Backyard Honeycomb

For many years Paul has wanted to hike the 10 mile hike from Crystal Lake to Middle Fork. We thought now would be a good time to do it, because it just cooled off and in the next few weeks winter will be here. We made arrangements for Paul’s parents to watch Eli for the day and meet us at the bottom of Middle Fork that evening to pick us up.

First stop. Donuts. There is a gas station in Kamas that bakes their own donuts. These come out hot and fresh. The best donuts I have had in a while. HUGE as well. The cream cheese pastry was good, but the cinnamon roll with cream cheese icing was my favorite. Yes, I ate them both. I have to have energy to hike 10 miles, right? 🙂

32′ this morning. Not too cold. Perfect temperature for a full day of hiking. I hiked with a long sleeve waffle shirt, flannel, and light jacket. I had a half face neck thing and thin winter knit gloves I used for a little while in the morning, but other that that I stayed warm. I was quite happy. I wore more than I needed, because I would rather be too hot and remove layers, than to be cold all day.

Started out at Crystal Lake. We followed the trail to long lake loop. Which I have to mention is NOT a loop. I have that documented last year when we carried our 50lb 5 year old back out 2 miles.

Starting out. For the first mile, we passed a couple overnight tents, two fisherman, and 2 hunters coming down with their horse. After that, we were alone for the rest of the hike.

We followed the trail almost to Long lake and then turned to the right and followed a trail, but it wasn’t as well marked as the main trail.

Looking out at Long lake.

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We stopped for a quick break at a pond with no name 🙂

We tried liquid I.V. I’m planning on using this for my next marathon so I thought now was a great time to try it out. This mix is supposed to hydrate 3x the hydration as water. I think it worked, but the flavor wasn’t my favorite. I had to force myself to drink it. When I want water, I just want the taste of water. I want to try this again, but I will put it in lemon lime gatorade to see if that will hide the taste.

Further along the trail was marked with cairns. We had to look for these to stay on the trail.

Found a great river down there.

Lots of river beds and streams.

Came to a rocky terrain.

Mud bogs. Perfect location for deer hunting. Paul was scouting our several locations for next year’s hunt. We were so far in, good luck getting the deer back out 🙂

We stopped for lunch. Paul pumped water.

Paul set up the solo stove and started boiling the water.

Paul wasn’t too happy with me wanting to bring the stove and pasta. With hiking 10 miles and being a little chilly, I really wanted something warm and filling, not just a cold sandwich and snacks. We tried pasta primavera. It smelled wonderful as it was hydrating.

We may have added too much water and it was pasta primavera soup 🙂 It was still good. We were both so hungry, we ate this and our sandwiches.

A little rest.

After lunch, the trail we were following became faint to not a trail at all. Every once in a while we would find the trail and other times, it looked like this. Can you spot the trail? Neither could we. See the green marker? that was an indicator that was part of the trail so we went in that direction.

Further down we stopped seeing cairns and the green makers, but started to see blue flags. So we started following those 🙂

Soon we lost the trail and all markers. We started bushwhacking through the forest. We climbed over logs and boulders. We did this for two miles.

About an hour of hard hiking, we heard rushing water and we came upon this!

Beautiful cliffs and a hidden river.

I wanted to track the miles and see how many miles we hiked, but my watch gave out. So I know we hiked 6.46 miles. I think for prime day there will be a new watch in my amazon cart 🙂

This river was the highlight of the hike. So spectacular we forgot about all the scrapes on our legs…ok my legs. I was pushing myself through the thick foliage and I had several sticker bushes come through my pants, sticks scaping my legs, it was pretty hard hiking. I really wanted to find the trail!

We were lost!

As we were walking, we were discussing if we should be noisy to notify a bear or be quiet to see a deer or a moose? We were noisy and the only animals we saw were pine hens.

Even though we didn’t see wildlife, we saw evidence of wildlife. We saw this raking tree. Elk and deer rub their antlers on trees to scrape the velvet off their antlers.

And what animal ate this? A moose! That was fun to see.

As we were meandering around the forest, every once in a while we would come across trees with two markings. Another trail marking. We followed these when we saw them.

FINALLY, we came out to the meadow! We were so excited to see this place. We only had another mile to the bottom.

And we had a trail! A glorious trail!

Does this look familiar? This is where we set up camp a few months ago when we went back packing.

Paul took 10 miles of video and pictures. I didn’t know how to include them, but to put them in one video.

The last 5 seconds is my favorite! 🙂

This was one of the best hikes we have been on. Will I hike it again? Absolutely.

