Summer 2013: Adventures in Train Travel

We had lots of time to ourselves in North Salt Lake, as our hosts were both at work during the day. We decided to go to the Gateway Children's Museum in downtown Salt Lake, but we opted to take the FrontRunner double-decker commuter train to make it more interesting. And it was definitely interesting.

Although I had checked the train schedules and learned that it runs every 30 minutes, I hadn't noticed that the frequency drops to hourly late in the morning. We had a delay getting out of the house in the morning, but I figured it would be fine. Well, instead we arrived a few minutes after one train had departed and had about 45 minutes to kill. We sat on the platform and ate our lunch. Then the kids played with the payphone for a while.

Southbound Platform


Then, just a few minutes before the train was supposed to arrive, Katie suddenly had to go to the bathroom. I picked her up and rushed off the platform and hunkered her down behind some bushes. She really did well under pressure, as she has never had to go anywhere other than on the potty. Scott came running over to me with some kleenex, and we could already see the train coming down the track towards the platform. I got all Katie's clothes put back together and we raced back to board the train.

Of course we had to sit upstairs on the second level of the train.

Horsey Rides


The Children's museum was pretty good, but it was one of the busiest that we have ever visited, which meant that it wasn't very easy to relax. And that was before a Kung Fu summer camp showed up and 40 kids in green t-shirts were let loose on the area we were in.

Mail Carriers


I think one of the best things there was the little village that had a house, a store and a farm, and you could be a mail carrier and deliver letters to the various mailboxes (including the dog house). The kids did the mail route several times.

Pay Phone


Every time we found another pay phone the kids got a kick out of picking it up and listening until the recorded voice came on and gave instructions. Phones have changed a lot, and a payphone like this one seems like a bit of a novelty.

Homebound Platform


The train trip home went according to schedule, but it was noteworthy because of the massive windstorm that whipped up around us as we walked to the station. We happened to be near a vacant lot and there was a massive amount of dust thrown at us.

Katie & R


The scenery between Gateway and Woods Cross station isn't the best -- mostly oil refineries and industrial yards. We ended up taking a lot of pictures of ourselves along the way instead.

Scott & D


When we got home Scott had a bit of a breakthrough. Until this point, he has always needed someone to push him on a swing. Today he learned to swing on his own. This thrilled both of us, as my under-duck responsibilities can be passed on a bit. Way to go buddy.

Learning to Swing


More Wasps


When our hosts Brad & Katie got home from work we went out to dinner in Bountiful at the Mandarin, which is supposed to be THE plance to get Chinese food in town. Sadly, it is also THE place to get stung by wasps. Little Katie was just walking to the front door when a wasp got trapped between her hair and her neck and panicked, stinging her 3 times on the neck. Once again, she took it like a trooper, but her mistrust of wasps is growing.

Dinner


The food really was delicious. R has always loved Chinese food. She loves it even more now that she has to avoid gluten, since almost anything on the menu can be made gluten free. We had a great visit in North Salt Lake and Bountiful. Can't wait to go back!

Summer 2013: Hill Aerospace Museum

Originally, we were going to go directly home from Island Park after the reunion, we stayed an extra week to go to my youngest cousin's wedding in Brigham City. We had most of a week before we needed to be there, so we decided to spend the week in Pocatello and then North Salt Lake. On our way from Pocatello to North Salt Lake, we stopped at the Hill Aerospace Museum. I remembered going there once as a teenager (the same weekend we drove down for the BYU vs Notre Dame game in about 1993) but I was shocked at how amazing the place was -- 100 times better than anything I remembered.

P-51 & B-17


I really enjoyed seeing the B-17. I had just finished reading the book "A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II", which told the story of a B-17 bomber crew that was shot to pieces on their first mission to Germany and then received an escort from a particularly chivalrous German fighter ace. You think of B17s as these massive airplanes, but they really weren't all that big and they seem so much more constrictive and vulnerable when you picture the members in the crew as described in the book.

Shark Teeth and Scott's missing teeth


Scott really liked the paint job on the P51, which had a full set of teeth. He had lost a tooth before the trip and then he bravely used a kleenex to grab his next loose tooth and yank it out. Last time, we had a question of whether the Tooth Fairy would come out to the forest to claim a tooth from under a camp pillow. This time, we had to wonder which currency the Tooth Fairy would choose if a Canadian lost a tooth while on vacation in the US. We should note that I lost our Canadian passports at the airport after our North Carolina trip, so we entered the US as US citizens, causing even more confusion for the Tooth Fairy, I'm sure.

Scott and the bomb


Scott is hilarious. Often I tell him something interesting and then he turns around and repeats it to his mom or Katie, even though they are standing right next to us and obviously heard the whole thing. This happened a lot at the museum. For example, I read the sign next to this bomb and then he regurgitated it to R.

Top Gun: F-14 Tomcat


We had to get a picture of the F-14 Tomcat. R and her sister J loooooved the move Top Gun when they were younger (apparently, it was also part of their Christmas Eve traditions to stay up late and watch it), so of course we had to pay homage to Maverick and Goose. I don't think the kids had any idea of the significance, but they thought all the planes were super-awesome.



The inside of the museum is made up of several huge hangars packed full of sweet planes. However, there are many more planes outside that are simply too enormous to try to park inside. Think of a plane (or a helicopter) that was ever awesome and chances are it is here. Free admission? We are definitely going back.

Summer 2013: Backyard Archery Party

Our second day at the Buckskin Lodge (aka Grandma & Grandpa's house) was packed with action. In the morninge went to the most amazing park in the history of the world.



Brooklyn's Playground was recently built to be accessible to children with wheelchairs or other special needs. It is huge and it is fabulous, and my parents donated to the cause -- they have their names on a cobblestone out front.



