Grandpa & Nana - part 4

Friday, July 5 was Lisa’s birthday. We kind of just puttered around the house while getting dinner ready for Lisa. We had a traditional 4th of July meal. Barbecued hamburger and hot dogs, potato salad and watermelon.

We had lots of cake because I bought a Fruit Basket cake (the same as most of the kids had for their weddings) and Ben and Sharley bought a “Nothing Bundt Cake”. They were both delicious and they both got eaten. The ”Nothing Bundt Cake” was a white cake with a raspberry swirl.

In addition to some small jewelry, I gave Lisa a new stereo for the van. In its day, the van had all the bells and whistles but the bells and whistels today are much better than they were then. It had a GPS system but it is way outdated. The new system I gave her will sync with the phone for google maps and phone calls.

Saturday, July 6, Boyd & Carol hit the road. They left around nine and I spent most of the day tidying up the house and yard. At one point Ben and his boys went to a Padres game, Sharly took Mariah out for lunch and Lisa and Desere went out for a birthday dinner. It was just me and Kit and since Kit is just a little angel that was fine with me.

I took the car to get it washed and when we pulled up to the vacuum cleaner to vacuum all the sand out of the car and to wash off any remaining spots, I handed Kit a rag and we both started cleaning. She took her job very seriously.

From the moment everyone left, Kit started talking nonstop. Most of the time I had no idea what she was saying but she was definitely trying to tell me something. I would just respond with a random answer and that was usually good enough for her.

On our way home I bought her an icecream cone and the talking was over. I don’t think she said more that two words between McDonalds and the house.

Sunday, July 7 Ben and Sharley packed up and were gone shortly after I left for my meetings. The afternoon was quiet, and we restored our house to normal. We washed the sheets etc. and made nine beds, picked up a million toys and threw out a ton of trash.

We then had to get ready for what has become our Sunday night crew. It has become quite common for a bunch of us to get together for Sunday dinner. Since we had so much left-over food from Lisa’s birthday, we had them come to our house for dinner.

We had the Andrews, the Crowthers (minus Kandice & Noah) and Rick & Judy Bair. We also invited the Odenwalders over.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Sales of children's books went up 800% because of the show, Reading Rainbow.

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Grandpa & Nana - part 3

Sunday, June 30, was a recovery day. Other than going to church, we did nothing significant.

Monday, July 1, we dressed up in Canada gear, I took the day off and we headed for a tour of the Olympic Training Center.

It was fascinating. All kinds of athletes and para-athletes train here. 

We saw, Archery, the Rugby team that has already qualified for the summer Olympics, track & field (we saw the decathlon guy who has already qualified), and a bunch of people training in the gym. We also checked out their cafeteria. We weren’t allowed into their medical facilities or down at the rowing building but you can see the lake where they row in the background of this picture.

After the tour we met up with Alycia and her kids at the Children’s Pool. This might be the first time in years that I haven’t seen Sea Lions at the Children’s Pool. We did find some further north.

Tuesday, July 2, I worked while Lisa, her dad and Carol checked out the Midway Museum. After the Midway, they went to an Organ Performance at the Organ Pavilion.

Wednesday, July 3 was another day to catch our breath. The kids played in the sprinklers.

Thursday, July 4 was a big day. Sharley’s parents were in town, so they spent the morning with them and then joined is in Coronado for the fireworks.

We normally show up for the fireworks just before dark but today we got there early and walked around Hotel Del and the new museum they have there.

Ben and his family showed up around 6:00 and we ate chicken, potato salad, watermelon and chips. They also brought kites and we flew them. I love the picture with all three of Bens kids and the two kites just before sunset.

The fireworks are normally shot off a barge but this year they were launched off land and we had front row seats. They were amazing. Perhaps the best I’ve ever seen.

--------------------trivia--------------------

With more than 7,000 languages in the world today, 

half of the entire world speaks just ten languages as their mother tongue.

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Grandpa & Nana - part 2

Sunday, June 23, we celebrated Father’s Day because Lisa was gone on Father’s Day. We also needed a break after the long hot day the day before.

Monday, June 24, I worked during the day but knocked off early so we could go to a Padres game. It was tough for Lisa because her Oilers made it to game seven for the Stanley Cup which was a huge achievement. She came to the Padres game but watched the Oilers game on her phone.

