Last weekend we went camping with the Beals near Burley to celebrate Dad's 71st birthday. Justin and I debated whether to get a hotel or camp. The weather report looked good so we decided to go for the camping route. We got to Milner Rec Area Friday night in time to set up our tent - only to find Justin "left" the tent poles at home. We asked to borrow a tent from Alex, got it all set up, and upon unloading the car further found the "left" tent poles. 🤦So we set up that tent too because - why not! A tent for the kids to sleep in/all our junk and a tent for Justin and me. 🤣 We brought pork carnitas with chimichurri for dinner. Emmett and Logan had tons of fun playing with cousins. It's always a good time chatting with the Beals around the campfire. I made a lemon cheesecake to share with everyone, complete with raspberry topping. Yum! Unfortunately I also made a lemon whipped cream to go with it (complete with lemon zest, people!) that I LEFT HOME! I was so mad... we made due with Reddi Whip.🤣
I didn't sleep one minute all night. Justin put the kids to bed at 10:00 and thankfully they slept alllll night. One good thing about being up all night was my mom-intuition was IN TUNE with Logan's need to pee so I got him up a couple times in the night to wizz. He had A TON of water to drink all the way leading up to bed time and the last thing I needed while camping was pee in a pack n play. The wind blew all night and a group of campers adjacent to us stayed up chatting/laughing until 3:00AM. Time to get a camper (cough cough JUSTIN).
Saturday we headed south for City of Rocks - about an hour drive from where we were camping. It was fun climbing all over the weathered granite. There were SO many people there, mostly with Utah license plates 😠 nope...don't like that. We had lunch and made one more stop at the "window arch"' to climb/explore around before we split from the group. We drove past the famous "twin sisters" on the way out. My dad accidentally gave me wrong directions and it's a good thing he did - we ended up looping around connecting with where we initially came in on a dirt road (I rememberd him saying we'd hit a paved road...oh well I thought) and just a few miles south of Burley our rear left tire went flat. We got the spare on and made it to a Les Schwab for them to change out both rear tires - the right rear tire was basically bald.🤯 We walked the kids to DQ down the road from a burger and a blizzard and by the time we got back it was fixed and ready to go! We stopped in Pocatello on the way home to hit Costco. Along with our regular groceries we got the kids balance bikes. Emmett had one and then Justin ran it over (like how much I'm throwing him under the bus this blog post? yeesh...😉). Now he wants to ride his bike down to Granny's house every day.😍
That trip was the highlight of our week! We also had family dinner at Mom and Dad's on his actual birthday with Alison and Lyle, and I gave blood earlier in the week. I was surprised how WIPED OUT I was for like, two days after giving blood. I have super veins - I fill a bag FAST. This time it took 3 minutes.🤣 When we lived in Rexburg, Justin and I would donate plasma (hello grocery money) twice a week. Typically it takes 45 minutes to an hour. I always finished by 30 minutes, and the fastest I ever went was 18 minutes! Anyway...with my O+ blood I better donate every chance I can get.
mid-morning snacks
Emmett made a mosasaurus with his fruit snacks 🤣 then he ate all the fins off and called it a snake. Thanks Grandma for the treats
Happy Birthday Dad!
Our primary presidency invited the kids to the shelter to get a drive-by popsicle - our congregation is starting church up! Only half the ward attends at a time for now...I'm going to miss home-church
Right before we left for our camping trip our (wonderful and lovely, not stupid and rambunctious) puppy got a hold of our new kitty and tried to kill him. I found him lying limp on the sidewalk. He couldn't move and I thought for sure he was a goner. I told Justin if we had a .22 I'd shoot him and put him out of his misery. But we decided to do our best to nurse him back to health and see if he would make it. I paid a friend to check on him and said-puppy that night/the next morning. By some MIRACLE when we got him he was up and walking and mostly normal. Now several days later he is still alive and well.
Messy little man
See the pelican? There was a huge group just to the right of our campsite that kept swimming down our direction. So fun!
A train passed our campsite just before bedtime (there were a couple more throughoug the night: I would know!) - my dad LOVES trains. "Best sound in the world" according to him 🧡
The rock here is mostly 28 million-year-old pluton (think ancient magma chamber that cooled into granite and is now exposed at the surface) but some of it is 2.5 billion years old - some of the oldest rock in North America
It's not common to see felsic igneous rock weathering like this - most of the weathering I'm familiar with (among granites) has been eroded by glacial activity only in the last million years or so: much more recent compared with this rock.
I later looked up the historical geology of the area and was pleased that my initial conclusions for how this geologic phenomenon came about were correct (flexing those geology skills...still got it😉)
Scott bouldering all the way to the top! The nieces and nephews weren't far behind
Checking out the intrusions with Emmett. These were everywhere...WHY we never had a geology field trip here for any of my college courses is beyond me.
Twin Sisters - the rock on the left is 2.5 billion years old while the rock on the right is just 28 million years old. This marks the point of contact where the younger rock (which makes up the majority of the City of Rocks) "intruded" the older rock. Extension and uplift brought it all to the surface.
Add in millions of years of weathering/erosion and: viola
http://npshistory.com/publications/ciro/nrr-2010-191.pdf
flat tire time - if Dad had given me the correct directions to get out of City of Rocks, we would have hit a highway without a service station for several more miles. This way we had our flat just 7 minutes from a Les Schwab. So sometimes your dad gives you wrong directions, but it's because God knows you're going to need a new tire soon🤣
He DEVOURED his hamburger.
City of Rocks crew lookin' fresh next to the "bread loaves"
My lettuce is ready for harvest! We've had two spinach harvests so far, and we planted more last week (you know... in the spots in the garden where nothing came up🤣)
