My plan was to pick up Josh from the airport. His plane was scheduled to arrive at 11am. To give us a couple hours leeway we decided to leave at 12 midnight and drive straight thru the night. Luckily Brian drove from Cedar City to Las Vegas and gave me some good rest.
As we were nearing Long Beach, I decided we should stop for breakfast and pulled off the freeway. Started driving away from the freeway towards the nearest IHOP. Just my luck it turns out I endded up getting off the freeway in Compton, not a very nice neighborhood. We settled for McDonald’s since it was closer to the freeway. This place was bad, the diet coke was terrrible (it is always good at McDonald’s) and we had a drunk inside asking if he could borrow a few dollars. He reeked of alcohol already.
We survived Compton and got back on the freeway. It was my plan to take everyone to the Aquarium of the Pacific while we waited for Josh and our time to board the ship. Once again it was just my luck that the city of Long Beach was having it’s marathon that morning. We tried for some time
to get around the police barracades. Finally the police started to take them down and we were able to get to the Aquarium parking. I had no sooner paid my 7 dollars to park the van and walk across the street to the aquarium, and Josh called Nd said he had landed and was ready to be picked up. I sent the girls in the park with Bry and Sky while I went and grabbed Josh from the airport.
Josh and I made it back to the park and we found the others. The coolest thing at the aquarium was not the sea life but a bird enclosure with tons of loorikeets. We paid a few bucks for a small cup of nectar. The bird would then then fly to your with the cup and take a drink. It was very fun!
– Post From The Couch
After spending many a hour hiking with the poochie, I have decided that she should be a dog model. I am not sure how a dog gets into the modeling business, so if you know, just leave me some instructions. Really, she climbs up on what ever I tell her to, and she stays there until I am done snapping photos. Check out these pictures of her modeling her new backpack, doesn’t it make you want to go buy one?
She has been the best hiking buddy. Follows me where ever I take her. It is amazing how I will pass someone on the trail, smile and say “Hi” and barely get a response, but when they see her they usually say “Awe, how cute”. Either that or “Check out the different color eyes”. It makes hiking a lot more fun.
This past Saturday we drove up to Aspen Grove and set off to hike Big Provo Cirque. I have hike to the cirque before… once… 30 years ago. The trail to the cirque has never been a well marked trail, and not having hiked it in so many years, I was not even sure I could find my way up there any more.
Back in high school I hiked the trail with my Unified Studies class. We went up hiking through Sundance, but we lost the trail and ended up on top of a ridge looking down a 500 foot cliff at the rest of the class who made it into the cirque successfully. I thought it best to approach the cirque from the Aspen Grove side, since that is the only way I had successfully made it in the past. I knew that before I made it to the falls, I needed to branch right and go above Stewart Falls. I made the turn and headed straight up a steep hill. The further I got up the hill, the more convince I became, that I was not on the correct path. The bushes became very thick and each step up the hill was a battle. I had to remove Dallas’ new pack and carry it, because she could not make the climb through the bushes with it on. A pine covered section of the ridge was just 100 yards up the hill. If we could just make it up to there the hiking would get much easier. I didn’t know what was on the other side of the ridge. If it was a cliff we would have to come down and take a different approach. After we made it to the ridge we traded the thick bushes for steep loose rocky terrain, but it was not enough to turn us around. We made our way right above a cliffy area on a very narrow game trail. When we came to the first big rock field/slide. It was here that I discovered how cool the new doggy backpack was. Dallas really struggled to make it through the rocks, so I reached down and grabbed the suit case like handle on top of her back and lifted her up. I carefully carried here across the rock field and set her down. Not sure that is what they had in mind, but Dallas did not seem to complain. I used that feature a few more times before the day was done.
Surprisingly we made it into the cirque. I was even able to locate the memorial marker placed there for Al Davis, my Unified Studies teacher who died my senior year.
For the trip down the hill, I decided that I would like to try the route down through Sundance, that I was unable to find the year my class hiked to the cirque. I think the Unified Class quite using that route following an accident where a girl from the class died after a nasty fall. We made it through the dangerous part without a hitch, but the trail disappeared again, and we were back to bush whacking. I was quite relieved when I reached the top of the Sundance resort. I knew that there would be no more difficult areas, I just had 4 or 5 miles to cover to get back to Aspen Grove. I could see that the front mountain lift was still open. Oh if I could talk them into letting us ride the lift down, maybe someone could come give me a ride up to my car at Aspen Grove. I called my brother to see if he had plans… he did, oh well.
I would actually like to hike past Stewart Falls (or Stewart Cascades) as all the signs said.We stopped on a nice stump to regroup. I dumped the gravel, dirt, and leaves out of my shoes. I put on a fresh pair of socks. I let Dallas finish off the last of her water. I loved the falls, but there were a lot of people… too many. We were both past pooped when we made it to the car. Normally Dallas gets very excited when I ask her if she wants to go for a walk. It took her a full 24 hours before she was excited about walking again. I was glad for the break!
No I am not criminal, this is just another facebook application to document my daily changes (my aging). Everyday I take a picture of myself and align the picture with the landmarks so all the previous pictures align. Above this paragraph you should be seeing my “MugShow”. There are controls on the MugShow to slow down the pictures.