Unfortunately, the Oilers lost, and it was confusing for the people around us when mom would scream quite loudly at totally inappropriate times for the Padres game. They finally figured out that she was screaming at the Oilers game. She got a lot of comments on her outfit.

To make up for the Oilers loss, the Padres came through with a spectacular win. We were in overtime; bottom of the 10th and Washington was up by one point. The bases were loaded, we had two out and the batter had two strikes and three balls. Talk about pressure.

The Padres hit what I thought was a home run and I couldn’t think of a better way to win than with a Grand Slam. I guess the ball landed in right field and bounced over the wall, so they gave us a double. That still gave us two points for a win.

Tuesday, June 25, Lisa took her dad and carol to Old Town and the Mormon battalion center while I stayed home and worked.

Wednesday, June 26, they went to the Air & Space Museum followed by a concert at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion.

Thursday, June 27, I took the day off work, and we did a two-hour Harbor Cruise tour. That is a fascinating cruise.

After the cruise we walked around the kissing statue and memorials that they have there.

Friday, June 28, I took the afternoon off and our friend Richard Olds took us to the Miramar Marine Base and we let Grandpa fly the F-18 flight simulator for an hour. Richard is a fighter pilot and trainer.

Alycia and her kids showed up on Friday as well.

Saturday, June 29, was a day at the beach.

--------------------trivia--------------------

30% of a birds volume is air. 3% of a human (lungs) is air.

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Grandpa & Nana - part 1

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Boyd & Carol planned a grand adventure. One last big trip to visit every one of their grandchildren. I will talk about that later, but they were in Texas with Brandon’s family while mom was there, and she thought it would be fun to ride home from Texas with them. We were the last visit on their trip.

They got here late on Thursday, June 13. I will quickly summarize their visit.

Thursday, June 20, they arrived around 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening, settled in and went to bed.

Friday, June 21, I’m not sure what we did this day. I think I worked most of the day and mom, Boyd and Carol ran errands and got ready for our big day on Saturday.

Saturday, June 22, we went to the Highland Games. We’ve been wanting to do this for years but this year we did it.

They threw big rocks.

This guy is currently the world champion for throwing big rocks.

They threw logs. I always thought it was all about how far you could throw the log but it is actually about who can throw it so it lands on one end, tips over and looks the best while doing it. For the men, those poles are around 150 pounds. For the women they are around 60 pounds. It looks really hard.

They had highland dancers.

And, of course they had pipe bands.

They even had people from our Scottish Country Line dance class perform. We go to class with all these dancers. The girl closest to us in the photo is our teacher.

I think my favorite was the sheep dogs. It is fascinating what those dogs can do.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Humans are the scariest animal on earth. Animals are twice as likely to flee from the sounds of our voices than they are from the sound of a lion. 

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My Hiking Boots

I arrived home late on Saturday, June 15 but Lisa left for Texas early on June 8. Serene and her boyfriend were going on a trip together and she asked Lisa to watch the kids while she was gone.

Even though she was in Texas, she still watched our Sacrament meeting and June was my month to conduct. She likes to take pictures of people on zoom.

I served in scouts for ten consecutive years and for most of those years it was Curtis McConnell as scout master and myself as assistant scout master. We were very active in the program and went on many hikes. Early on in the program when I realized how involved I was going to be, I bought a nice pare of hiking boots. This would have been around the turn of the century so more than twenty years ago.

I love those hiking boots, but I haven’t been on a real hike for probably ten years so in preparation for this hike I pulled them out and wore them for a couple days. They looked to be in great shape, and they didn’t hurt my feet, so I was happy.

About halfway up the mountain I noticed that the sole of the boot was starting to separate at the toe. That is when I started to get worried.

It was less than a mile later that the tip of the sole started flapping, making walking difficult and then shortly after that I had to rip the sole completely off.

Much to my relief, beneath the tread of the boot was a nice thick layer of dense plastic foam. I wasn’t sure how long that would last (this was my first day after all) but I could tell it would last for a while. Before we got to camp, I had also removed the second tread but much to my delight the rubber sole was holding up nicely. My footing wasn’t as great as I would have liked but I wasn’t too worried about that.

On our hike to Sykes the next day my confidence waned a bit when I saw that the dense rubber foam was now starting to separate. Thank goodness it was still holding on by the time we got home that night, but I knew it would never make it down the mountain.

