Flying Over the Grand Canyon - July 7

We flew over the Grand Canyon on the flight between Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix, Arizona. I remember going to the Grand Canyon as a child, but that's been a LONG time ago.

20090707 - Flying over the Grand Canyon - Grand Canyon, Arizona

I must say, the pictures from the plane made it look rather freaky.

Bear Lake - July 6

20090706 - Bear Lake - Garden City, Utah

When we actually made it to Bear Lake, we were stunned by the color of the water. I thought it might be a trick of the light from when we first saw it, but it really was that color when we got up close. Toward the end of the album, you'll see the board at the scenic overlook that explains why the water is the color it is. Really kind of neat, and very breathtaking to look at. While we were down by the lake, we stopped at a little drive in and had hamburgers where the seagulls were stalking the diners and we drove over into Idaho.

In Logan Canyon Again - July 6

DH, K, and I took off in the little rental car into Logan Canyon again on July 6. DH had picked a pretty scenic dirt road route that would take us from Logan to Bear Lake. It was very scenic and very dusty. The one thing that I didn't get any pictures of but wanted desperately were these rodent creatures (I thought they were some kind of gopher but I've been searching and they may have been Utah Prairie Dogs) that kept running across the road with their tails sticking up. They were quite cute. Anyway, lots of gorgeous views.

20090706 - Logan Canyon - Logan, Utah

The BIG dog

Another of DH's cousins, also R, brought along her dog to the family reunion. This dog's name is Thor. They say he's a pit bull. Whatever else Thor might be, he's HUGE!! He was a big baby though. He trailed R around like the devoted puppy he is. The problem was, he was also an immovable object when he was stopped and I am ever the self-propelled accident-waiting-to-happen. On more than one occasion, I came around a corner and crashed into him almost sending myself sprawling on the floor. Fortunately for everyone, there were never any broken bones. Look at the size comparison between he and I in this picture though. HUGE, I tell you!!

Hyrum Lake - July 5

At sunset on July 5, DH's cousin R took us back out on another adventure. This time he took us to a place called Hyrum Lake, in Hyrum, Utah. We got some really great pictures of the moon reflecting off the water. It was pretty breezy so the water was a little too choppy for a clear reflection. I think the pictures came out pretty awesome even so. There's more in the album, of course.

The Bee Hive Grill - July 5

20090705 - The Bee Hive Grill - Logan, Utah

On July 5, we took DH's aunt J out to dinner to thank her for her hospitality. The Bee Hive Grill was a new place she hadn't been before. The food was quite good. We did find it quite entertaining that it was a place that did their own brewing but what they brewed was root beer and orange cream soda. Only in Utah, right? The root beer was quite excellent though! :) The food was REALLY good too.

2009 Cache Valley Cruise-In - July 4

One of the coolest things that happened while we were in Logan was the 2009 Cache Valley Cruise-In. I had never been to a car show that took over the city and cruised down the roads. It was pretty awesome. There were hundreds of cars and hundreds of thousands of spectators. The actual cruise event didn't occur until Saturday night, but as early as Thursday evening we noticed that people were already staking out their preferred viewing locations and placing caution tape or flatbed trailers along Main Street and Center Street. One flatbed we saw even had three hottubs aboard!! These people are some serious car enthusiasts.

20090704 - The 2009 Cache Valley Cruise-In - Logan, Utah

In Logan Canyon - July 3

On July 3, DH's cousin R took us on a drive into Logan Canyon. The scenery was positively beautiful. We went in late afternoon, so we were roaming around in the canyon as the sun was setting. It made for some really gorgeous pictures. R took us first through a campground (that was packed for the holiday weekend for sure) and to a very old amphitheater. While A, K, and R were up on the stage, I told them to "act" for me. Later on we went across a river and went to a place R called the Hobbit Caves. We then walked along the far side of the river until we found a place to go back across to the road.

The one negative we all noticed was the millions of very starving mosquitoes. We were being eaten alive. Fortunately, once we got away from where there were so many people, they weren't as bad.

More pictures in the album.

Off to the West - July 2

Back on July 2-7, we visited Utah for a family reunion of DH's mother's side of the family. It was a really nice visit and was such a gorgeous area to be in. We flew into Salt Lake City from Atlanta on July 2nd and then drove from Salt Lake City to Logan, Utah where the extended family was. The picture above was taken on the way out of Salt Lake City. Gosh how I miss mountains like that, with snow on the top year round. There are a few more pictures taken on that particular drive in the album.

Time to Get Caught Up

So life has gotten me really far behind on blog posting. I have lots of things I want to share, so there will be a BUNCH of posts following this one. It's been a BUSY summer. It looks like I'll have a bit of slowdown over the next week or two. I've even been so busy I've hardly had time to go to work. How crazy is that?!? So anyway, I did some server work today and when I went online to submit my time, I noticed that I had actually made 39.20 hours (after the hours for today) for this week without even having to submit any vacation time. That's almost unheard of so far this summer. Just nutty.

My first 5k

I'm such a slacker. This event occurred on June 6 and I'm only just now posting about it! And really I'm only doing it now because I want to post about something else after this and want this to be first. Everything in its proper order and all.

Anyway, I participated in the 22nd Annual Historic Buford 5K Road Race. Several of my coworkers and some of their associated people were also there. It was a lot of fun! I ran for the first 100 yards or so and then walked the rest. I really didn't feel like my knees could handle running for an extended period.

So the official results at Cool Running were that I finished it in 47:33. I came in 359th out of 380, which means I wasn't last. That also put me 26th out of 28 in my age division (female 30-39), which means I wasn't last there either!!

My daughter K was also there. I was so proud of her! She finished it in 46:48, which was 357th overall and 21st out of 22 for her age division (female 15-19).