4th of July Vacation

[WARNING WARNING -- I'm know for being a very ... WORDY person. This is a looonnngg post]

Every year for the past ... wow! Six or seven years now, Ruth and I have taken the dogs away for the 4th of July. It started out as a way to get them away from all the fireworks in our neighborhood (is there a dog out there who doesn't hate all those loud and painful homegrown fireworks?!). It has evolved into "the dogs' vacation." Who says dogs aren't smart beings? For a month leading up to "the big event" we told Brizzy & Cowboy: "You're going on vacation! You're going in 30 more sleeps ... 20 more sleeps ... 5 more sleeps ... one more sleep!" and they got extremely excited every time. Oh yeah, they know what "vacation" means:

This year we chose to go back to the Flaming Gorge area http://www.utah.com/nationalsites/flaming_gorge.htm:

Beautiful, isn't it? There's a great little motel in Manila, Utah called the Vacation Inn http://www.utah.com/lodging/profile978.htm that has about 25 units, each with a bedroom, kitchenette and pullout sofa bed in the "front room."

Most people who stay here are boaters and fisher-people and almost EVERYONE has at least one dog (because it's a "dog-friendly motel"). We picked Flaming Gorge because the motel had a swamp cooler and it was relatively close to home (just 4 hours away). Gas is a huge factor these days, isn't it? We'd try going south but it's just too darn hot that direction. No more hot places! Someday I'll tell you about last year's trauma when we almost lost our Miracle Dog, Cowboy to heat exhaustion. This is the view from the long porch outside Ruth's (and the dogs') bedroom:

I really like this picture ... to me there's something a little wild and isolated about it. Storm winds were coming in and blowing the trees, the sky was getting gray, and there the chair sat, abandoned.

This vacation was a lovely one -- I enjoyed it soooo much. As I told Debbie recently, I've been trying to get my "joyeux de vivre" back (is that the correct French for "joy of life"?) so I tried very hard to be "in the moment." It made a great difference. Flaming Gorge is a lovely area ... all those beautiful red mountains around the dam and it's right near the High Uintah Mountains, too. I've come to love forest almost (almost!) as much as I love the beach.


We drove up to Manila on Thursday evening (the 3rd), arriving just before dark. They put us into a smoking room by mistake (did you know that if you don't ask for a non-smoking room they assume you're a smoker?) but the couple caretaking the inn (FABULOUS people, by the way) went out of their way to figure out an alternative for us. It meant going into one room the first night and switching to another room the next night, but that's okay. A smoking room would've been very hard on the sinuses.

On the 4th we cooked ourselves a fabulous breakfast (french toast, real bacon, Ruth's homegrown strawberries, milk & juice), moved ourselves to our new room, then spent the rest of the day driving through the Sheep Creek Canyon scenic backway http://www.northamericanparks.com/ashley.asp ...

slowly making our way up to a lovely little place called Spirit Lake. And of course we got out several times to hike -- the dogs insisted on that!! Here's myself and Cowboy along one of the trails ...

And Ruth and the Boyz (Cowboy on the left, Briz on the right) along another trail:

My pictures are a little blurry these days ... sorry about that! I think the ole eyes are starting to go - ack! [By the way, my dear friend Debbie coined the term "Boyz" for our two dogs -- I love that description and I use it regularly now.]

The Innkeeper told us that Spirit Lake was a lovely little lake where light sparkled off the water all the time, and tradition had it that the native peoples said the light sparkles were spirits rising off the lake -- hence the name. We were really looking forward to seeing the lake and hoping to hike around it some. Hah! It didn't turn out quite as we hoped. A storm came into the area which sure took care of any sunlight on the water! See what I mean?


And OH ... MY ... GOSH ... the MOSQUITOES!!!!!!!! EEUUGGWWWW. Millions and millions of mosquitoes. So many in fact that all we did was jump out of the car, take a few pictures, jump back into the car and take right off again. Hahahaha! Some big adventure, huh? A ranger told Ruth that there were many MANY more times the usual amount of mosquitoes at all the lakes and waterways in Utah because of the high amount of snow we had this past winter. The little buggers just buried themselves in for the winter and multiplied like crazy. Yuk.

Well at least I got several pictures of Brizzy sitting in the front seat of my car while Ruth went into the little lodge to get some information about the lake:

I would've taken pictures of Cowboy also but he was too busy being Aviator Dog (that silly dog ... head and half his body out the backseat window every chance he gets). Brizzy prefers to be Jungle Dog (oooh -- tall grasses -- must prowl).

Well, it was getting later in the day anyway and darker by the minute, so I suppose it was good that we didn't stay to hike around the lake. Who could wade through all those mosquitoes anyway? We got back to the Inn late in the afternoon and began cooking our fabulous 4th of July feast: BBQ pork ribs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, and ice cream later on. Mmmm. And of course we watched part of "Independence Day" while everything was cooking! I wonder if that movie is becoming a tradition for most people on the 4th? I'll never forget when it first released on 4th of July several years ago ... Ruth's brother and sister-in-law were visiting from Louisiana and were were very fortunate to be right in line for the movie after the Provo Freedom Festival Parade. WHAT an impact that movie made! Whoo-eee.

We ended up THIS Independence Day by spending a little time around our innkeeper's campfire (who by now had become friends) and tho neighbors across the street shot off fireworks for about a half hour ... they weren't TOO bad and Brizzy survived them.

