Has it been that long???

Hey, do you remember that one time I didn't blog for over a year?

I cant believe that it has been so long since I posted anything. I guess I had a blog block or something like that. Others have posted about the wonderful family reunion we had at Ponderosa, so I won't say anything about that other than it was a wonderful experience. It was so much fun to be with the family, to do some geocaching, hiking, eating, and to enjoy everyone's company.

The most recent adventure has been a trip to the Southern Utah to explore pictographs petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints. I have put in a few pictures and will explain a tiny bit about each one. Our "tour" was conducted by a friend I used to work with who lives in Cedar City. Our first stop was at the "lion's mouth" cave west of Cedar city where we saw a collection of beautiful pictographs. Our next stop was at the "Parawan gap" where we saw numerous petroglyphs. Scattered over the rocks there were hundreds off glyphs and every place you looked you saw a new one. One that is especially interesting has been interpreted as the astronomical marker relating to the solstice. I understand that each year a number of people gather at the gap to celebrate the event and to see where the sunlight shines in distinctive ways on the petroglyphs.

Lion's Mouth Cave pictograph

Parawan Gap petroglyph

Our next stop led us to a rather strenuous 3/4 mile hike to the top of the cliffs overlooking Cedar city where we saw an unusual glyph which has no resemblance to American Indian petroglyphs typically found in the Western United States. There are fewer than 30 such glyphs that have been identified. They are located in several Western states and are most likely created by members of the John Fremont expedition as they passed to this area. I had previously seen a petroglyph with similar characters in the mountains east of Fillmore, Utah. It is difficult to see the characters. I have added a photo of the Fillmore glyph that I have edited to make the characters more legible
Cedar City "Fremont" glyph.

Fillmore "Fremont" glyph.

After a good night's rest (Thank you Lisa and Craig) we went to two sites with another unusual type of glyph. These glyphs are commonly called "water glyphs ". For an interesting discussion about these glyphs go to www.waterglyphs.org where you will find several theories about them. These glyphs are nearly always found on horizontal surfaces with the long "tail" part running to the edge, of the rock. The tails are usually 2 to 3 feet long, and the circular part is usually 18 to 30 inches in diameter. Waterglyph at Bullrush seep.

They are carved unusually deep into the rock, and if you pour water in the circular part it slowly drains into the tail and over the edge of the rock. We saw several of these glyphs in different places, and at one spot, we found a Spanish cross carved into the rock. The horizontal line at the bottom indicates the direction of travel. This cross was probably created by members of the Escalante/Dominguez expedition as they passed through this area.


We were told about one glyph that is on the cliffs over looking the town of Orderville. Our guide had not seen it but he gave us the best description he could of where it might be found. We parted ways and decided to try our luck in Orderville. We took a strenuous hike to the top of a cliff overlooking the town and much to our surprise and delight found the "missing" water glyph!
Another strenuous hike to the bottom of the cliff and we were on our way back to the house.

Before we left Ponderosa to head home, we had another fun surprise. We looked out the window and found a small herd of deer wandering through the backyard. There was a four-point buck and several does. The picture taken through the window does not do full justice to the scene we saw. But at least it gives you an idea.

We headed home after a couple of days of fascinating exploring thinking that it would be hard to find anything more exciting than this experience. How wrong I was! Within minutes of arriving at home we were thrilled to get word of the arrival of a new grandson. Congratulations to Cristin and Pete and family we are looking forward to seeing you in a few days..

Digging in the Desert

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and myself took off for a few days to do a little rock hounding. Something I have not done for a while. This trip was a little different than the usual where I survive on what I can carry in my backpack along with maybe a tent, sleeping bag and minimal food and water. A friend with a 27 foot 5th wheel trailer, with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and freezer and stove, toilet and shower is very different than my customary trip. He also brought along two ATVs that can cover a lot more distance than on foot.

Our main goal was to find some topaz crystals and trilobites out in the western Utah desert. Leaving on Monday morning, we traveled to Topaz Mountain where we dug that evening and the next morning. We found some beautiful crystals.


When we returned to the trailer, there was an antelope just a few yards away so we took some pictures. I wondered how close I could get to it, so I cautiously took a few steps toward it, then a few more and then a few more. It didn't seem to have any problem with my approaching it, but I finally decided to not get any closer or cause it any stress. It was a beautiful animal, and eventually it turned and slowly walked away.

