Vacation Ending

My vacation time is ending. I spent most of Friday recovering from Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't get much accomplished yesterday. It felt good to unwind and relax. In the afternoon we went to the library and picked out some books and then visited with Gillian and kids for a little while.

Thursday afternoon we headed up Payson Canyon to get out of the oppressive heat. It was gorgeous and much cooler at the top. There was a fire to the west and so the sky was a little smokey depending on the direction we looked.

These cows were way down in a meadow. We were near the 9,000 foot summit here.

 These pictures aren't in order -- on our way back home, we noticed that Elk Ridge was shrouded in a shadow caused by the sun going behind a smokey cloud. It turned the mountain a near purple color. It was very odd.

 These kinds of fences remind me of my childhood. They had fences like this in the Bridger National Forest above Smith's Fork near the ranger station about 10,000 feet in elevation. I have a strange fondness for anything that reminds me of that place. This is a very small corral - it must be a holding corral where they gather the cattle in the fall.

 The straight line of blue mountains in the background of this picture are called Skyline Drive. Those are the mountains Jared walked along on the trek with our ward. They drove out of Fairview to the top of the mountains (10,000+ feet) and then hiked down, ending up in Manti. I've never been on that drive.

Does anyone know what kind of spider makes these enormous webs in the trees?

 Again, childhood memories of etching my initials in the soft bark of quaking aspens. I shouldn't have tattooed the trees.

Thursday's Heroes happened again today. We were invited to watch the scrimmage at the stadium and then had lunch inside the Smith Field House, out of the heat. None of us complained about that!

Ammon Olsen meeting Ammon Clark. Olsen is one of the quarterbacks.

Scrimmage in 100 degree weather.

Cort Trejo - the guy who puts these events together. He is super nice! I talked to him today about the number of people that can come. You are ALL invited next year if you care to come.

 Coach Mendenhall taking time to talk to all the heroes. He doesn't forget Ammon.

 Adrianne, Lindsey, Lance and David will recognize the above picture of Elmo Keck.  He is a volunteer for the football team.  His wife has Alzheimers and has been in a nursing home for the past 15 months. He does any kind of volunteering he can find. He is also the assistant choir director at the MTC. What a great position for him. What a great man.  He sat at the table with us. He and his wife served a mission to New Zealand about 10 years ago. However, he didn't know the two young men in the picture below. They are both from New Zealand.

 These guys are rugby players. The one on the right made the winning kick to bring BYU the national championship in rugby this past year.  They are two awesome, great guys! It will be fun to see what they do on the football field this year.

In other news, there is a fire on the mountain just around the corner from Elk Ridge - across the street from Camp Maple Dell. There has been a lot of lightening and I'm sure that's what caused the fire. We just got a very hard downpour of rain but it didn't last long enough to put out the fire. The wind has been blowing from the south. I'm hoping they are able to contain the fire and that we don't have to evacuate. As the crow flies, it's probably about 2 miles from our place. (Looks just like the fire going up the mountain near Jess' place today.)

So my vacation time is nearly over. I will go back to work on Monday. I have worked hard but have enjoyed the projects. I've really enjoyed spending the time with Jim and Ammon. It makes me wish even harder that I could retire so I could enjoy life a whole lot more. Still many more projects to do but I guess they will wait.