Trip Fun for Bruno

Mike went with his friend and colleague, Bruno, to Utah on Friday.  They each checked into their motel rooms and then went on about a 4-5 mile walk around Salt Lake City. When they retired for the night  they agreed to meet at 7:00 the following morning to get a start on the day.  Mike, an avid reader,  lay in bed and read his book until about 1:00 am. Then he took out his hearing aid and went to sleep.  All night long he kept waking up and glancing at the clock, not wanting to oversleep.

The next morning at 7:00 Bruno was awake and ready to go.  He looked out into the hall to see if Mike was there.  No Mike.

He tried calling him on his phone.  No answer.

He tried knocking on his door.  No answer.

Bruno was getting agitated.  Maybe Mike died in the middle of the night.  He knew about the sleep apnea.  This was not good.  How was he going to tell Linda that Mike died?

Bruno tracked down a member of housekeeping and talked them into opening Mike's door.  I'm sure it was with dread as they turned the knob and entered the room. The alarm was beeping, without any movement from Mike to turn it off.

Mike, blissfully sleeping away, was started by someone shaking him. "What, what, what?" He sputtered.

I don't know if Bruno was more annoyed that he was given such a fright, or relieved that he didn't have a deceased friend.

Too Much Chicken on the Brain????

Sunday morning I decide to go to a chicken conference.  I tell Mike about it and he says he'll come too.  I get my rooster, Crow, and we head off for the conference.  We arrive at a well kept old time farm-stead.  The buildings are utilitarian and large.  As we stand in line with a moderately large group of bib-coveralled farmers with weathered faces I am holding Crow in my arms.  I notice there are other roosters off to the side, in another building.  I take Crow over and drop him off, telling him to go play with the other roosters.  We then sign into the conference and attend some classes. 

I realize that we need to get going back home so that I won't be late for church.  I go to collect Crow from the rooster nursery.  One of the farmer's daughters seems to be in charge of this and goes off to find Crow.  She is dressed really nice!  Like she is on her way to college or something, and she's really beautiful. I am astonished at how tall she is.  She brings Crow out to me and then gives me a hug as she is sad to see me leaving early. I hug her legs. Her hips are at the level of my head.  I think to myself two quick thoughts.  "Poor girl, she'll probably never get married." and "Wow, all that good farm nutrition really does make you grow better."

The other farmers realize that we are leaving and all come over and give us warm hugs and wishes for safe travel and thanking us for coming. 

And then I wake up.

Home Sweet New Home

 I went along for the ride when David and his family went to check out Pinedale, Wyoming, where they will be moving in a bit over a month.  David did some paperwork with the district office and then we checked out the area a bit. Here is Nathan gazing at the fun that will soon be his!

 Pinedale has a great aquatics recreation center that features an indoor water park, climbing wall, raised suspended jogging track, lap swimming pool, exercise equipment, Etc.  I think this place will make the cold snowy winters much more tolerable.

 Then we drove over to check out the apartment they are moving into.  This is owned by the school district and rented at a subsidized rate to new employees.  That way they have a bit of breathing room in finding where they really want to settle.  It was a pretty nice 4-plex.  This is the shot of their front door.

 And a wider angle shot so you can see how it sets with the other three apartments. 

 I asked David if he was going to carry Emily across the threshold of their new home, but I guess he wasn't into that kind of nonsense cause he went in first leaving Emily to bring up the rear.

 The layout of this place was kind of similar to their apartment in Pocatello, only more square feet. Here you see part of the kitchen, down the hall towards the front door on the left and the family room on the right.  That white door goes right into the garage.  The brown door is kind of a large storage pantry room, and has a cool crawl space underneath for storage. The boys head upstairs to check out the rest.

 Nathan is trying to decide which bedroom he would rather have.  These windows face out the front.  That is a large hotel in the window view.  Out in the back, about the same distance away as the hotel is in the front, is the 9th hole of the golf course.

 I took this photo while standing in the family room.  You can see more of the kitchen and down the hall towards the front door.  There is a living room just inside the front door and a bathroom half way down the hall on the left. There are 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a great walk-in closet in the master bedroom.  It's a great place to start out their lives there in Pinedale.

 We next did a couple of little jobs, like trying to set up their post office box (there is no home delivery of the mail, and no available post office boxes.  All mail will have to be addressed to the Mitchell's at General Delivery, Pinedale, Wyoming. Then we took a little trip over to the elementary school to let them know Nathan would be attending Kindergarten next year.

Once we got those jobs out of the way we went on a little sight-seeing escapade.  First to the big lake........

 They all hiked down to it and I stayed up top and took some photos.  It's a very nice large lake and has a marina on one end with cabins and a lodge.  We just kind of stopped beside the road and took a quick look around.

While they were down at the lake I took a few photos of some pretty wildflowers growing.  David thought these pictures were "lame".

 The family returns.

We loved the sign.
Welcome to Pinedale....
All the Civilization You Need!

 Before heading back to Idaho we stopped at a city park so the kids could play.

 Zach is showing some effects of a long day......

  A group of kids from a day care showed up about the same time we did.  Nathan really wanted to swing and sat on this bench for quite a while waiting for one of them to open up.  They never did.

There was an awesome little pond in this park.  It had a sign that said, "13 and under, limit 6 fish per day".  Cool!

It was fun to go over and see where my kids would be settling.  We'll all go over in July to help them get moved in.  I'm so excited to have them 11 hours closer to us!