At the last moment we decided to go camping. Where did we go? I don’t know. All that I know is it was a beautiful drive.

We were late with the leaves by a week.

But it was still a nice drive up.

We ran into these ladies. They are on their way down for the winter.

This is camp for the weekend. Coming up the canyon wasn’t my favorite. It was steep and narrow and I will never pull the trailer up it again. I found out that I’m familiar with this canyon and have been up here many times, but the other side of it. We will be going home that way.

The following morning we went out for a hike.

We picked a mountain and went up it. To the top!

Eli loved it. He is pointing to the next mountain top he wants to hike to tomorrow.

We found many acorns with “hats” during our weekend.

We spent the afternoons reading books.

The evenings we played games.

As we were packing up I heard, and then felt 🙂 a large crash. The trailer fell! One leg fell, then the other leg! The motor gave out and we didn’t have anyway to get the trailer onto the truck.

We got in the truck to head home to get jacks. That would mean we would be driving all day. We would have to leave the trailer and come back the next morning. Paul had an idea to contact his father through the ham radio to save some time.

I’m so glad there are nice people out there willing to help. Paul’s parents arrived at dusk. Paul and his dad had just a few hours to jack up the trailer and hook it to the truck before they lost daylight.

Eli didn’t waste any time with playing in the dirt. 🙂

I didn’t take pictures of the trailer balancing on blocks of wood on top of jacks, but Paul and his father got it up.

We jumped in the truck and started heading out in the dark. We were heading down and deer hunters were coming up. A long line of trailers!

The canyon road was so narrow, we are still unsure how we passed without being hit or the other trailers going off the road! We are blessed to get home safely.

Happy birthday little Pea! Again!

The official party. Eli helped with the decorations. And yes, that is a Christmas wreath on the back door. It missed the Christmas tote in January when we put everything away. Yes, I didn’t have any motivation to put it downstairs the ENTIRE year. We only have 2 more months and it will fit in with the other Christmas decorations. 🙂

We didn’t go crazy on the balloons this year. Only one arch instead of two.

Where do you put those crazy pea in the pod balloons?

Eli did a fantastic job on decorating.

Every hour he kept asking when his party will be starting. So instead of asking every 10 minutes, he said he was going to wait in the entry way for his guests to arrive.

Crazy.

We ate dinner.

What was on the menu? Eli’s favorite dinner: Butternut squash soup. Pear, feta, and pecan salad with a tasty pear sauce. Homemade crusty bread with honey from our bees!

Eli is into kittens and really wants one of his own. This will be the only cat that comes into this house. Sorry, little Pea. He picked out his piñata and it was a kitty!

Cleaning up the piñata.

Time for presents. He loved everything!

I don’t have anything to say about this… 🙂

Paul and I have been waiting for weeks to give him his remote control cars. He got two for his birthday, because we get to play with him! I don’t know who was more excited to the cars. Paul or Eli. Paul was REALLY excited to play with the one that twists and bends.

He also got this for his birthday. He loves to climb. This was a perfect gift!!

Ferelyn and her family zoomed for the birthday song. Look at their cake they cut. Too cute!

Eli was really excited to have them be a part of his party.

He said Gage cracks him up.

Happy birthday!

After cake, everyone played with the remote control cars. Aaron and Bryan had a lot of fun. 🙂

Eli had a wonderful birthday and birthday month!

In this house we have birthday months. We celebrate ALL month long. This is just a few days of his birthday month.

We started out everyday playing video games.

One day after school, we stopped off at Handels for some ice cream.

Eli’s favorite. Strawberry ice cream. This was a special day so he chose a cone with chocolate and of course sprinkles.

Paul and I split a hot apple dumpling with ice cream and whipped cream.

On his official birthday we picked up a birthday cookie. This is the first cookie I have done and didn’t know what to expect. When I called a few days ago to order it, I told them it’s for a 6 year old boy and to do what they want on it.

They did a FABULOUS job! I couldn’t have designed one better. When Eli saw it, I got a, “you’re the best mom ever!” That’s a win for me!

That afternoon we went to Airborne. An indoor jumping place.

Trampolines everywhere. Just what a 6 year old would love. Okay, we loved it too!

Lots of stuff to do here. Obstacles in the sky!

The other side of the building had these blocks to jump into. It was scary at first to run and have the faith that these foam blocks would catch your fall and not get hurt.

Eli had to go on the swing. He did a fabulous swing and dismount!

Look at that face. He was having so much fun.