Our next travels took us to Antelope Spring. (No relation to the above antelope) where we dug for trilobites. These are fossil remains of some of the oldest animal life on Earth. From the Pre - Cambrian times around 500 million years ago. There we found some nice trilobite specimens. An evening and the next morning digging proved to be successful.



That evening and the next day was spent finding some Sunstones, looking for petroglyphs, riding the ATVs and touring the Perlite/Pumice mine where we picked up some nice landscaping rocks. All in all, it was an enjoyable trip. With good company, excellent food, and a nice soft bed to sleep in, I'm ready to do it again. One other fun thing we did was to have a chance to play with a nice sized rattle snake near the trilobite diggings. Like the disclaimer says, "This stunt was done by professionals. Do not, under any conditions try this at home." When someone asked me "How do you play with a rattle snake?" My response is "Very carefully."

It was a great get away, and one that should be done regularly at frequent intervals!!

Something Worth Blogging About !

After all these months of blogging about trivia, I finally have something IMPORTANT to blog about !!! We are now able to announce the arrival of a new grandson! Wednesday, May 16th was the magic day. (How about that, delivering on the exact due date.) Forget about having babies on Mother's day or on daddy's birthday. The DUE date is what is important! We are so happy for the safe arrival of a beautiful little boy, and for the joy that he brings into our lives. We trust that mom, dad and big sister will be as happy as we are.

Our thoughts are with you and we are looking forward to the 125 kilometer trip to see the new one in the next day or so. (That's an inside joke. If you don't get it, don't bother to ask.)

Love and best wishes to all. From Happy G'ma and G'pa to 14 + 1.

Stuff I Have Done, but Never Mastered

I was just thinking about some of the things I have tried during my lifetime, but have never mastered. Let's see what I can list: ( in no particular order) If you know of some I have forgotten, let me know and I will add them


1. Parenting 5 children
2. Husbanding (?) 1 wife
3. Missionary in France
4. Grand parenting 15
5. Great grand parenting 2 little ones
6. Blacksmithing
7. Basket making
8. Silver smithing (and gold too)
9. Guitar playing (acoustic, and now new electric guitar)
10. Violin playing
11. Piano playing ???
12. Making a dulcimer
13. Playing a dulcimer
14. Barbershop singing
15. Choral singing
16. Conducting choir
17. Woodworking
18. Stained glass
19. Hunting (deer, pheasants, ducks, geese, chuckars, rabbits, etc.)
20. Fishing
21. Cannoeing
22. Rock hunting
23. Wood turning
24. Bowling
25. Lapidary work
26. Model airplane building
27. Messing with a chemistry set
28. Astronomy
29. Telescope making (8" mirror)
30. Made a microscope
31. Archery
32. Gardening
33. Growing herbs
34. Horseback riding
35. Skiing
36. Bagpipe (chanter)
37. Paper making
38. Photography (taking, printing, developing, mounting)
39. Traveling (US and Europe)
40. Auto repair
41. River running
42. Piloting (briefly) jet fighter plane.
43. Performing in plays
44. Ceramics
45. Pottery wheel throwing
46. Ice skating
47. Baking/cooking
48. Fencing (en garde type - - not enclosure type)
49. Backpacking
50. Family history
51. Computer work
52. Teaching
53. Archeology work
54. Paleontology work
55. Home construction (wood, concrete, brick, tile, flooring, painting, drywall etc)
56. Marble collecting
57. Singing in musicals
58. Zen meditation
59. Collecting Tibetian artifacts
60. Orchid growing
61. Coin collecting
62. Antique collecting
63. Building radios, stereos, and numerous kits
64. Sewing
65. Needlepoint
66. Making / throwing boomerangs
67. Leather work
68. Tanning leather
69. Soap making
70. Scout master
71. Merit badge councilor
72. Metal casting (silver / gold)
73. Bicycling (dirt bike)
74. Glass etching
75. Water skiing
76. Motorcycling - - 2 different bikes
77. Owned stained glass retail shop
78. Making home made fireworks
79. Collecting Pony Express memorabilia
80. Flintknapping (making arrow heads and spear points)
81. Know some American Sign Language
82. Speak, read and write French
83. Marriage and family therapist
84. Workshop presenter
85. Geocaching
86. Acappella choir
87. University men's chorus
88. Have sung barbershop concert with Utah Symphony Orchestra
89. Have sung with Utah Symphony choral and operatic works
90. Church activities
91. Magician
92. Orchid grower
93. Welding
94. Spinning yarn on spinning wheel
95. Fun (strange?) things I have eaten:
Snails
Frog legs
Eels
Horse
Grasshoppers (Fried)
Ants
Raw hamburger
Raw eggs
Larvae (roasted)
Wife's cooking (woops, I better not say that)
Octopus
Turtle
96. Laid sewer pipe
97. Laid gas pipe
98. Drove truck for construction crew
99. Have made potato guns
100. Homeless for one year with wife
101. Ridden a zip line
103. Detained once by border patrol on Canada/USA border
104. Worked as a pin setter at bowling alley
105. Drove a van on 5 week European tour
106. Built a climbing wall in basement
107. Air National Guard 10 years
108. Indian beadwork
109. Weaving
110. Explored numerous ghost towns
111. Gold panning / prospecting UT, GA, CA, AZ, NH
112. Rock and mineral collection
113. Operated an offset printing press
114. On TSA security list for carrying handgun (toy cap gun) in carry on luggage
115. Dug for garnets, topaz, turquoise, varacite, Herkimer diamonds and many other gems
PLUS
116. Rock climbing and bouldering (How could I have forgotten that)
117. Visiting underground coal mine. (5+ miles into the montain)
118. (Contrary to popular rumors, I did NOT take a ballet class in college. I did, however take bowling, fencing, ice skating and a few other fun classes in addition to the regular stuff.)

