Hiking Club - Season 2

Ian and I reconvened our hiking club, and this year Miles is joining us.  We started with an easy hike inside of Red Butte Garden, it was just over 2 miles with an easy 387 foot ascent.  Here's the route we took:

View on Google Maps

The hills are covered with arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata). It was the perfect time to visit, since they are all in bloom.

We saw a lot of this little beauty, wild phlox (Phlox longifolia). 

Here is Ian at the deer gate.

Backside view

View of the valley.

Farewell to Summer



Sunday we hopped in the van and drove up Millcreek Canyon to see the fall leaves.  Melinda and I had gone up the previous week just by ourselves but we wanted the kids to see the colors.

 

 

It's hard to believe summer is over already.  Two weeks ago it was pleasantly cool in the canyon, but last week it was almost freezing; it was only 1 degree Celsius (33 degrees Fahrenheit).  There was ice forming on rocks in the stream already.

 

 

Ian is in the 11 year old scouts this year.  I've really enjoyed going camping with him this year.  We camped in this same canyon just last month.  Earlier in the summer we camped in Big Cottonwood Canyon and in East Canyon.  We also had fun hiking.  We also did 9 hikes together during our weekly father and son hiking club.



 

Saffy braved the cold and although she had a warm coat she somehow came only in flip-flops.  Saffron started going to Liberty Girls club this year.  She really likes doing crafts and activities with the other girls.

 

Miles and Lisette are both doing chemistry this year with some of their friends with Melinda teaching.  Lisette is really enjoying her AP English class and somewhat tolerating her math class.  She has gotten very good at crocheting and she now has a head of natty dreadlocks. 

 

 



Things have been busy and I haven't done any blog posts for a while.  In September I started a new job.  It's hard to adjust, but I'm really glad to be working as part of a team and to be able to work with a lot of new technologies.  Plus the commute is under 10 minutes, so I've been able to come home for lunch most days, which is nice.

 

Melinda is sporting the latest in headwear fashion (it's actually a pair of Nigel's pants).  Melinda is staying busy homeschooling the kids.  She works really hard at their weekly chemistry class and their history and book club groups.  

 

 

What a handsome group! Just this year both Miles and Lisette have grown taller than their Mom.  Miles seems to have grown an inch just this past month.

Speaking of Miles, he just turned fourteen last month.  We had a fun birthday with him.  He planned what he wanted to do.  We went to Bruges Waffles and Frites and had real Belgian waffles and frites.  He wanted cookies instead of cake, so we made rose water cookies, which were very tasty.

 

He's been really busy working on making his own 3-D printer. There is an open source community that has plans, but you have to get all your own parts.  He's been working hard saving his money for well over a year and now he's buying all the parts and putting it together.  He has the frame already done, and he'll have more done soon as soon as the parts arrive by mail.  Here's a picture of a completed printer.

 

 

OK, that's all for now.  Maybe I won't wait as long for my next post, but I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you. 

Wasatch Wildflower Festival

Warning: this post contains lots of boring flower pictures and their corresponding boring scientific Latin names.  

I took the day off Friday and took Miles and Ian to the Wasatch Wildflower Festival.  We drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon in the morning and parked at the base of Brighton Ski Resort.  The volunteers were all excited when we arrived because we were the first ones of the day.  We had our own private guide take us on a hike and show us all the wildflowers.  It was overcast and we had a few light rain showers, but it was a great respite from the desert valley heat.

In this picture the white flowers are Richardson's geranium (Geranium richardsonii), the black ones are western coneflower (Rudbeckia occidentalis), the red ones are Indian paintbrush (Castilleja spp), the purple ones are monkshood (Aconitum columbianum), the yellow ones are groundsel (Senecio spp) and the big white one is  false hellebore (Veratrum viride).

 This is native Utah bush is twinberry honeysuckle (Lonicera involucrata).

If you look closely at this flower it looks like a bunch of elephant heads on a stick, thus the common name of elephant heads (Pedicularis groenlandica).  It grows in wet marshes and along streams.

We saw lots of these plants last week in Millcreek Canyon, but they weren't in bloom and we couldn't figure out what they were.  Our guide told us these are false hellebore (Veratrum viride).

It was raining earlier in the morning and everything was wet.  All the volunteers had jackets and long pants and we felt a little unprepared in our shorts and t-shirts.  But we only got a few sprinkles and the day turned out really nice.  I liked this arrangement of monkshood or wolf's bane (Acontium columbianum) with paintbrush (Castilleja spp).  There are lots of varieties of paintbrush and they mingle between each other so I'm not sure which ones these are.  Painbrush are interesting because they are semi-parasitic and their colors may change depending upon the host plant.

I was excited to see a white version of Monkshood.  We had never seen one before.

We saw these beautiful pink Lewis monkey flowers (Mimulus lewisii) growing out of a rivulet. 

There is a lot of variety of buckwheat or sulphur flowers (Eriogonum spp.) growing up there.  

Ian and Miles were great hiking buddies.  Miles took most of the photos (at least the ones that turned out).

We enjoyed this patch of fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) growing near the top of the trail.  After the big Yellowstone fires in 1988 fireweed was the first plant to appear and start to stabilize the soil. 

We saw this American pika scurrying back and forth between boulders, he was carrying little branches of leaves and grass onto a pile on a boulder.  

Pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) has nice little white flowers which last for a long time (thus the name).  This is a flower I've enjoyed growing in my own garden.

I was really excited to find this flower, Monardella odoratissima, which is also known as mountain coyote mint, mountain beebalm, and mountain pennyroyal.  When you touch the leaves, your fingers are left with a wonderful mint smell.

Here is a closeup of the blooms.

The sky mostly cleared up when we got up to Lake Mary.  It was so nice to be outdoors and the lake is just stunning.

 We took a break on a boulder and enjoyed the view.  We had trail mix for a snack and soon we were accosted by a scurry of cheeky chubby chipmunks.  They ran all over trying to get our food.  They were hilarious to watch.

 On our way back down we saw some yellow monkey flower (Mimulus guttatus).

This is the approximate site of the fateful ski accident of 2009.  I don't think I've been up here since then.

 There were a few patches of Rocky Mountain penstemons (Penstemon strictus) near the base of the mountain.

We were driving down the mountain when on a whim we decided to take Guardsman Pass over the mountain.  The road was very steep and very rough in places, but we were rewarded by some awesome views of the mountains and valleys below.  We were glad we took it.  It felt like we were on a mini vacation in a remote forest.  

We ended up in Midway and we went and saw the crater.  Miles and Ian's have great-great grandparents who immigrated to Midway from Switerland which makes them 1/8 Swiss.  They have a little grocery store there called "The Store" that has a built in deli and pizza place.  We ordered a delicious pesto mushroom and spinach pie.  It was an excellent finish to a very fun outing.

Hair Jealousy

Lisette and Miles just got back from their Super Summer trip to Flaming Gorge.  Even though it was more peaceful around the house without them, I missed them. Here is Lisette in front of some roses.  Isn't her hair cute?  Melinda, Lisette and Saffron now have pink stripes in their hair.  Our friend with breast cancer had a pink hair party because she didn't want anyone to shave their head for her.

Miles doesn't plan on getting his hair cut until after The Hobbit comes out in December because he wants to be an elf.  Does anyone have a spare set of prosthetic pointy ears?

Here Miles is teaching Nigel how to mop.  Either he's trying to teach him life skills or he's pulling a Tom Sawyer and trying to get him to do his jobs for him.  

Ian is in the eleven year old scouts right now and he and I are going on some camping trips this summer. Ian's excuse for not cutting his hair is that he is a Nazarite -  and we all know what happened to Samson when he cut his hair. (Also, like a good Nazarite, Ian won't touch dead animals either).  

Here is Saffron with the first vegetables from the garden.  She doesn't want to cut her hair either.

Nigel's hair was getting just a little crazy, so yesterday he got it cut.

Can this be the same little boy?

Nigel and I are the only ones committed to having short and naturally colored hair.  

Why haven't I posted the pink stripe hair pictures yet?  It's too late and it's too much work.  Maybe later.  Stay tuned.

Lego Robotics Competition

We spent this weekend in Idaho Falls for Miles' First Lego Robotic League competition. They all did a great job and they took 2nd place (out of 30 teams) on their presentation. They did really well with the robotics challenge as well.

Here are a couple of clips of their robotic challenges:

Here are the champtions!

Disneyland morning – day three

Wendy and Karen had to leave at noon to catch their flight, so we headed over to DCA to catch a few more rides before they left.  We all got in line for Soarin’ Over California, but Saffy wasn’t so sure she wanted to go on it.  She was fine until they pulled her out of line to check her height and then she flipped out.  She was NOT going to let that guy measure her.  So I took her out and we found something a little less intimidating for her to ride on.

Disney stock photo of Soarin’ Over California

We met up again over at the Paradise Pier section to go on the new Toy Story ride, Midway Mania.

Mr. Potato Head was really cool, he asked Saffron who her favorite Toy Story character was.  She told him it was Buzz; he was only slightly indignant that it wasn’t him. 

The ride was great fun! You get 3-D glasses and you ride through a colorful Toy Story setup with big screens where you shoot darts at balloons, ring toss at the little green aliens all in 3-D.  It was really entertaining; we all loved it.

     

Saffy went on King Tritan’s Carousel and then we all went on Heimlich’s Chew Chew train over in Bugs Land.  Of course we couldn’t miss the Mission Tortilla factory tour (they have free samples you know – very tasty.)  Then we took a tour of the sour dough bread bakery, they only gave us a little stingy sample, but I went over to the store at the end and bought a fresh loaf and we all shared it.  It was only 5$ which is a quite a bargain for Disneyland, and it was oh so good.

 

It was as very warm day so Karen and Wendy decided they didn’t mind getting wet, so Miles and I went over to Grizzly River Rapids with them.  We put all of our cell phones and cameras in a zip lock bag and we got strapped in.  It’s like your basic raft ride, just on steroids.  It is themed really well, and it has some really steep drops.  We got completely soaked!  But it felt nice since it was such a warm sunny day.  We said goodbye to Wendy and Karen and then checked out the Blue Sky Cellar which had models and sketches of the upcoming extreme makeover of California Adventure.  The Cars Land addition and the Little Mermaid ride look really amazing.

We headed back to the hotel and I had a nice nap.  Ian and Saffron shared a Disneyland lollipop stick.  We were happy that we still had a day and a half left before we had to go home.