This made me laugh. Paul lined up with all the other kids 🙂

Since Eli and Paul went, I had to jump as well. It was scary! It took a while for me to jump. It was only 5 feet off the ground, but it was SO scary!

After jumping we were ready for dinner. Eli chose to go to Chubby’s. A regular fast food place with mac and cheese. Not kraft! Good mac and cheese. Eli’s favorite. We had to get peach crisp with ice cream for dessert!

Eli had a great birthday “day”, but is really excited for this weekend for birthday party with family.

Hiking to the springs is a fun hike and we look forward to it every year. The canyon is so low in elevation it cooks during the summer, so wait for fall to take advantage of the cooler weather. Having the fall leaves is a bonus.

Due to the craziness in the world, I had to work quite a bit the last few months, so this year we are later than usual and missed a lot of the colorful leaves. No customers = no money to pay for employees = me working 🙂

Followed these ladies up the road 🙂

When we arrived at the trail head, we were greeted with this. Closed. Very disappointed. With such a stressful month we were really looking forward to fun day.

We decided to find a place to hike because we drove a couple hours to get here. We turned around and went to the camping area and decided to walk along the river.

This is the closest we were able to get to a spring. You can see, and smell!, the cloudy sulfur running through in the river.

Eli wasn’t too disappointed. He enjoyed playing with sticks, rocks, and throwing all of them into the river.

Okay, Paul and Eli had fun throwing rocks, sticks and anything else they could find into the river. 🙂

End of fall.

Asking a 5 year old to sit and smile nicely. I was trying to tickle him to get a natural smile out of him and this is what we got.

Even though we couldn’t get higher to the springs, it was a nice being in the mountains.

A little further up we found a patch of red leaves.

On the way home we stopped at the red rocks.

Eli found sand to play in. He still loves a good sand box.

Even though we couldn’t hike to the springs, we were together as a family. And that’s all that matters.

I got up today and told myself I was going to stop being a slacker and get into work today. Paul told me there have been reports of semi trucks being blown over on the freeway due to high winds up north and to drive safe. I looked out the window and it was calm. Not sure what he was talking about so off I went.

On the freeway, all was well until I was downtown and the winds started picking up. Maybe the news wasn’t exaggerating. I thought about turning around, but I was going to be good and go to work today! After wood chunks flew across the freeway in front of me, I called Paul and said I was a pansy and decided risking car damage wasn’t worth it. What is another day of not going into work 🙂

I exited the freeway and got off downtown. Every street I turned down looked like this.

Trees were down everywhere.

There is a car under this tree. You can see the tail light 🙂

An hour later I mad it home. As I pulled into my driveway, my employee called and said the power just went out. No worries, I said, and gave her instructions on how to handle a power outage. 10 minutes later she called and told me the high winds pushed a barrel across the parking lot and into our glass door.

Great. I turned around, drove to my parents to pick them up so we could repair the door. I can’t leave the store unsecure.

Out of the 10 years of owning stores, this is the second door repair we had to do.

The first door repair was a breakin at 2:00am. That was a fun repair. Do you know how many lumber stores are open at that hour? None. Reminiscing that night, good times.

Here is the barrel that caused the problem.

Cutting our new door. Yes, that is a power saw. Paul had an excellent idea to bring the generator. 🙂

See. We have done this before.

After the door was secured, we took temps of the fridge and freezer. They were still holding strong and haven’t changed temps for the last 3 hours so we took off and headed home.

Just before we left, we heard a large crash and the KFC sign next door was coming apart in the high winds. I prayed for the sign to fly past our store and not hit the windows in the front of our store. I don’t want to repair, or pay for, another window today. We were extremely lucky. I watched the sign fly across the street and it the McDonalds pole.

Later that night the power was still out. Not knowing when the power would turn on we couldn’t risk losing the freezer or the fridge. $2000 in food was at risk. We drove back up to unload.

Eli helped!

Loading up!

A truck and car full!

The Subway down the street was absolutely wonderful! They made room in their fridge and freezer for us. They totally saved us! I offered them a free footlong like I always offer for payment, but they said they had that covered . Ha!

It’s true. I pay my window washer in sandwiches. 🙂

The next morning our power was on. We rushed up to transfer our food back to our store. We were running pretty fast because we had several trips of loading up and dropping off food ahead of us. I was also racing against time. I had a lunch rush to prepare for and fulfill a giant catering order that I look about an hour ago. I need to make up for lost sales from yesterday!