So Much Has Happened!

Has it really been this long since I posted something? Lots of things have happened in the last few weeks. Visits from kids both in and out of state. Visits from grandkids. Soap making. Some woodworking. Presentations and classes at the FHC. Co-sponsored big workshop at Eccles Conference Center. Spring yard work starting. Weeding, mowing, planting, spraying and digging stuff out. Two Senior Singles programs and on and on.........

Rather than going into all the details, let me just say that it has been a busy, but fun filled few weeks. We have enjoyed keeping up with everyone else's blogs and learning all the fun things you are doing and learning. It is fun to see how the grandkids are growing and experiencing neat things at home and in school and church.

I finally did something this past week that I haven't done for some time and have been wanting to get back to. When our daughter and her husband spent a few days with us while they were on spring break from their teaching jobs, the ladies did some serious shopping, but the guys took off and went to the indoor rock climbing gym. It is one of the nicer ones in the state, and we had a great time. It was fun to try and remember how to tie the knots, belay correctly, and make it to the top of the wall. (And back down)

A few hours climbing in the morning, and then a break, and a few more hours in the evening made for a very pleasant day. We had the owner of the gym take some pictures for us. (I certainly didn't want James to put down the belay rope to go around taking pictures and leaving me hanging on the wall without any protection.) The pictures I am posting tell it all. The wall in our basement is fun, but it's not 40 ' high. Climbs were accurately rated. 5.5 to 5.12. 5.7 and 5.7+ push me a bit still but lower than that are a cinch. lots of holds, some neat cracks, corners, angles, overhangs and all made for a fun day.

Is My Foot As Cute As Yours?

After seeing everyones feet on their blogs, I knew that I was NOT going to post my foot. Until.... Darin suggested that I join everyone and post a picture of mine. So here it is. Toenails are not painted. Along with this post is an open challenge to anyone who has not posted a picture of their foot to do so. If I am crazy enough to do it, anyone should be able to. I guess the name of my blog says it all.

Eclipse Saturday Night

Just a quick note of interest for all the astronomy buffs out there. There will be a full eclipse of the moon on Saturday, 3 March. Unfortunately, you need to be in Europe or Africa to really see the full eclipse. But.... those of us in the USA should be able to see a partial eclipse as the moon is rising. The farther east you are located, the better the view. For further information, google "lunar eclipse" or try the following site: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/ Happy viewing! If you look for the eclipse, let me know what you were able to see.

Happy Valentine's Day To All

Happy valentines day to everyone! This has been a very fun and busy day. We had our monthly FHC staff meeting this morning. At the meeting, I made a presentation that seemed to go well. Since it was valentines day we did something that we ordinarily don't do which was to have punch and cookies after the meeting.

Every Valentine's Day the barbershop quartet that I sing with goes out to deliver singing Valentines around the community. I had them come as our meeting was closing. Thy said that they had been asked to come sing, but that they only had three members of their quartet, and that they needed a baritone. They ask if someone at the center could fill in with the baritone part. They stated that it is a very simple part and you don't even have to know how to sing if you are a baritone. I was "volunteered" to sing, the baritone part, and we sang a few love songs for the staff and patrons that were at the center. Of course, after awhile, most people realized that I was actually a part of the quartet. I did get even with the tenor who made the comment about baritones not needing to know how to sing. I shared with the group that it had always been my goal to sing the tenor part, but that I had never been good at it, because I could never learn how to sing half note flat.


