Big Trip

Last week we went on a trip to Utah. We rode Lance's motorcycle the whole way! It was insane. Absolutely the farthest Lance or I have ever been on a bike. 

We saw a buffalo. (don't worry Katie I saw the original buffalo we saw but didn't have my camera out)

We didn't start taking pictures until we got into Colorado. It was beautiful.

Don't worry that I almost made us wreck off the road to get this picture. I told Lance he needed to get as close to the guard rail as possible so I could get the water in the picture. It was kind of nerve racking.

Call me nerdy but I love seeing the different layers of the rocks and thinking of the millions of years it too for them to form. I kept saying things to Lance like could you imagine what it would have been like to be around when the mountains were formed. I really like geology. 

When we started getting out of Colorado and into Utah we came to a horrible horrible realization. Southern Utah is nothing but a hot hot dry dessert. We were burning up. It was unbelievably hot. We could barley breathe!

This makes me think of the old West.

As we headed north it started to get less desserty and more livable.

My family owns a cabin in Weber Canyon and thats where we were going to be staying while in Utah. I love that cabin. Although we were kinda roughin it. We had to watch our 3D movies on the laptop instead of a plasma TV...

When we first got there my niece and nephew wanted to go down to the water so we took them there. There dad specifically told them not to get wet. When I asked them why they were getting so wet and dirty 7 year old Zoe said, "He never said not to get dirty!" and 4 year old Ike said, "Nobody tell my Dad!" They were so fun. 

There are hammocks right by the cabin, but they were getting kind of old and full of holes. Lance and the kids still liked playing on them, 

Even if they got kind of stuck sometimes.

The kids also had tons of fun on the swings with Lance. 

Lance had fun too! 

Zoe, Madi, and Ike played well together. They are all so cute!

How great to be a kid.

These stairs go down the cliff behind the cabin to the water and are a classic part of the Weber. The are getting kid of old and a little scary but still awesome.

Here is Madi moose being and unicorn moose!

The damn and mean dam builder. The river that goes behind the cabin is SUPER FREEZING COLD but everyone always swims in it anyway. Lance built a really good dam this year and raised the water level above my knees and at least waist deep on the kids. It was fun and FREEZING!

All the sisters were were together on the last night we were there so we had too take a picture. This is how we really are. (meaning Rachel looks like a physco!)

This is the beast picture we got on our camera. There are better pics on my moms camera.

This is in Idaho on our way out of town. I was a little chili.

This is Island Park, ID. Just a pretty view.

By the time we got to Montana it was freezing cold! We had to put on full leathers and face masks. I would have never imagined it would be so cold in August.

We drove through Yellowstone.  

We turned our picture quality down on our camera because we were running out of room so alot of our pics from Yellowstone didn't turn out.

Lance's first glimpse of a geyser.

The bog of eternal stench!

This was Lances favorite part. This lake was HUGE! On our way home we drove through the night. It sucked but was beautiful. 

Basically after this we had to put the camera away because it was too dark to take pictures but let me just tell you what happened. It snowed on us. Thats right snow in August. We were in Wyoming riding our motorcycle through a muddy river bed that was a road under construction. It was the coldest I have ever been. Snow in August. I would have never ever believed it. All together we went 3200 mile, 1200 were in 17 hours on the way home. Let me tell you, 17 hours is a long long long motorcycle ride. It was amazingly fun though. I am sure I will be able to sit again some day.

On Fourth of July weekend, (I know that was a long time ago) Lance and I went to the lake to dive with some friends. Unfortunately and for some reason we didn't really take any pictures at the lake. Our friend did so I will have to get them from him, but on the way home, Lance and I stopped at the USS Batfish. It is a submarine in Oklahoma. How did it get here you ask? Well all the plaques and stuff inside say that it was a "gift" from the United States to the people of Oklahoma. The story that Lance and I had heard through the grapevine was that in the 70's she was decommissioned because she did have nuclear weapons. She was going to be scrapped. Instead of  letting their ship be torn apart the crew commandeered her and brought her up the Navigation Channel where she ran aground at the Port of Muskogee. I think that is when the US decided to 'gift' her to the people of Oklahoma rather than try to pull her all the way back to the gulf just to scrap her out. Anyway its a cool story. I didn't even know there was access to the ocean from Oklahoma. Shows how much I pay attention in school huh. 

I was amazed by the size of everything. I thought everything was going to be small. But this is one of the guns they shot off it.

This is the deck. They are redoing it to make it safer I guess. I never realized that submarines had wooden decks. They were selling 5 inch pieces of the original deck in the gift shop. I thought that would be kind of cool for someone who had served on the Batfish to have.

Every inch of every wall was covered in controls. It was crazy. It would take forever to figure out what everything was for. I am not kidding I mean every inch of every wall. No spare space at all!

You know in all those undersea movies where they are running and jumping through the hatches full speed. That would take some skill. The hatches between rooms were tiny! Like if I put a leg on each side and sat half in one room half in another, my head could touch the top of the hatch.

There were alot of small spaces. There was an open area down the middle or along the side of each room, but there were some places that were really tight fits kind of off the the side. And you know they had to go back into those spots cause remember how I said every inch of every wall had controls. Yep even in the tiny spaces behind huge pieces of equipment there were controls.