The playground has all the stuff you would normally expect at a playground, but it is centered around a series of decks and ramps that are much more accessible than normal. There are a few little areas for younger ages in the back, and in the front there are special swings that allow children with upper-body challenges to have fun swinging.



We left the playground to eat at the Pizza Pie Cafe (formerly known as Craigo's), which is becoming a big family favourite. For a reasonable price (ie: a fistful of dollars) you can eat from their pizza & salad buffet, and they can provide you a gluten-free pizza to order for only a few dollars more.



Grandma joined us for a movie (Crood's) and then we went back to the house to eat dinner and shoot arrows. Once again, Scott was SUPER EXCITED to shoot arrows. He used to have a plastic bow with suction-cup arrows, so he figured he was already a bit of a modern-day Robin Hood. If he was a medieval prince of theives, then Katie was a princess. She didn't have a princess dress to wear, but one of Grandma's sparkly shirts worked quite well.



It took some coaching to help him get things right, but Scott made quick progress with the arrows. Plenty of the first arrows ended up in the dirt, but pretty soon he was putting nearly half of them into the foam antelope.



Grandpa pays out at a rate of one quarter for every arrow in the target. Scott cleared about 2 bucks on the evening, at which point he bumped up against the house limit (Grandpa ran out of quarters).



Every day of this vacation we try something new, and every time we finish Scott immediately asks to go back and repeat that activity the next day. This day was no different: another great day. A high-five sort of day.



Here's a quote from our conversation after the shooting was over--
S: Why did you give me the heaviest bow?
D: Because I thought you were the strongest one
S: I'm not as strong as you.
D: But aren't you the strongest and best and smartest for everything?
S: No, just smartest.

Summer 2013: Shooting Party

Scott was VERY excited to visit Grandma & Grandpa's house to SHOOT GUNS. When he wasn't talking about driving remote-controlled cars, he was talking about shooting.



My Dad figured out a pretty clever way for everyone to take part in shooting with very little recoil and lots of POP and POW. He got out a Daisy BB pistol and we shot at balloon targets. Each time you hit the target you got a satisfying POP.



Speaking of pops, I found a big box of Tootsie Pops in a box inside the house. Also in the box there was a pair of ear muffs and shooting glasses. I commented on it to my Mom. She said that they like to shoot the Tootsie Pops. They got the idea from the Top Shot TV show. Mom said she likes it how the candy explodes when you shoot it.



They watch shooting shows together, and they also shoot together. Dad told us that he suggested to Mom that he could take her out to dinner in town and then go for a movie or something. She said that she would like that, but she would actually prefer to eat in at home and then just shoot in the back yard. I think they grow to love each other more every day, to the point where they are becoming one person.

Anyways, they have a bunch of these Tootsie Pops and they let the older boys shoot them the previous week while they were there. However, they boys left a couple of the suckers out when they finished. In the interim, the wasps had been working hard at eating all the sugar. Have you ever wondered what a Tootsie Pop looks like after about a week with a wasp? Fascinating stuff. I tried to shoot the wasp off the sucker with no success.



Scott did really well with the shooting, getting more and more accurate and consistent as the evening went along. I think he and the wasps would have been happy to stay out there all night if we had let him. When Grandpa took the gun from him to reload it or check it, Scott would immediately ask when he could have another turn. He is very focused.



Everybody got a turn to shoot. Katie got some help from her Dad to aim it, but pulling the trigger was her thing. We hit a bunch of balloons too.





Katie took some breaks from shooting to help Grandma pick raspberries on the bush nearby. Note the protective eyewear -- you would hate to have a rogue berry jump in your eye, right?





A beautiful night in the outdoors -- shooting stuff.

Visiting Gramma Gloy

Our kids had never been to Aberdeen to visit Great Gramma Gloy's house until this year. We spent an afternoon with her during our trip. There is no place in the world like her house. The rooms are decorated with countless trophies from Grandpa's many hunting expeditions in Africa. I thought the kids would be more intimidated by the stuffed leopard or massive horned beasts than they were. I remember being a bit uneasy about it all as a small child.







Equally fascinating is the children's playhouse in the back yard, which was built at the same time as the main house from the same materials. It is the perfect size for kids to have fun for hours. At first Scott didn't see how the house could be interesting for a boy like him. However, 30 minutes later it was nearly impossible to drag him out of there to go eat lunch.









Lunch at Grammas? Does it get any better than that? The jam and rolls were to die for. Gramma talked to us a bit about the history of the town, and how she has lived there pretty much since the beginning. She said she has probably lived there longer than anyone else. She once was Justice of the Peace. Grandpa Cliff was a long-serving Mayor in town. She taught at the high school forever. She IS the town of Aberdeen, as far as I am concerned.



The kids loved playing in the basement with all the indestructible die-cast metal toys that were there when my dad was a boy. The name "Marc" is still etched in the metal beam above their heads -- a lasting reminder that boys will be boys.



Afterwards, we visited the Aberdeen Cemetery to see Great Grandpa Cliff's grave. The kids had never really been to a cemetery before, so it was a learning experience for them. In order to keep them occupied while we talked with Gramma, I let them each have a camera. The headstones in that section of the cemetery are now very well documented.

My photos







Scott's photos





Katie's photos





Before leaving town we made a stop at Wallace Drug, which was owned by my great uncle Frank. Uncle Frank wasn't at the counter (he retired in 1995), and the arrangement inside is a bit different than I remember, but they gave us a great deal on our ice cream, which is exactly the sort of thing I remember about the place.



It was a magical afternoon in Aberdeen. We need to come back soon. We love you Gramma!