This is a very old picture of our quartet, and not a very good one at that. We looked much better today in our black tuxedos with metallic red cummerbunds and red bow ties. We did almost a dozen "gigs", delivering some beautiful flowers, having fun and bringing tears to a few of the ladies we sang to. Some of the ladies were very touched by our singing. ( on second thought, maybe they were crying because of our singing. Not because of the sentiments generated by the words.)

Since one of the places where we sang was close to home, we dropped by the house and sang a couple of of love songs to my sweetheart. That was the best gig of the day in my book. It was fun to bring some happy feelings into some of the homes, offices, business places and even at a university class with about 200 students. We love to sing in that class each year, which is taught by the wife of one of our quartet members. The wife gets a little embarrassed, but the student's hoot and holler and clap and stomp their feet. It was interesting to note how many of the students were photographing us with their telephones. (and at other places throughout the day) A really fun day!

From "dummy" to "expert"

It is past time for me to be making an entry in my blog, so here it is. It is interesting how in just a very short time, I have gone from knowing nothing about blogging to teaching a class on - - - believe it or not - - - blogging. A while back, I was talking to the Director of training at our local FHC, and mentioned blogging to her. She said "oh wonderful if you know something about it, let's have you teach a class."

We discussed her suggestion for a while, and for some crazy reason, I thought it would be fun. Some of you responded to my cry for help, and with the ideas I picked up, I put together a class outline. I recently taught that that first class, and really enjoyed it. There were about 10 in the class. We looked a little bit at the history of blogging, what it is, some of the pros and cons and some of the things to be careful about. Because of some of the blocks that are on our server, we could not access a site so that everyone could create their own blog on their own class computer, but I managed a way to bypass the server on one computer and was able to project the monitor images on the screen, so everyone could see how it was done. One of the students went through the process of creating a blog, making links, inserting photos, and other similar tasks, and the others were able to observe how it was done. The feedback after the class was very positive. And since that time, I have heard from several of the students who have set up their blog.

One of the students set up his blog and then linked to another site where he has placed all of his photo albums. He was quite excited about being able to share his photos and blogging with all of his family members. Teaching the class was a good experience for me because I found it necessary to really explore blogging. I got into the "help" section, and did enough research to do what I felt was a fairly decent job of teaching. I am still learning new things. I am far from being an "expert". In fact, it has always been my opinion that to understand the word "expert" you had to break it into two parts. One part being "ex" and the other part being "spurt". When you realize that an "ex" is just a has been, and that the spurt is just a drip under pressure, it becomes more understandable why I could talk about going from dummy to expert.

It was, all things considered, a delightful experience.

Another Beautiful Florida Sunset and a great Brother in law and sister

10 Days in Paradise (Florida)

At least it seemed like paradise while we were there. We only had to look at the weather back home and see that the temperature was 10 below 0 and then go out walking on the beach in the 80 degree sunshine of Florida to make it seem like we were in paradise. What a fun time!! We went to bed when we wanted, got up when we wanted, ate when we wanted and just spent hours visiting with my sister and her husband. In a couple of minutes we were on the beach with the warm sunshine, 80 degree temperature, and a gentle sea breeze. You really have to wonder why we live where we do when we could enjoy this kind of life.

I spend some time doing little things around the house to help out. Balancing an overhead fan, repairing a door lock, installing computer programs, repairing lighting fixtures, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. All things that I really enjoyed doing. The ladies talked and talked (and did I mention talked and talked?) It just seems to me that after several hours of talking, that you would have said everything that could be said, but then they would go at it again for several more hours. I guess it's a female thing that the guys will never understand. We had wonderful meals three times a day, and all the snacks you could eat in between. A trip to the French bakery for baguettes and pain au chocolat will be long remembered.

I had taken a small portable photo printer with me, and as we took some pictures of our comings and goings, I printed them out. When I get to where I can hook my camera up to the computer, I will post a couple of pictures that will give some idea of the fun time we had. It was hard to leave, when our time was up, and even harder to get to our snow covered car and drive through the snowstorm and the canyon to our home. Our neighbor had watched over our home and all was well upon our arrival. We are almost adjusted to the time change, but not to the cold (right now 17 degrees) weather. We do have to say, though, that the snow is quite beautiful. Is there any way that we could have the snow and the sunny beach? I guess that can only happen in our dreams and memories, . . . of which we have many.