Summer Vacation: Day 2

	This morning we made our way toward Devils Postpile National Monument. Wow. The entrance to the place was VERY high in altitude and very chilly for summer. I believe it was somewhere around 9,000 ft. At this point there is a Minaret viewpoint where I shot these two pictures. I never feel natural posing for the camera. I suppose that is why I like being behind the lens.
	Devils Postpile is seriously one cool place to visit. I was not sure if it was going to be worth the extra driving to get there but in retrospect it was worth it all. I mentioned that at the overlook it was chilly and windy. To get to the postpile from there you have to descend about 2000 feet down mostly a narrow one-way road with steep drop-offs. The weather was nice. It was not windy and warm. What a different a little elevation makes. I need to tell you a little about this formation. It is one of the finest examples of columnar basalt formations because of how many columns have 6-sides (hexigons). We took many more pictures but these will suffice to tell the story. Notice the cool arrowhead like formation where the columns are lateral on the left and vertical on the right. That's cool to see. Then we took a close up of the column debris at the foot of the formation. Tracy loves this stuff because she took geology in school and can recognize volcanic things like this. The other pictures don't really give you scale of the formation so I took a panoramic picture that lets you see the whole thing. We'll talk about the top of the formation in just a second but first let's talk people. On our way up to the top of the formation (they let you walk on it) Ryan posed for me through this decaying tree. What a cute kid. Tracy and Ryan showed their cuteness in this pose. If you look closely you can see the formation in the background. The walk up to the top is short but very interesting. You walk through an area that has a lot of fire damage and it's a bit like a forest graveyard of sorts. Ryan just loved all of the dirt and dirty things; the more the better. When we got to the top of the formation I'm not sure what I expected to say but I did not expect to see a tile looking floor. The picture I selected doesn't show that feature off very well. Looking down, the ground looks like a bunch of hexagonal tiles. They were smoothed by ancient glaciers and as as you can tell from the included picture it is curved. The curve is not all that noticeable from on top but the camera sure picks it up. All in all we enjoyed this part of the national monument. We were not sure what else there was to do but we did know we needed lunch.
	I had to fight every temptation to keep the table out of this picture. The scenary around this lake near the Postpile was enticing. However, I realized I wanted to capture what our view was as we munched on lunch. There were ducks, fly-fisherman, etc. Ahhhh. Relaxing!
	I guess I had really no idea that this national monument had a big waterfall attraction. It does and it's called Rainbow Falls. It is about a 1 mile hike from the trailhead to the the falls. Just a few steps in, Ryan conked out. He did that a lot in his child carrier. Like the postpile trail, this one was marred by fire. This fire in the 1990s was apparently a very big deal for the area. Huh? The waterfall only looks about 3 feet high in this picture with Tracy. However it is really about 100 feet hight; darn optical illusions. This was a fun place to shoot. On this one photo of the trees and roots winding through the rocks you can see me camouflaged. Tracy likes to shoot me taking photos. (grin) We hung out at the falls for about an hour as Ryan continued to sleep and I found new angles to take photographs from. We liked this waterfall. It was definitely the most impressive one we saw on the trip. Actually it was just about the only one that had water so I guess that is not hard to award a winner (smile). We closed out the day by going back toward the postpile and try to find the soda springs which was proof of volcanic activity. They were okay, but I liked the bridge we had to cross better.
	When we go back to the hotel, Ryan cooked us up some dinner and made sure we had good plumbing. Every pipe checked out and no leaks.

Summer Vacation: Day 1

Over 2000 miles in a car with a toddler. What were we thinking? Ryan was probably wondering that same thing by the time we made it to Delta. It was one of the many planned stops along the way to our first destination in California. We picked Delta because we knew they would have a park that Ryan could run around in. He is just at that stage where he can walk around fairly freely and we knew that sitting in a car for a day would be challenging. Surprisingly he handled it quite well. He loved it so much that when we got to the park he wanted to look at the plexiglass on the playground equipment to simulate looking out the car window. Crazy kid...

Next we stopped in Ely, Nevada. I have nothing to say about Ely. We just stopped and got gas. It was cool and windy and we were not feeling the love so onward we went to mysterious Tonopah, Nevada. I was not really sure what to expect. A co-worker of mine, Nick, mentioned that his dad almost detests Tonopah when he has had to visit there for his job. One thing is for certain and that is there really is not much going around in the region. It's really isolated. The drive across Nevada to get to Tonopah was more scenic than we thought. Tonopah is apparently one of the best places to gaze at stars. I wish we could have seen that. I miss seeing all of the stars in the sky that I used to see when we sleep outside at night for sleepovers with friends. We saw a few interesting things in town. The high school mascot is the "Mucker." Click on the photo to find more of what that means. There is a classic McDonald's there. It looks like it was stuck in the 60's or 70's. Those both interesting and disturbing at the same time. There is a cool cemetery in the heart of town. Tracy snapped this photo. You can tell life is harder here. We snapped this picture of the liquor store next to the gambling establishment. All we need now is a payday loan place . This is the strangest gas fill-up I ever had. Usually prices are pretty close with gas stations but here one gas station was like $4.29/gallon and the other was $3.70. That was a head scratcher. We went with the cheaper gas and made it to our next location so WHEW. There is not much vegetation in Tonopah. I guess only getting 6 inches a year of rain helps promote desolation. The scenery was interesting. Even this little neighborhood park that we found was interesting and Ryan enjoyed it. As we left the sun was setting and we snapped a picture of the beautiful sunset while driving down the road on our way to Mammoth Lakes. Since the sun went down, Ryan got a chance to play with Daddy's sunglasses. Anything to entertain....anything to entertain...

Our First Family Vacation

	We embarked on our first family vacation since having Ryan. Because he is standing and crawling now, we're not sure how he would deal with the multiple hour drive to Zion National Park. It turns out that with frequent stops, he maintained the cheery demeanor depicted by this picture for most of the trip. Hurray!
	We arrived at the Majestic View Lodge just before sunset. You can tell that this is one place that definitely lives up to it's name. Ryan was a little stir crazy and wanted to get out and explore his surroundings. They had a fabulous landscape and Tracy offered to help Ryan explore the rocks and man-made stream.
	It was good for the soul to see the blue sky against the red rock as captured in this panoramic picture.
	On day 2, we hit the trail. This is along the Emerald Pool Trail. All 10 of us were out on the trail enjoying the relatively good weather. It was warm but overcast which helped. You can tell the flowers were out as were the cameras too!
	It was a beautiful time of the year to visit Zion because so much was in blossom. This is a picture of some prickly pear cactus along the trail.
	Ryan finally fell asleep! He is such a curious boy that he had to experience all the new stuff. Everything from the sand eroding away from the sandstone to the colors and views of this delightful canyon. On the way down from the Emerald Pools he finally crashed for some much needed rest.
	We were confronted by some wildlife. Steve takes on this stuffed deer in a battle to death. Wait, maybe that battle has already been won. Oh well, it's a combat picture.
	Tracy and Ryan were chased by a dead bear. Notice the signs of distress and terror on their faces.
	On the last day we visited the old ghost town of Grafton. It was somewhat disappointing because many of the buildings were closed down for public access where they used to be open for wandering. The cemetary is one of the most interesting I have seen in a while.
	We went to Zion National Park last week. Ryan was inducted into the honorary club known as the Stretchy Lizard Club. Yes, Grandma and Grandpa inducted him into this club by purchasing this very green, but very flexible (and apparently tasty) lizard in one of the many Zion gift shops there in Spingdale, UT.