23 March 2008

Some busy weeks have kept me from up dating but I will try to get things back in place.

23 March 2008

This week includes activities from the previous week since we went to Death Valley on Friday 14 March. It was a great time to go since the temperature was moderate and the spring flowers were blooming.

We left Friday afternoon. The kids spring break started with the last school bell of the day and our trip started as soon as I got home from work. Death Valley is only 2-1/2 hours away and we made decent time. We got the trailer set up and Spencer's tent set-up so he could start earning camping days for his camping merit badge. I was banished to the Tahoe because my CPAP wouldn't work off the battery in the trailer. I was able to use a converter and make the CPAP work in the Tahoe.

Saturday morning, there were lots of complaints of the the wind blowing. I never noticed. After a quick breakfast of syrup-less pancakes, we went to Mosaic canyon, the sand dunes and Scotty's Castle which really wasn't Scotty's Castle but you'll have to go on the tour to figure that out. The elevation difference between the dunes and scotty's castle was 3000' We didn't notice the difference much while in the car but with a cold front developing at the same time as we were changing elevations, it felt like we had lost 30 degrees.

As you look at the pictures, you can see how Ben jumps the dunes, Katherine has a difficult time navigating the busy streets of Death Valley and Spencer hikes on slick rock.

Sunday we went to church in Beatty, NV. The branch had about 40 people attending. Spencer was the 6th child in primary. The Elder's quorum was the young mens group because they had no young men. Katherine went with Vicki to RS because they had one girl in YW and Katherine is so close to turning 18 (March 30 greetings can be sent to 12smile4 at mstar dot net) she figured she would just go with her this time. I liked what they learned in RS. The canning leader was talking about food storage and encouraged the women to can wheat with the reminder "The whiter your bread, the sooner your dead!" Share that quote if you like.

Sunday afternoon, Vicki and Katherine headed back to Las Vegas because of a previous commitment to perform in a Women's fireside with a promise that they would be back at 11pm. 11pm came and went. 7 am came and went, and we marked each passing hour. Finally, I hiked to a pay phone to call Vicki (no cell service in Death Valley). She told me that they had developed a radiator leak 20 miles outside of Death Valley and were just finishing getting the radiator replaced.

Vicki and Katherine made it back by 3:30pm and we were off again. We visited the lowest point in North America called Badwater Basin, the Devil's golf course, and Artistic loop.
We made it back to the campground and had baked potatoes, dutch oven pork chops and freshly baked dutch oven rolls. As night turned into really dark, the kids made smores and marshmallow torches.

Tuesday we went to see how borax was mined and processed got the Boys their Jr. Ranger badges and went to see the Pup fish which are only in Death Valley. With that we were headed home.


16 March 2008

Spencer went on his first official boy scout camp-out. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was not sleeping in his tent. Amazing how a four man tent can barely fit two 11 year-old boys and all their gear. This camp was organized to help the 11 year-old scout progress towards rank advancements. They did orienteering, first aid, indigenous plants and animals and knots and lashings.

Spencer's scoutmaster was having trouble making a shear lashing look like the finished illustration in the book. Meanwhile, independently, Spencer was tying the lash and making it in look exactly like the finished illustration in the book. Come to find out, Spencer had found that the book had a wrong illustration for an intermediate step. We encouraged Spencer to write the national scout office to inform them of the error, but he's not interested.

TTFN
-Ron