Pa&Ma
and my family have this great tradition. Every year, when they come
down from Minnesota (for the winter), we meet at the ranch for a
weekend with lots of fun. This year, we went up on Thursday, and
Pa&Ma joined us on Friday. We all stayed until Monday morning. In
between, we went on hikes (both in the day and at night), had lots of
campfires with lots of "hot-diggities" (that's what Mooms calls them),
goofed around, and even shot up some targets. Pa and I crawled up onto
Ron's roof and finished installing the chimney that I started
installing a few weeks ago. We had a great time!
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This
and the next three pictures were taken at the bottom of the hill that
we call the "final ascent". Out property begins at the top of this hill
(you can't see our property in these pictures).
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Bippy had this on her head much of the weekend. It seems rather "ranchy".
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Another crappy sunset at the ranch.
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Mooms, writing a story.
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Nettie
brought her schnozzels, hoping to use them while she slept.
Unfortunately, our inverter broke. This is me, trying to hot-wire the
schozzels directly to the battery. This didn't work, so Nettie had to
do without.
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See how bald I am?
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Our
first campfire, Thursday night. Pa&Ma were not here yet, but we had
a campfire without them anyway. We had hot-diggities for supper, just
like every other night (there was no night this trip in which we did
not have hot-diggities for supper).
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OK, this is just silly.
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Nettie-knitting (OK, Nettie crocheting, but Nettie-knitting sounds so much better).
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This is me taking my Thursday evenging pill.
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Friday morning, right after breakfast, we hiked up a mountain. This is just the start of the trail.
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I wish my wife wouldn't turn the camera sideways...
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You can see the mini-van at the bottom...
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Halfway
up the mountain, there is a very pretty meadow. In that meadow is this
big rock. On that rock are my children. Well, you get the idea....
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Nettie and Ma in the pretty meadow (halfway up the mountain).
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Nettie and me, in the pretty meadow.
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Grandparents and girls, on the rock, in the pretty meadow, halfway up the mountain.
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Monster in the meadow.
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Conqueror of the rock, in the pretty meadow, halfway up the mountain.
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The lesser rock, in the pretty medow, halfway up the mountain.
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Ma
and Bip stayed in the pretty meadow, halfway up the mountan, while the
rest of us went to the top. You can see Ma & Bip, if you look
really closely, in this picture.
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This is at the top. It is called "desert pavement". The small, volcanic rocks make a really hard surface (hence the name).
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Nettie, at the top. She made it, and so she gets to do this little "victory" pose.
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This
is a really neat little cave that the kids found. This is the entrance,
and it comes out on the top. You can't really see it in this photo, but
Button is in the cave.
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Button in the cave.
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Roo in the cave.
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Pa and I at the top.
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No comment.
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Day
two hike. We hiked in Carrizo Wash, near Purcell Well. Roo found this
big cow bone (and yes, she hauled it back to the cabin -- lovely).
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The
wash is lined with Salt Cedars. These trees are an invasive species
from the Mediteranean region. They grow like crazy, they produce dense
thickets. They also produce lots of really neat forts. This was one of
the best we found.
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Pa, resting on some packed sand.
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In the wash...
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Among the salt-cedars.
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Great family shot.
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Megan, on her "throne" (that's what she called it).
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Bippy, taking a nap.
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Pa's great hair.
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The hair was so cool, we needed another shot.
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The
kids love to collect tumbleweeds, because when you throw them on the
fire, they are like gasoline. This tumbleweed is bigger than Jacob!
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These next few pictures show what happens when you throw a tumbleweed on the fire.
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Another great family shot.
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A lot of this happened this weekend (kids, drinking pop).
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Nettie's tuke.
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More sunset piks.
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Who is this, anyway?
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I especially like this one. I shot these with "General Sherman" (my 30-06) at 100 yards.
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