BYGTWSO!--Day 4

K's family is here from Iowa! First stop was Bridal Veil Falls. We had a beautiful day with gorgeous weather and moderate temperatures. We headed on toward Jordanelle State Park to explore things there. Following are pics from our excursion. The first picture is a SHADOW picture. The shadow looks like symmetrical little round things, but the thing making the shadow is one of those water bugs skimming the surface. We watched shadows for a good three minutes straight. We are easily entertained. Other photos include: a meadow of rush and sedge, an osprey on a pole and an osprey nest with an osprey in it (these were next to each other), signs of beaver, more bugs, etc.!



We wore Grandpa out!

Here's the reservoir and a little butterfly.


A friend at work mentioned something about a crater in Midway. We checked it out since my MIL adores all things geological. The crater is 45 feet from the top down to the surface of the water and the water depth itself is 65 feet.


We got to see the outside of the crater, but they wouldn't let us walk up to the top and look down into it. "H" stands for Homestead. Another shadow photo.


We took the Iowa Farmers to see our pathetic little garden. The wind blew so hard the other night that it blew the porta-potty over! The Farmers couldn't muster many comments other than, "You might get some tomatoes..." We'll see. After that we took them to our home for dinner: Kalua Pig, rice, potatoes, pasta salad (K insisted on all these carbs), broccoli, cauliflower, big red fresh strawberries, and carrot cake for dessert. They loved it. And we loved having them.

BYGTWSO!--Day 3

For my third day of summer vacation, I cleaned.

K moved back home and therefore, we had stuff to put away. It takes a long time to decide where all the stuff should go (what to store, what to use, what to donate). So perhaps we could say we moved in and then cleaned. Makes for a long, tiring day.

We cleaned like anything as his family is arriving from across the plains today. Because we are "never" home, we really cleaned. We did a lot of laundry. Not just our usual laundry, but we had to launder all the stuff from Kamp Kyburz: towels, sheets, blankets, comforters, ranger uniforms, etc before storing it all away. Because we kept cleaning, we had extra loads of just rags that needed to be bleached and washed. We kept that washing machine busy and man, are we so glad we have a washer and dryer. We scrubbed. We washed the kitchen and bathroom floors on hands and knees. We scrubbed the tub, the toilet, the sinks. We scrubbed the stove and all those metal burner "pans" or whatever the term is (escapes me). We washed the garbage can itself. We dusted. Man. We hadn't dusted for a while. We vacuumed. First, with the attachments. All the baseboards, nooks, corners, and so forth. Then we really vacuumed. Then we emptied the collection canister on the vacuum cleaner, washed it out with soap and water and changed the vacuum filter. We shredded papers. We ironed. We washed mirrors. We swept the patio and watered the plants, the flowers, the garden, and wiped away the cobwebs that were starting back on the front door. We shopped for food at Costco and Smith's.

And you know what? It's still not how I want it. There's more sorting and organizing to do. But K thinks, "It looks pretty good!"

I'm sure his family understands that after four years of racing up and down I-15 to nurture our marriage while maintaining three jobs between the two of us and other responsibilities, we're doing okay. I guess I've made it sound like our home has been a pig sty. It hasn't. It's just been a little dusty and overlooked. It's tough to clean a place when you're not physically there to clean it. But now I'm home. We're home. And thus, the priority for Day 3 of "getting the whole summer off" was to clean, Clean, CLEAN! And my Man was right there with me every step of the way--he's incredible.

And So the Cycle Begins Anew!

Got home from the Spike and saw three new eggs in the nest! Mr. and Mrs. Robin are at it again! Don't worry, I can't keep documenting robins (today there were FOUR eggs!), however, it would seem that the tree outside our bedroom window is some kind of PRIME REAL ESTATE!

The Last Program at the Last Spike Site

Because K was departing, he wanted to do the departures at the end of the day. Surprise, surprise! Every ranger that could be spared came out to support him as he did his last program. Such a heart-warming gesture!


Superintendent Leslie took the microphone and explained to the visitors that this was K's last day "after four wonderful years." She also explained that in the reenactement ceremony, they always have the crowd chime in at a certain place to say "Hip Hip Hooray!" three times. She asked everyone to do that for K on his last day. And she was all emotional, choked up with tears in her eyes.


He also got whistles from BOTH locomotives--something rare and special. It made him really happy.



"Watch out for that scaaaaaaalding steam!" K is famous amongst the rangers for saying this in this way.


Bittersweet. 'Tis finished.

K Arriving on the 119

K went back to the engine house after arriving on the Jupiter so he could ride the 119 in on his last day.


Ah, I love 'im so!


Ringing that bell!


Greetings!

A Ride on the Jupiter

On K's last day at the Spike, he did a lot of things "for the last time." He had a list of emotional, symbolic, and ritualistic things in his head that he wanted to accomplish. One of those was riding both of the locomotives from the engine house to the last spike site. I had been on the 119, but had never ridden the Jupiter, so K and I left the VC, admired the blooming yucca, and walked down the tracks together to the engine house, noticing the multitudinous mice and voles darting around as we approached. It was a perfect, beautiful, sunny day arranged by God to add to the overall sendoff for Ranger Ken.


Can we ride?


K and Engineer Ron.


Loading coal on the 119.


Wood stacked on the Jupiter.


Volunteer Fireman Bruce throwing the switches (or whatever you're supposed to say, I'm not a railroader, ahem).


Engineer Ron and his PPE (Personal Protective Equipment, in this case...ear plugs, we all had them in our ears!).


This, My Friends, is called doing a Blowdown (letting off steam--you'd be surprised how many ordinary words and phrases in our language stem from the railroad).


Volunteer Fireman Bruce working hard. It is not an easy thing to get a steam locomotive down a track. The action is constant. One thing I enjoy is listening to the engineer and the fireman communicate with each other. They are always calling out what they see and confirming it, what they are about to do and confirming it, etc. When one says something to the other, the other says "Thank You" and then repeats what was just said so the understanding is there. Kind of like saying "10-4" over a radio. K was the bell ringer. Everybody has to have a job when they ride the locomotive so my job was "photographer."


Guages. They help you to know when it's time for a Blowdown.


Did I mention it gets pretty hot in the cab? I've eaten a hotdog cooked on this locomotive!


Put another log on the fire!


Engineer Ron being super safe as always. He is fanatical about tracking people, their location, their habits of movement, and all that ("three on the ground, one on the stand"). He will not move his locomotive until all safety concerns are resolved. There's a difference between park rangers who are safe and those who aren't so safe. Obviously, I appreciate the really safe ones.


There's my K ringing the bell of the Jupiter! Let me tell you, I rang the 119's bell once and got criticized for not doing it well enough. It's tougher than it looks--you have to find a groove. On top of that, K still manages to stick his head out the window and wave.


Ranger Val recording K and his locomotive duties. K's coworkers were filming and photographing him all day, as if they would never see him on the face of the earth again!