Stormy weather

Monday July 7, as we were heading to work, a tiny bear cub ran across the road in front of us, how cute.  We then looked for its mom and there she was up the hill, having already crossed the road, both were moving to fast to snap a picture, so we continued on our way to work.  It ended up being a pretty slow day, but we were still there until 1:00, every time we talked about leaving, another group of rafters showed up.  We get out of there, head home for the normal quick lunch and nap for Brad and Rudy; I even laid on the sofa and rested.  After that a long walk for Brad and Rudy, then Jim came over for his normal  visit and to let us know, he had dinner, Macaroni salad with smoked salmon in it…..ok, we’ll give it a try.  As we were sitting outside talking, the Smith’s came home from work, got changed and decided to join us for happy hour.  We all talked until about 7:00, then I heated up our leftover BBQ Beef and Jim got his salad, Jan grabbed the dessert and we had a nice throw together dinner for the 5 of us.  What a great evening.  The party broke up about 8:30, we all headed inside and proceeded with our nightly chores and then off to bed.

Tuesday was another somewhat slow day, busier than Monday, but I do think I like the 600-700

You can get anything
for your raft

count days.  We were still there until 1:00 then headed home for our normal mid afternoon routine, but I wasn’t in the best of moods, so I just loafed the rest of the day. Brad and Rudy headed out for their walk and very shortly after that, Brad radioed for me to let Fred and Judy know the sheep were in the CG next door, in case their son, Dave, wanted to head over to see them.  After about 5 min., Jim headed out with Dave and Freida, first to see the sheep and then up to the visitor center so Patti could get a look at Freida.  She maybe a standard poodle but there is nothing fancy about her, including the way she likes to run and rough house with Rudy as well as the hair cut Jim gave her.  Brad and Rudy got back and Jim and Dave were shortly behind him, so Jim came over to join us for a drink, and then stayed for burgers and chips for dinner.  Not much of a meal, but it way too hot to really cook anything more.  A bit more of a visit, then back inside to get ready for the next day….yea we are off, but now Jim has to be a work at 7:00 AM.

Wednesday we make our shopping list, which includes sandals, sun glasses and a hair cut for Brad.  We left about 11:30, got to Vernal and stopped for lunch….ugh; we still need to find a decent restaurant.  After that we hit 4 different stores looking for sandals, he had to break down and spend the money for a good pair of sandals, but we did find decent sunglasses at the same place, and he even found a place that gave him a nice hair cut, short, but it is a summer doo.  Again, this seems to be the normal, Brad drops me off at the grocery store and heads out to rinse off the car (it did look like crap), but he was back in about 5 minutes.  While in Smith’s grocery store, we ran into Jan and Don Smith, our volunteer neighbors, but they were just about finished with their shopping and we were just getting started. We got done shopping, stopped at MacDonald’s for an iced tea then headed

Duck Family

up the mountain towards our summer home.  To back up a little, Saturday a forest fire had started outside of Vernal, and has burned over 4000 acres, and on our way back home, we could see smoke off in the distance, the fire is still burning.  We didn’t get home until about 5:30, and it looked like they were having a volunteer meeting without us or Rudy.  We said our hellos; let Rudy out, put groceries away and then Jim met us, ready to have a drink.  We were just having brats for dinner, so he stayed, invited us to the campfire he planned on having for Dave that night.  Being from Boston, Dave doesn’t get many campfires, so Brad, Jim and Dave enjoyed the fire, while I did dishes, washed grapes, cut up watermelon and got some other things done.  I went out to join them for a few minutes then headed back inside to finish my chores.  It ended up being an early evening though, with Jim working tomorrow, the fire was out by 9:30 and all were inside.

Thursday we planned on rafting the river, or kayaking on Greens Lake, but the weather doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.  Brad and Rudy went for a good 2.5 mile walk this morning, then we had

Storm rolling in!!

Smoked Salmon Omelets for breakfast, a little strong for me, but Brad enjoyed it.  We watched the dark clouds roll around for a while then decided what the heck; off we went to Greens Lake to do a little Kayaking.  We started out getting two kayaks but settled for one as they were rather bulky.  We got launched and paddled around for about an hour, but then the thunder started rumbling and the dark clouds rolled in, we decided it was time to get off the lake.  We did manage to get rained on, but we did get out before the absolute down pour started.  We headed home, got showered, and had a little lunch(we scratched going to the Marina for lunch, not much fun in the rain).  We were trying to decide if there was something else to do, but with gravel/dirt roads and rain, we just hung out, played some

Cabins on the Green Lake

backgammon, did a little cleaning and then Jim joined us for rice and sausage for dinner.  With the bad weather, we all headed inside by 8:00 day

Friday is another drizzly day, but it’s a stay at home/laundry day and it gave Brad the opportunity to build a fire about 9:30 and keep it burning all day.  I managed to get 3 loads of laundry done, while Brad played in the fire.  Dave came out about 11:00, when the drizzle quit, and stood by the fire for about an hour then Dave and Brad headed out to use the phone.  Back home a little lunch and more fire playing for Brad.  When Fred and Judy came home we asked if they would be interested in having hot dogs, cooked over the fire for dinner…..as long as the weather holds out, it’s a plan.  Jim finally got home about 5:00, so we had our nightly drink and then the food started coming out.  Judy brought some chips and salsa, while I brought out a Crenshaw Melon….it actually turned out to be pretty good.  We finally started the hot dogs, as it was starting to look a little nasty behind us.  We did manage to eat and get everything back inside before the downpour hit, so Brad, Dave and I headed over to Jims for some more of his homemade ice cream, and we took some fresh blueberries and chocolate along for toppings, yum.  The rain didn’t last long, so the 4 of us headed back out to the camp fire, we weren’t there long, but it was a nice way for Dave to end his visit. 

Saturday is another work day, and Brad, Rudy nor I want to get up.  But we are off by 6:40 heading to the ramp, when much to our surprise, there are already 7 rafts waiting at the launch site....another busy day.  We had around 650-700 people go down the river, but the parking lot was an absolute disaster.  We didn’t get out of there until about 1:30, so it was a bee line home to get Rudy out of his kennel and a nap for Brad.  I started cleaning, after two days of drizzly, wet weather; the front of the Moho looked a mess.  After nap time Brad and Rudy went for a walk, while I started my cleaning frenzy.  It felt good to get the place clean, and I’m sure Brad and Rudy were happy to be out of my way.  Once again, Jim stopped over and joined us for dinner, chicken on the grill with a vegetable…not a bad meal.  I cleaned up while Brad and Jim talked for a while, but they were both tired and were in by 8:30. 

More later,
Diane and Brad