Bucket List: the North Rim with Bernie and Elinor

One of Dave's and my bucket list items has been to spend a night in a cabin on the edge of the Grand Canyon.  Over the July 6, 2018 weekend we did that.  It was even more fun than expected because we were joined by Bernie and Elinor Engelhard, friends from the 1970s, when Dave was in the Air Force in Tucson.  We like the Engelhards better and better as the years go by.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is spectacular, and not as hot or mobbed with people as the South Rim.  It is several thousand feet higher than the South Rim and is much harder to get to.

 The cabin was spartan, for $235 per night, but we could see the canyon through the trees.

One highlight of the weekend was an early morning hike with Elinor for several hundred feet below the rim.  We took the trail that leads down and down to the Colorado River.

 We watched, fascinated, as groups of tourists rode down the trail, past us, on mules. 

 As the mules and tourists paused for instructions before heading down the trail, we heard the wrangler admonish her charges.  "Don't let the mules stop to poop.  They can do it as they walk.  Don't let the mules stop to nibble at branches.  Look how fat they are.  And if you get scared, close your eyes."  We watched the mules step within a few inches of a thousand foot drop-off, and we were glad we depended on our own hooves, rather than theirs.

 Elinor made a point of stopping in "every spot of good shade" as we traipsed back uphill.  I stopped every hundred steps to catch my breath.  It took us a long time to get back up to the rim!

This couple had hiked from the South Rim to their camp along the Colorado River.  They then hiked to the North Rim and would soon turn around to hike back down, break camp tomorrow, and return to the South Rim.  Elinor and I couldn't comprehend doing that.

In the afternoon, we joined Bernie for a ranger lecture.  The ranger told about a couple who, in 1928, had tried to brave the Grand Canyon on rafts without life jackets, as they set out to make a speed record through the canyon.  They disappeared, with their boat found floating in an eddy at the bottom of the canyon.  As the ranger began his presentation, he asked the group, "If you were going to float down the river in a boat, what would you bring with you?"  The little girl in the picture above cried out, "Bath toys!"  The ranger led a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the doomed rafters' adventure. (Bring bath toys?)

 Bernie and Elinor relaxed, while Dave and I drove to Cape Royal, a scenic outlook twenty miles farther along the Rim.

 The highlight of the trail at Cape Royal was a peek-a-boo arch through which we could see the Colorado River.

It began to rain while we were there, and the sight of clouds above the canyon was unforgettable..

Dave rested up before dinner at the lodge.  The food was amazingly good for a spot so remote as the North Rim. After dinner, we came back to our cabin with Bernie and Elinor, rocked in the rocking chairs on the porch, and talked about past and future adventures together.

July 4 with Friends and Fam

Letters from my missionary grandchildren send greetings to "Friends and Fam".  I assume "Fam" means family members of all ages, shapes, and qualities.  July 4, 2018, was a true celebration of "friends and fam."  We spent the day at our cabin in Oakley, Utah. Jonny slept, the night of July 3, at the cabin with his little boys, Henry and Sam, as Jenny recuperated in SLC with their new baby, Thomas.  Dave and I arrived at the cabin as Henry was trying out a stylish Stetson from our hat tree.

Jonny fixed a fine American breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast for Sam and Henry, as Sam winked to say "hello".

 Henry carefully inspected the lumpy blackberry jam to decide if it was edible.

 Jonny brought chocolate milk as a special treat.

 We sat next to Jonny and Jenny's close friends, Scott and Jane Swallow, at the Oakley Parade.  Jane Swallow's mother is my good friend, Judy Lever, so there were lots of friends to go along with the "fam."  We gave each of the children a bag to scoop up the taffy and tootsie rolls that were tossed off the floats.

Actually, this was a low cost parade and there weren't many floats.  There were trucks with pep clubbers shaking pompoms, fire trucks, and lots of horses.  Queens from every town around rode horses in the parade, and horses pulled carts loaded with county commissioners, city auditors, and sheriffs.

 Sam took in the sights with his new shades.

 We met Camille's family at the cabin, after the parade, for Grandpa Dave's famous hamburgers.

 Janice joined us, looking very Texan.

And Nancy came, as well, home, temporarily, from visits to her children and grandchildren across the US.

Shauna is a fun guest, with lots of praise for the food, hugs all around, and colorful tales about her life.

 We ate lunch at the enclosed picnic table which Dave's dad so carefully built many years ago.