Here is the bunk house (room) There were 39 folding beds stacked three high. Lance is on the middle bunk and you can see that if he laid on his side, he was touching the top bunk. Hope your not claustrophobic. Plus, if you think that is tight, you should see the potty and the shower.

Here is the HUGE torpedo! I had no clue that torpedos were that huge! 

I have a picture of me standing beside the Batfish but it was so huge that we had to take three photos and then I photoshopped them together. I look like a little ant in the picture because is it so big. But because of the photoshopping I can't find a format to save it in that it will allow me to post on this blog. I will keep trying though. Anyway, that is the USS Batfish. It was a fun learning expieriance. I kind of want to go back to it with someone that actually knows something about submarines so that they could explain some about each room. It was cool. If you happen to be driving by with some free time. Check is out.

No new posts....

Sorry there have been no new posts. That is because I have had to work the last 4 weeks in a row... it drains my soul out of me. When we first started getting slow at work I thought it sucked but now that I have had to work the last 4 weeks in a row... I feel like my life is over. Pity me.

For Memorial Day we went to a local lake. It was about 20 miles from home. We camped for 6 days. One great thing about 6 days of camping is 6 days of beautiful sunsets.

Day 1

Day 2

 You can kind of see our fishing pole leaning against that post. We set out cat fish poles at night with bells on the end to alert us when we got a bite. We kept hearing little jingles but when we went to reel it in we could tell it hadn't bitten the hook. Then when we would finally reel it in all the way, the bait was gone. Our camp neighbors came over one night and gave us a tip; if we wrap our bait in panty hose they can't steal the bait. Well guess what, we did and that dang fish bit a hole in the panty hose and still took the bait! We never caught him. 

Maybe we will someday.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Lance even took a picture of the sunrise for me one morning. Apparently he tried to wake me up to fish for 'the early morning bite' with him and I told him I would rather sleep in. I don't remember that conversation but I don't doubt it took place.

 

This is Chris and Misty and their baby Claire who camped with us over the weekend. This was Claire's first camp out and her first time to swim. She loved it. Anytime we took her out on either of our boats she would fall asleep.

Here is the fisherman in his element. We caught about 3 or 4 fish everyday but we let

 them all go.

We tubed and kneeboarded. It was super fun. This is Debbie, Lance's mom, on the knee board.

I have driven the boat before, but this was the first time I pulled someone behind me. I was actually pretty proud of myself because that is something I thought I would never do. Lance is pretty good at knee boarding.

He even tried standing on it. It didn't work out so well.

I am pretty good too, but we didn't really get a picture.

Lance pulled me so fast trying to flip me that is about all the picture they could get.

We decided to have a big bonfire on the last night, but we had burned most of the wood that we brought with us. We had a brilliant solution. Go to the other side of the lake where no one ever goes and get some! You should have seen our neighbors faces when we pulled up with a boat full of dead wood. 

We made smores that night and just FYI, it was burning my flesh off to try and stand that close to the inferno for the picture. 

All in all we had a great time, got some great tans, and a great workout tubing and kneeboarding.

Texas

A couple of weeks ago (I know I'm late on posting) it was our 1st anniversary and we happened to have to have the week off of work. We decided to get on the bike and ride and see where we ended up. Well this was the same week as the rainy snake hunt so I said I wanted to go somewhere warm. We ended up in Corpis Christie. It was really fun. We went to the beach and got attacked by sea gulls. We were eating sandwiches and I saw a bird looking at us. Lance tore a piece off his sandwich and I said, "Don't give that to him, he'll tell his friends." Not knowing how true that would be. 

THEY ATTACKED US!!! 

They felt a lot closer than they look in this picture. I was kind of holding my sandwich out to the side to get the birds to stay long enough for they pic. One of them swooped down and took a bite right out of my hand. I screamed and pulled my sandwich in toward my chest and another on came about 5 inches from my face and snatched the whole thing out of my hand and I really screamed and got up and ran away. Lance made fun of me.

This is looking straight up. No zoom.

Here's my hunky hubby contemplating the meaning of life on the jetty.

Do I look like the little mermaid or what.

I was a genius and decided to check the tidal pools for signs of life. We saw a blue crab...

.... and a real live jelly fish. cool.

It was awesome to watch the pelicans eating fish. I wish I had a quicker camera so I could get them diving.

10 foot tall popsicle anyone?

The world largest sand castle. It was about 2 stories high.

Here is an air craft carrier that we went by. This pic was taken off the back of the bike and I was pretty scared while taking it because we were on a huge tall bridge and I had to almost stand on the pegs going 65 mph. I am very comfortable on the bike, I even fall asleep quite often, but for  some reason I just felt like hanging on tight across that big bridge.

Here is  a propeller that was displayed by the boat. There are two propellers that push that air craft carrier and they are actually about 4 feet taller than that on. Lance was very impressed. Unfortunatley for him it was closed for the night so we couldn't take the tour.

When we got home the big hoopla about swine flu had begun and it seemed we had just left ground zero. Good thing neither of us have gotten sick yet.