We're Back... ok, we've been back since Sunday night... yippee!

Our mini vacation...
We started our trip on July 2^nd at 4 pm. Heading out going through Flagstaff and up toward Page, AZ. The drive was good, traffic was light. We rented a cute little Chevy Aveo that actually did pretty good on the climbs and it flew on the decends…LOL.

I am amazed to see some of the American Indian housing areas along this route between Flagstaff and Bitter Springs, AZ. What terrible living conditions they have. Most are run down, old, manufactured homes that have no stem walls, just up on the pilings with steps to the doors. Almost all dwellings looked to be just dropped onto hunks of land with no thought of placement based on terrain. The majority of families also had round dwellings that were stick built, apparently these are used for worship and/or meal preparation from what I have heard. I am even more amazed that there are very little animals of any kind that these people have. I think I counted a total of 5 horses at what looked to be 2 home sites just south of Bitter Springs. We have traveled this road one other time when we went to Lake Powell, but it still is amazing for the scenery and also at times depressing to see that these Native American Indians live as they do. Unfortunately I have heard that many of these Indians tend to be alcoholics by the time they are in their early teens and that so many live off government contributions of some sort. It is a matter of choice for these people I imagine.

We took the turn off at Bitter Springs and went through Jacob Lake, Arizona and made a quick pit stop to pee and grab a bite to eat. Jacob Lake is located at the junction of 89A and SR67 in the Kaibab National Forest. This lake, albeit is small, is actually supplied only by rain and snow melt. Located on top of the Kaibab Plateau that is known as the “waterless mountain” because it has no streams or running water feeding into it. It was dusk when we arrived and I did not get the camera out. Dang it! The soup was good, but a little expensive at this little café, but what do you expect out in the way-out boonies.

We finally pulled into Kanab, UT at 9:40pm (which was 10:40pm Utah time) and we went to the little hotel I had made our reservations at… the Bob Bon Inn:

I made the reservations online and even spoke to a Bob to let them know we would not be arriving until late. We rang the buzzer, no one came. We rang it again.. no one came. We grabbed one of the business cards and called the number and talked to Bob who came to the office. He said we did not have a reservation and that they were full. GREAT…. GRAND….WONDERFUL …as my youngest son would say! Bob got on the phone and got us a room down the street at the Treasure Trail Motel:

This lovely nice okay decent hotel was sufficient to sleep at (the bathroom was very clean). The floor was obviously cement covered with indoor/outdoor carpet. The walls were cement block painted white. When you walked from the foot of the bed to the head of the bed you actually would walk uphill. Ok.. enough said about this place…set cell phones to go off at 5am and sleep.

Thursday morning 5am, awake and on the road again. Gosh what fantastic green valley’s we go through as we travel toward Park City UT where we meet up with Boo (son #4) and his girlfriend JM and her 3 kids. We hurry on into Evanston, WY where we will stay for the remainder of our trip.

Evanston is not really flat, nor is it mountainess (that isn’t really a word, but you follow me, right?) I find that it is kind of like continual rolling hills.

JM works for a man that owns the High Country Inn, the Purple Sage Golf Course and Bar & Grill, the Sinclair gas station and the Wyoming Downs racetrack, so the hotel stay, all the meals, the day at the racetrack and anything bought at the Sinclair gas station market was paid for… YEEHAW!

We settle in the first evening and have a nice quiet time at the hotel. This is our room:

Here is the view out our hotel room window to the golf course and to the Purple Sage Bar & Grill.

Friday we decide to do some geocaching (www.geocaching.com ) with our son while JM does some job interviews and works with the hotel staff and on the computers there at the hotel. We will meet up later in the evening to go to the local rodeo.

We find 4 geocaches. One of which was located up on a hill behind an elementary school, here is the view from right behind the school building:

Another was near a Bison Park, look what we saw:

These animals are huge. They would rock slightly with each beat of their heart. Kind of wavering in the wind but with no wind around. This park is home to many bison. They actually allow natural breeding of these bison here. Apparently there are places that breed to be able to have bison shipped into parks for hunters to hunt. This park does not do this.

Friday night.. off to the Evanston Rodeo. Barrel racing was the big event here, there were about 15 girls competing. Some were from as far as Heber Valley, Utah.

They also had a chicken chasing competition for the wee ones:

I just love little local rodeos like this! The rodeo bullfighter performed with his young son and a baby son, see picture below. He travels throughout Wyoming to all the rodeos, big and small. What a life that must be.

Then back to the hotel room to freshen up for dinner at the Purple Sage Bar & Grill… mmmm! Then we went bowling.. HA what fun! Then fireworks time. We were amazed at so many fireworks going off. Of course there was 2 or 3 huge fireworks stores right there in Evanston. I guess any kind of fireworks are legal there.

Saturday off the races. We passed a nice area where Black Angus roamed:

Wyoming Downs Race Track:

We had the best time! We sat in the VIP section. We had monitors to watch the races on and food at our fingertips. There were even a few couches for the kids to lie around on. We even won about 50 bucks… LOL

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Sunday morning came too fast…. We had to start the trip home.

Some of the little towns we passed through in Utah…

Coalville, population 1451, had the most amazing creeks and beautiful greenery along the highway.

Springville, this place even had a minimum speed limit posted on the highway. I guess some of the population (25,309) liked to really mosey their way around here.

Heber Valley, population 8,624, a lot of alfalfa and hay fields here in different stages of growth. The typical settled town that no doubt at one time back in the day was a booming town with old rundown brick buildings on the main street that no doubt housed lively businesses, but now house emptiness.

Levan, population 834, this was even smaller than Coalville, it did not have a main street to speak of, but again filled with fields of hay of one sort or another.

Once in Gunnison, we pulled over just long enough to grab a picture:

Mt Carmel, population almost zero, most people live in the outskirt cities but almost 200 people work in Mt Carmel. Now this was a cute little town. This is just big enough that I would like to live in a place like this if I didn’t live where I live now.. hehehe.

Then through Hatch, this place cracked me up because they had 2 “sheriff” vehicles parked, one at each end of the town. These obviously were permanent fixtures because of the dust and grime on them and growth of weeds around the tires to deter drivers from speeding. I can imagine they were just the shell of the vehicles even. They had to be maybe 1995’s Ford Broncos. Anyway… too funny.

We stopped in Panquitch to get gas. Then into to Kanab, UT, where we stopped just long enough to grab a few snacks. We thought we were going to a Denny's here, but it was a Denny's fish and tackle shop so we ended up stopping at a gas station/Wendy's/market... LOL

I grabbed a picture reak quick.. this is the Kanab Cemetery.

Traveling from just outside Page, AZ, we would get caught in sporadic bursts of thunderstorms. Hubby drove the whole way home (thank you honey!!!)

Back home.. yeehaw! I love vacations, but it is great to be home! Back to reality and time to get things ready for work…
Monday comes, work and horse riding class. Tuesday we had a meeting with a gal from foster care. Wednesday night we sit down and watch a rented movie (The Other Boleyn Girl)….

Then before I could blink, it is now Thursday and I have finally been able to write about our trip. But one chore called me before I could, I went out and cleaned the water troughs and mucked the stalls a little and it is a good thing because now we are having a real good monsoon going on. Now is a nice time to sit and write this and watch the weather. whewwwww, done...BUT..................

I cannot even get on the internet to get this posted. LOL!

Ahh, enough of the storm has passed so I can post this.... yippee skidoodle!

Now I have a few hours so I can go and do a lot of catching up with reading my favorite blogs.