Uinta Mountain Camping

Our first camping trip up to the Uinta's. Took off Friday after work and drove up to meet with the Schmidt's and their friends. No true camp site was available so they found a few sites along the road. That's typical up in the Uinta's. The site they found was right next to a little stream, very cool to hear the water running throughout the trip.

Friday night was gorgeous with cool temps. Saturday we took off after a feast of a breakfast up to the Provo River Falls, the water falls were nice and cool, or should I say cold.

As you can see from the pics, we all had a good time.

Saturday afternoon was a little warm and muggy, around 3-4 p.m. the rain moved in and didn't necessarily drench us but was a consistent little shower. Dinner was not easy to prepare as the rain kept coming down. We gravitated to our tents around 8:30 or so and basically called it a night. Ali and Brooke and Justin sat around by the fire with the others, the rain slowed a bit so they could sit outside.

Sunday awoke with not a cloud in the sky and things had dried out, considering we do live in the desert, that's not hard to understand.

Can't wait to do this trip again, now that we realize you don't need reservations to just plop your tent along side of the road.

Travis worked most of the weekend so he was unable to join us. His Senior year is approaching fast. His senior pictures are today. wow, hard to believe it's coming so fast.

carry on.

Sue and Dan

Happy Pioneer Day

We celebrated the Utah Pioneer Day by getting out of the valley up to Alta Ski area to do some hiking.

We chose the Lake Catherine Pass route, started out at the Sunnyside Parking area and walked approx 1.5 miles up to the Pass, overlooking Lake Catherine. Lucinda and Cierra joined Sue, me and Justin. It was a fairly easy hike, only 800' elevation gain over 1.5 miles, a few places were more steep than others, but overall a fairly easy hike.

After Justin, Cierra and Lucinda headed down, Sue and I took off higher up to Sunset Peak, the sign said it was .3 miles up, but we truly don't know if we made it or not, our GPS showed we went .5 miles and we didn't see any signs.

On the way down, we ran into a group of young girls coming from Brighton Ski Resort, they were on their 4th peak of the day heading to hit the 7 peaks in the area. Looks like something we'll need to do one day. From what we could tell, you hit the peaks that surround some of Alta and Brighton basically circling you back to Brighton.

On to our next adventure today, camping up in the Uintah's with NO reservations or campsite chosen, we know about where we want to go but we may just end up along side the road throwing our tent down. More on that when we return.

Enjoy the weekend.

Sue and Dan

The weekend of parties

Well it all started out on Thursday. Larry and Denna had a little get together for Marketta's Birthday, that lasted a couple of hours, later Sue and I get home and sit out on the porch, Sue had had a glass or 3 of wine and was feeling "good" when Steve across the street invited us over to sit out on their deck. I truly don't know if Steve invited or Sue invited us over, oh well, well that lasted till around 1 a.m. pheww, time to get some sleep.

Friday night brought us to a little get together with the Mannix's, Justin's lacrosse coach. We didnt' make it that long there, sorry Dan and Karrie, they walked over to the Equestrian Center in Draper for the Draper Days Rodeo, when they walked over, we went home. A good time was had for such a short time too though.

Saturday took us to the Dvorak's down the street for Beckman's 1st Birthday, wow, to have kids that young again :) Always good to get together with the neighbors and their families, great party Eric and Tiffany!!

Sue's former Clinic 6 girls (University of Utah Clinic 6) :) Ashley/Lindsey, notice that it's University of Utah Clinic 6, no trademark :) had a party planned for Saturday night at Lindsey's house. Good time to see everyone that she used to work with, most of them have moved on to other departments so they always have a good time reminiscing......

After that party we went over to Ann's house to finish up the evening. Ann had a get together for Marketta's birthday too. We didn't last long as we were wiped out.

Sunday came and the Draper Pool was calling us again, lasted only about 2 hours as there was lightning and rain in the area, went home and got ready for Harriet's 2nd Birthday party at the Howarth's, always a good time to go over there and feast.