 It is not often that Cliff and Carol Spendlove's four children are together.

And of course, there were lots of rides on the four-wheelers.

Shakespeare and Fejoida

The weekend of June 29, 2018 was filled to bursting. Jonny's third son, Thomas, was born in the wee hours of Friday morning.  After we celebrated that joyous event, Dave and I drove to Cedar City, Utah, to see plays at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  And we finished the weekend with a Brazilian dinner at our home in SLC.  Michael K and Rebecca were in town from BYU-I in Rexburg, Idaho.  They are free spirits, and we enjoyed their enthusiasm and fresh ideas.

Jono is in SLC this weekend, but he will leave soon for a series of friends' and family trips which will last for the next three weeks, until he leaves on his mission.

Jenny was home with two-day-old Thomas, but Jonny brought Sam and Henry to share dinner with their cousins Ezra, Mia, and Sophia.

We encouraged Dave's sister, Janice, to bring her children and grandchildren.  Joshua and Ashley joined us, with three-year-old Finn and baby Cohn.  Joshua is a mountain climber and Cohn, at 11 months, already tried to climb up my kitchen cabinets!

Alan always brings his homemade bread to dinner, and Shauna praises the food.  They are welcome to join us any time!

Our neighbor, Carol Garza, joins us whenever we have pork.  "It's one of my favorite things," she says.

Janice will leave this fall to join her husband, Mark, in Saudi Arabia, so we enjoy having her join us while she can.

We began the meal with Jonny's Brazilian limonada and cheese balls, and continued with fejoida (black bean and ham stew), grilled pineapple, sauteed kale, beet and cabbage salad, and Alan's bread.  I fixed coconut flan for dessert.

Dave and I love the St. George Temple.  I did an endowment session there Saturday morning, and enjoyed the peace it brought me.

A highlight of Shakespeare's Henry VI Part I was seeing the Bard's interpretation of Joan of Arc, who battled the English on behalf of the French king.

The two leads in Merchant of Venice, Antonio and Shylock, were both played by women! 

Cedar City is improving its dining scene.  Dave and I ate dinner one night at Chef Alfredo's Ristorante, and the next at The Depot, housed in Cedar City's 1923 train station.

Jono at the Temple

 "It takes at least a dozen parties to send off a missionary," I once sighed to a friend.  "If my son would go on a mission, I would throw a hundred parties," my friend replied.   Leaving on a mission is a busy time.  It is a rite of passage, marked with religious rituals and celebrations by family and friends.  On July  , 2018, Jono "took out his endowments" at the Draper, Utah temple.  That is a religious ceremony in which Jono made certain promises and was given blessings.  Mormons return to the temple often, some even every week, to feel the holiness of that sacred place.

And, of course, visiting the temple together called for a party.  Jono, Steve and Camille, and Jono's grandparents ate dinner together at The Dodo, a favorite SLC restaurant at which we have eaten for decades.  It was at The Dodo that Jenny's mother, Shelly, and I first met for lunch after Jonny and Jenny decided to get married.

Jono's Farewell

Dave and I dashed home from Seattle on June 24, 2018, to attend Jono's missionary farewell.  He will leave on July 18, 2018, for an LDS mission to Fukuoka, Japan.  Jono gave a heartfelt and inspiring speech in Church, and then family and friends gathered at Camille and Steve's house afterwards for a reception.

Camille skillfully mixed Western foods with Oriental touches.  There were steamed edamame (soybeans), teriyaki chicken sandwiches, and an Asian chicken salad, supplemented with fruit bowls and cookies.  I lent the silk and satin Asian fabrics to decorate the tables.

Camille was the chef, but she had lots of helpers in the kitchen.

Sophie bakes excellent cookies.

We enjoyed meeting Jono's tribe of friends.  Virtually all of them are leaving soon on their own LDS missions.

And of course both sets of grandparents supported Jono--Al and Marilyn Ebert, and Dave and I.

My brother, Scott Calder, and his wife, Jean, stopped by, and we spent several hours just talking.  We don't find enough time to be together.

Jonny attended Jono's reception, as did Scott's son, Grant.  They, too, enjoyed a long conversation.

We appreciated so many relatives coming to Jono's reception, from both sides of the family.  Dave's sister, Janice, attended with her daughter Charlotte and daughter-in-law Ashley, and Lisa's son, Michael K, and his wife, Rebecca, drove down from Rexburg, Idaho.