Fortunately, Kyle Knaphus brought some duct tape and I figured if I could just keep the toe of the boot from separating then the heel would hold on fine. So that is what I did.

Saturday morning, I wrapped up the toes of my boots with duct tape and they held up just fine. I thought sure I would wear through the duct tape, but it was in good shape even after hiking down seven miles of mountain trail. I am proud of my boots but I’m afraid they have seen their last hike.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Mammoths still walked the earth while the pyramids were being built in egypt

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High Adventure - Day 5

Saturday morning (June 15) we packed up camp and headed down the mountain. The trip down was just as beautiful as the trip up and was pretty uneventful. 

We did stop at Peters cliff to check out where it all had happened but then we continued down the mountain and gathered at the cars and headed home.

I had to include this picture of Kyle carrying two back packs, one on front and one on the back.

As I was watching google maps a notice popped up that warning us that our trip might by affected by a brush fire. An hour or two later we came across this.

We were lucky to get through because in places the fire had come right up to the side of the road. The boys were fascinated by it all, but it made be quite sad as we watched cars and houses burn.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Proportionally, humans have the largest butt of any species.

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High Adventure - Day 4

On Friday morning, June 14, I woke up to a beautiful sunny day. The plan for this day was to leave our heavy packs at Barlow flats and make a short-day hike into Sykes Campsite and back. The cool thing about Sykes is that it was supposed to have a natural hot spring there. If I remember right, it was about four miles (8 miles round trip) to Sykes.

It would have been a bit easier, but the trail had washed out at one point, and we had to cross the creek several times and hike up a short but very steep hill.

The hike was beautiful and other than getting wet, uneventful. When I heard there was a hot spring, I made sure to bring water shoes because places like that are always rocky. I was surprised that I may have been the only one with water shoes, so most people were crossing these creeks in bare feet. That’s tough.

When we arrived, the boys were instantly in the creek but there was no hot spring to be found. We managed to find some other hikers who told us that the hot spring was a quarter mile or so downstream and gave us some landmarks.

We all headed downstream with some gusto, but people started fading fast. It was challenging making our way down the creek because much of the way was hiking in the creek which had treacherous footing. Several people turned back.

I arrived at the hot spring with maybe a half dozen boys. It was about the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The water was trickling out of the side of the mountain and looked like it was coming out of a giant tree trunk. You can imagine my surprise when the boys all started complaining that this thing is gross, and they were upset that they had wasted their time looking for it.

They were disgusted by the sulfur smell and the moss growing in the pool. To me those were some of the best features.

On their way back, the boys were telling everyone it was a waste of time and many of them turned back and never saw the hot spring. I couldn’t help but think of the great and spacious building and how the detractors were persuading people to leave the iron rod and lose the blessing of the tree of life. The pool was paradise to me, and they were leaving.

In the end I think most of the leaders and maybe half of the boys ended up coming to the hot spring. It was right next to the creek, so it was a ton of fun to soak in the hot spring and then jump into the cold creek.

Doug Bennion enjoyed the hot spring as much as I did, and we were going back and forth between the hot spring and the creek.

We played in the creek for a bit and then headed back up the creek. Danny Hall and Jack Keddington were “cliff jumping” into the creek and it was a ton of fun.

Alas, all good things come to an end, and we eventually had to head back to Barlow Creek. It was a great day.

--------------------trivia--------------------

• Hot springs can help boost your blood circulation. Hot spring water is flowing with calcium and sodium bicarbonate, which can boost overall oxygen flow and circulation once absorbed into the body.
• A soothing soak can aid in natural pain reduction and rehabilitation. 
• They can also help increase flexibility and circulate lactic acid out of sore muscles.
• Healing hot spring waters can also improve skin irritations and conditions. The elevated levels of sulfur in hot spring waters offer antifungal and antibacterial properties that can soothe and even help heal the skin.
• The many minerals in hot spring waters can help decrease daily stress.
• Warm hot springs cause your body to sweat, helping to clear clogged pores and increase healthy circulation.

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High Adventure - Day 3

On Thursday morning, June 13, we checked out of the campground and headed up the mountain. Our destination for this first day was Barlow Flats. It was about seven miles, and the first four miles were quite a challenge.