I didn't forget, in all of this, what we were celebrating though. This country sure has its problems lately but it is still the best country in the world, in my humble opinion. I feel extremely blessed to be living in a place where I can say what I want, worship as I want, do what I want (within reason), experience such beauty AND I am very aware of the fact that we are blessed with much wealth (tho it doesn't feel like it sometimes). I hope we keep striving to be good and just people so we remain entitled to be here on this precious land.

Well, the rest of the weekend was great too. On Saturday we tried very hard to go see the wild horses on the BLM land in Wyoming http://www.wyomingtourism.org/cms/d/wild_horses.php but I'm afraid we were just too late. We didn't get there until 10:30 a.m. and by then all the horses were long gone down to the rivers and shady areas. Well we DID see horses ... sort of:

Doggone it. We've decided to come back in the Fall when surely the horses will be wandering around in the cooler air! I have to say though that the 25+ mile loop you take through the BLM lands is one BUMPY ride!!! The road is not paved ... it's gravel and rocks (mostly gravel, thank goodness). When we finally got off the road and onto real pavement again you could hear my car sigh out loud: "Ahhhhhhhhh." I found myself saying the same thing! Hahahaha.

We decided to celebrate our horse failure by getting a BBQ chicken pizza in beautiful little Green River, Wyoming -- we took the pizza to a sweet little park where we wolfed down almost the entire thing, and THEN decided on a Dairy Queen Blizzard afterwards! Talk about full to the point of sick ... oh yeah. I even drank a fully loaded Mountain Dew, which I haven't had in AGES. All that caffeine -- I sure didn't have any trouble driving back to Manila! Here's Cowboy at the park:

Of course the eating couldn't stop there -- oh no! This was VACATION. So in the evening when we got back we ate STILL MORE, as you can see:

Well, truthfully what WE ate wasn't as much as it looks ... the hamburgers and fries (only some of the fries) belonged to the Boyz. They ALWAYS get their very own hamburger on vacation. It's the only time they get one though.

We had to pack it up on Sunday for the trip home (sigh) but not being able to end it so easily, we decided to go home by way of Mirror Lake:


This isn't the lake itself, but part of the whole scenic byway that goes through Mirror Lake and the High Uintahs. What a BEAUTIFUL place! http://www.utah.com/byways/mirror_lake.htm It's only 1-1/2 to 2 hours away from Orem and I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't even been aware of it. Barely, anyway. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states in this country and how much of it have I actually seen?! NOT MUCH! I don't have a real Bucket List per se, but I've decided to make it a goal to see all the major places in Utah before the next few years are up. Can you believe I've never been to Moab or the Arches or been to Antelope Island ... I've never even been to the Grand Canyon! Ack. Though I HAVE been to Zion's National Park lots of times. I think Zion's is my most favorite place on earth.

Oh dear, I digress. Here's a picture of Bald Mountain, near the summit of the Mirror Lake loop:

A storm chased us all the way home on this day too, but never did catch up. It was windy and overcast and wild and wonderful and downright COLD, can you believe it? Sure wish we could've carried that with us back into 90 degree Orem. "Sigh." It was so beautiful I kept stopping the car to take pictures, and as you can see Brizzy got a little tired of the whole thing:

Can you just STOP with the picture-taking PLEASE?!

One more thing I need to mention: driving up and driving home we went through Evanston, Wyoming and near Evanston were these amazing windmills:


There were dozens of them out on a windy high point. Aren't they cool and sort of eerie? They are wind turbines! My picture doesn't do them justice ... they are giant things and they face in many different directions, in order to harness the wind no matter what direction it comes from. On the drive up there was very little wind so the blades were moving oh so lazily, but on the way home the approaching storm generated a lot of wind and some of those babies were really cranking away! I wish we could have gotten close enough to get a really in-your-face picture, but this was taken from the side of the freeway (oops - probably shouldn't have stopped but I did).

Well at last it was all over and we arrived back home in Orem about 7:00 Sunday evening. "Sigh." It was sure hard to come back to reality! So ... we decided to extend our vacation a little. We didn't get to enjoy Mirror Lake as much as we wanted to, so we went back two days later. Hah! Ruth was off until Wednesday -- I went back to work on Monday but took another vacation day on Tuesday and we spent the day at Mirror Lake:

I wish that was ME out there in that little canoe but it's not ... it's just some lucky canooer (is that a word?) and I liked the picture they made on the water. We hiked half way to Ruth Lake (unfortunately it was just too rocky and uphill to get all the way to the lake so Ruth didn't get to see the body of water with her name on it) and then we hiked all the way around Mirror Lake. Who would've thought 1-1/2 miles could be so tiring? Hah! It was gorgeous but exhausting. We did, however, end the day with a picnic, which made Ruth happy! I hate picnics but I'd promised to be a good sport about this one (and I was). We ate at a secluded little picnic spot where we had deli meat, cheese & sprout wraps, grapes, chips, chocolate (of course!) and a very VERY mushy watermelon (had to throw that baby away, unfortunately).

What a great little vacation. It's amazing how just a few days away from life's normal setting can rejuvenate the soul and help us carry on. Though when we first got back home the following picture sure represented how all four of us felt!

This was actually taken at the Vacation Inn at Manila after our 4th of July adventures (notice the bandannas?) but this is exactly how we all felt Tuesday when we got home from Mirror Lake. Hah! If you ever get the chance I highly recommend a visit to all these places ... fab-u-lous, dahlin'!