43K)
4. Ari enjoying a car game I invented called "whats in the box"

Pretend You Care About the Election

I have been giggling to myself since my Dad showed me this last week. Just had to share.

Ari Rides the Butt

Ari has been obsessed with Butts lately; and by butt he means "bus"...minor technicality. So today we rode the butt to the library and back. I snapped this photo moments after the friendly toothless gentlemen with the coke bottled glasses spent about 2 minutes poking Ari's nose, pinching his cheeks, tickling his toes etc... trying to get him to smile; which he eventually did. Welcome to the wonderful world of public transportation son.

"Lost Cities of North and Central America"

Look! Joe's reading something that the average person can actually understand the title to! Could this really be Joe engaging in recreational reading? Ya, I figured you would have to see it to believe it; so I took a photo:)

Boy Gets Excited Over Road Resurfacing

This was (by Ari's account) the coolest thing to happen on our street EVER. It even topped the weekly sighting of the local trash compactor. He was entertained at the window for about an hour, then they moved up the street and Ari insisted we go outside and follow them. (note Ari toeing around his toy dump truck; it matched the real dump truck, which was apparently cool).

Look Mom, REAL construction workers.

Backpacking the Mosquito Laden Wasatch-Cache

Usually when I embark on a backpacking trip the drive to get there alone takes up a day or two, so I was not too disappointed when our girls weekend in the Grand Staircase turned into me, Kim and K-So in the Mt.Naomi Wilderness (I was however bummed that most of the "girls" ended up not being able to make it...next time). I think Kim best summed up the trip when within the first 2 miles we had to stop and consult the map through a cloud of mosquitoes, we had lost the trail, it was hot and humid, we already had about 20 bites each and Kim says "I can't figure out why no one wanted to come with us". I laughed.

Ellen (who would have been with us but sprained her ankle) dropped us off at Tony Grove. We hiked up and over some hills, past Mt.Elmer, out Green Canyon and into Kim's yard in North Logan. We spent three days on the trail hiking, talking, reading, ooohing over scenery, swatting mosquitoes and eating. It was a fabulous 4th of July weekend.

Before we hit the trail I stopped by the forest service office and asked the information woman about the trail conditions in Naomi. She looked at me like I was an idiot and told me I would need snowshoes; that they had just plowed the road to the Tony Grove campground and left me with a "good luck let me know if you make it out" sort of speech. We took our snow boots and shoes to the trail head and after seeing hardly any snow in Tony Grove we left the snowshoes but took the snow boots just in case the woman was not crazy...well, we didn't need them. Not even close. We encountered a few steep spots in the trail that still had snow which made crossing those sections slightly difficult (first photo, K-So looking at the steep rocky canyon below in which we could have plummeted to our deaths) but there were very few of those. At one point I tried to slide down a snowbank and onto the trail (to save my knee) but failed to stop when the snow did and slid down the snow and through the mud...but landed on the trail (second photo). I don't advise doing that. Rocks hurt to slide on.


The mosquitoes were thriving up there. Yes, Joe recommended a mosquito net and bug spray but I thought "how bad can they really be" (mind you the forest service lady made me think it was still winter there). I had no idea. They were the worst at the top of Green Canyon; at a critical moment when the trail was nowhere to be seen; we literally would have been eaten alive had we stopped to look at the map. I glanced at the map and saw we need to be on the east side of the canyon so without finding the trail we took off running. Kim looked like Pig Pen, she had this black swarm all around her and I could feel I had the same. What was also bad was what running strait down a canyon does to ones already fragile knee (I lost my trekking pole on day 1). Ouch. We eventually "ran" into the trail and luckily ditched a large percentage of our mosquito onteroge. This is Kim's hat once most of the mosquitoes were gone, and this is also Kim who was smart enough to bring a head net.


We had expected more of the springs to be running but that was not the case; therefore we melted and filtered snow. It worked out well considering we had to keep a fire going at all times to smoke out the mosquitoes...and the fire came in handy for cooking when ones stove decides to quit. I know, the fire doesn't exactly meet "leave no trace" standards but trust me, when we left the fire was nowhere to be seen.


We found a really great place to camp on the second night. A horse camp complete with a fire pit, chairs and flat ground for the tent. You can tell by the photo Kim was really happy about it.


The snow also came in handy when it was hot. We would put it in our hats as we hiked, and wallowed in it when we were hot. Thanks K-So for the great idea.


Kim in the foreground near Mt.Elmer. Naomi Peak and Magog (?) in the background.


Here are a few photos from the trail. Ok, there's more than a few...there's a lot. It was just so pretty, all this great country right in our backyards. There are not many places where one can be dropped off 30 minutes from home, spend 3 days in the back country of a wilderness area, never see anyone until you hit Green Canyon and hike strait to your house! I love it here.