Sunday night, went to bed early :)

We're partied out for a while, well at least until Thursday when we head to the Hartness's for the Gumbo party for Pioneer Day. For those that arent' from around Utah, Pioneer day is a celebration here for the Mormon Pioneers that settled here in Utah. I guess this is the day, oh well, it's just a day off of work for MOST of Utah, don't worry about the separation of Church and State, that doesn't apply here.

:) Enjoy your week.

Wow, we're tired

So we got this great thought about heading up to Snowbird and taking the Tram or Peruvian Express up and hiking down. Well, our season passes aren't good for the stuff in the summer, so it was a quick change of plans, why don't we just hike up and take the lift down. No fee if you hike up and do that, we had some water and snacks, surrrrre let's do it.

About 3/4 the way up we ran into a Snowbird worker, he could tell that we were tired, he asked if we had water, we replied that we were down to our last bottle, he pointed to a spot that we had just passed and said that water is from a Spring, it's good to drink. Thank god Ali and Justin headed back down and filled up the water bottles we had, we wouldn't have made it up without those.

3 hours later we climbed on to the Peruvian Lift for the ride down. Can you say TIRED!!!

2415 Elevation feet gain, we went from 8100' to 10,515' . Can you also say out of breath most of the way, damn.

Anyway, I think we'll lay by the pool tomorrow and REST!!!!

Carry on.

July 4th Weekend

We took off early July 4th up to Bear Lake, Garden City, Utah, a stop on the Amazing Race Season 8th Family Edition. They stayed at Bear Lake State Park, Rendevous Beach, right where we were planning on staying, what a coincidence :)

Thanks to the Campbells for opening up the land in their camping site so that we could pitch a couple of tents to hang out.

Bear Lake is huge, approx 22 miles long and 8 miles wide at the widest point, crystal blue water and fairly cold. Everyone enjoyed the water. Tom/Lisa took their kayaks up and everyone had a blast with those. The beach's sand is nice and very compactable so that you can build sandcastles. The boys had Tom bury them up to their necks and we all enjoyed adding our own little touches to their "physiques".

The weather was beautiful with high's in the 80's and lows in the 50's, great sleeping weather. We all got to experience the famous Raspberry shakes that Bear Lake is known for, well worth the trip, but then again, when haven't the Meihls' ever NOT enjoyed any kind of ice cream.

Cooking out on the fire was fun this trip. We hadn't done that in a while so it was nice to get back in the swing of things.

Sue was still on cloud 9 after having registered for Survivor, we're still keeping our fingers crossed for her to get a phone call back for an additional interview.....

Well it appears as though Summer is now half way over, where has the time gone.

Stay tuned, obviously we have many more short trips that'll come up.

Sue and Dan

Survivor Casting Call

A buddy of mine (Dave Benson) drove by yesterday and said that there were already 4 people in line at Famous Dave's so Justin and I rounded up our packs and some snacks and headed out to "camp out" at the restaurant to be near the front of the line for Sue to get her interview in.

Needless to say, we were the last to arrive at the site until approx 5:30 a.m. in which about 2 more people showed up. It wasn't until approx 9:00 or so that it even made it to double digits, oh well, we could have just stayed home and wondered......

In my true fashion I was speaking with the other people in front of me and found out that they hadn't yet applied for their passport. I advised them that it was on the list of things to bring, they shrugged it off and went about their merry way. When it came time on Thursday to start the line off, the employees that were running it let everyone know that if they didn't have that information that they wouldn't be allowed to register. Sue was now in the FRONT of the line, wooo hoooo, well, Justin and I were but we were holding it for her.

Sue arrived right on time and completed the required video and handed in her book that Ali had graciously prepared for her.

Here's keeping our fingers crossed that Sue will get the call to come back and be one of the 800 that's invited back for a 1 on 1 interview.

That's it for now, will advise later once we hear.

Have a great 4th of July.