The boys (and leaders) had a wide range of ability, so we had planned to break into two groups, a fast group and a slow group. It ended up that some of the fast group was lagging behind and some of the slow group were moving up, so there ended up being a middle group. I was in the fast group so I didn’t witness exactly what happened, but Kyle, Truman and Peter were hiking in a row when Kyle and Truman heard a “ughh, ooh, uggh” sound from behind them. Truman remembers thinking that it sounded like someone bouncing down a cliff. They turned around and couldn’t see Peter and were suddenly shocked to realize that maybe someone had fallen off a cliff.

The trail at that point had a sheer cliff up on their right and a sheer cliff down on their left. I’m not sure if this is the exact cliff here but it was one much like it.

Peter was taking a picture and dropped his hiking pole. He bent over to pick it up but his backpack shifted his center of gravity and toppled him head first off the edge of this cliff. He says that he bounced at least three times and each time he bounced he was certain that he was going to die. Everyone tells a different story but he fell at least fifty feet and maybe as much as a hundred feet straight down and then what probably saved his life was that the bottom was very sloped so once he hit bottom he rolled for another sixty feet.

Kyle and Truman were looking down the cliff to see if they could find Peter when suddenly he sat up in the midst of the brush at the bottom. Kyle and Truman both felt a huge sense of gratitude to know that at least he was alive. It was impossible to navigate down the cliff, so they had to hike back a ways before they could get down to Peter and Kyle (who is a fire fighter/paramedic) got to him first. Kyle quickly assessed his condition and when he found nothing that needed immediate attention, him and Peter said a prayer of gratitude.

By this time the slow group had arrived and the second person to get to Peter was Doug who happens to be a doctor. Peter had lost his phone and his glasses so Ronnie and Truman looked for them for about a half hour, but the brush was just too thick. It was hopeless.

They managed to get Peter back to the trail and then they immediately gave him a priesthood blessing.

Peters son, Connor was with us in the fast group so Kyle left his pack and ran up to meet us. It was a couple of miles, climbing up a mountain on a hot day before he found us. It must have been exhausting. He explained to Connor (and to the rest of us) what had happened and assured Connor that his dad was fine. He then asked if Connor wanted to stay on the hike or go home with his dad. Connor decided that if his dad was OK then he wanted to stay. We were all glad he did.

By this time we had witnessed many miracles. Let me just review those that come to mind.

1) Peter was protected by angels as he plunged down that cliff. He could have easily been killed but he walked down the mountain.

2) Connor got sick the morning we left so he slept for a couple of hours and then came up in their own car. If Peter didn’t have his own car, there wouldn’t have been a car for them to drive home. Some leaders and boys would have had to leave early.

3) Dave Bennion had been really struggling to get up the mountain. While he obviously wanted to stay, it would have had a serious negative impact on the event. Dave was the obvious choice to go home with Peter.

4) Dave’s grandson Kyle (a nephew of Doug’s) was young, rude and had a serious negative impact on the event. He was sent home with his grandpa. It probably saved Kyles life because if he had stayed someone would have strangled him.

5) In addition to Peters accident, this hike had been plagued with several other problems. Connor got sick in the parking lot, Gavin Jack threw up at Pinnacles, Jack Keddington had shingles on one arm, Ronnie was sick before we left and was struggling, several boys had fallen and scrapped themselves up and then Doug caught whatever Ronnie had and was getting sick.

We asked the boys to pray for each of these people individually, and as they did every single person completed this hike with no serious problems. Even though Peter and Dave had to leave, the fact that they were able to, was a miracle in and of itself.

Me and Kyle Knaphus enjoying Barlow Creek.  

The fast group made it to the campsite and after enjoying the beautiful surroundings several of the boys went back along the trail to help the slow group. They carried the packs for the weaker boys, and we were soon all enjoying the beautiful Barlow Flats. I hung up my hammock and relaxed for a bit. It was amazing.

There were beautiful Red Woods and ferns all around us and right next to my hammock was this gorgeous little fern that I was sorely tempted to dig up and bring home to plant in my back yard.

Alas, I decided to leave him alone and buy a fern for my yard. It would probably do better anyway.

Do you see me at the base of that tree in the middle?

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Redwood branches are so large that they support their own ecosystems, with decomposing foliage creating soil that's home to worms, beetles, spiders, amphibians, and crickets.

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