I don’t know how much a case of bread weighs, but they are not light. Especially after throwing 15 cases I was getting tired. I was throwing them as fast as I could and I hit my head on the lock of the freezer. Brought tears to my eyes. No time to look at the wound. Had to keep going! 🙂

I couldn’t have done today without my parents! I had them prepping and baking, running to the bank, and doing a will call. As soon as my mother had bread in the proofer, I was putting premature bread in the oven. We had a line out the door for 3 hours. I couldn’t keep up with the bread. With other businesses around us being out of power we had a fantastic day! We double our sales, which made up for yesterday. So blessed.

My mother had to leave early so my dad stayed and helped me finish out the lunch rush and into the evening. Without a car we had to take the train home. It was kind of fun. This was the first time I have been on the front runner.

On the train home. I can’t thank my parents enough for all they do for me!

Drove to Brighton ski resort and hiked to lake Mary.

Checked out the ski lift.

So much higher during the winter

Stick your tongue back in.

At the trail head. We took the radios to keep little pea occupied. It’s only 2.6 miles, but the radios keep him occupied.

This was a very easy hike.

Doesn’t look as familiar as it does when everything is so white 🙂

Fun little bridge.

Lots of lakes up here. .5 miles more to go.

Moose!

Almost there.

Lake Mary. A small lake.

We climbed down the rocks to the lake for lunch.

This little guy was looking for lunch as well.

After lunch we decided to find a geocache. .2 miles away. I know that distance is how the crow flies, but it is a small lake. How far could it be?

Leading the way 🙂

Around the lake we saw yellow leaves. Fall is on its way.

The map said we are getting close. We started looking everywhere for it.

Beautiful valley.

We spotted a rock that looked like a great hiding place.

And we found the geocache. We looked inside, wrote in the log book and placed it back under the rock.

On the way back down. Looking at the moose that was still there enjoying his willow.

Almost down. We were high fiving our shadows.

A fun short hike!

This list is getting smaller and smaller as the weeks go by. So that means our life is pretty much back to normal. Paul is still working from home.

We are still going to church in the building once a month for 45 min. Everyone is required to wear masks while in the building. A true 5 year old. At least he has it on 🙂

Stores are still restricting the number of people inside. See the line to REI. Yeah, we drove by and came back another day. I’m not going to stand in a line to shop at a store.

Restricting the number of people has had it’s advantages. The water park only accepts reservations. When the reservations are full, the park entrance is closed. This made standing in line for slides very enjoyable. With less people in the park, the lines were pretty short. We were able to get in a lot of slides!

The heat has been crazy! Look at that temp 103′! Eli has been asking to go back to the water slides, so instead of going to our usual water slide park, we decided to try something new and we went to Cowabunga Bay.

Surprisingly this was a fun little place. So much fun we ended up purchasing season passes.

The entire park was perfect for Eli. Lots of colors and water everywhere. Going up the stairs, there are buckets that fill up with water. You wait for someone to pass under and dump on them. Too much fun! The slides were perfect as well. They were just the right speed, without a pool at the end. He was able to go down EVERY slide by himself.

The big splash!

We set out for the first time as a family for an overnight camping trip.

Even Eli carried his own little pack. He carried his sleeping bag and a mini lantern. We carried the rest. He did VERY well! Very pleased with him. No complaining. He kept hiking up the trail to the meadow.

We have hiked to this meadow hundreds of times and know the area quite well. We knew this would be the perfect spot for our first overnighter.

We wanted Eli to look back at his first backpacking trip and remember all the fun he had, so he would want to do this again. He is very motivated by food so we packed lots of snacks and treats to eat along the way.

We took our time and looked at EVERY bug and ant. Eli found a lot! So we stopped. A lot. 🙂

Paul had a wonderful idea to bring the radios. I’m sure glad he did. We had a fun time with them. We each had a hand held radio and we talked on them ALL the way up 🙂

Almost there!

We finally made it to our camping spot. Not quite a mile. Eli did wonderful!

We had to hurry and set up camp. We were worried about the dark clouds that were rolling in.

After the tent was set up, we played lots of games in the tent.

See how tiny our gear is? All that folds out for our sleeping bag, a sleeping mat and a sheet to go over the sleeping mat.

We hiked to the river to pump some water.

Set up the solo stove to start dinner.

Paul lighting the stove.

I wasn’t so sure of this, but it was the only vegetarian pouch Paul could find. Dehydrated lasagna? How good can that be?

This was easy to prepare. Boil water, pour the water into the bag and seal for 20 min. The bag was really hot to the touch. I had a hard time sealing it up because the seal was so hot. We set it on a rock and let it do it’s thing.

After 20 minutes I was sure it was going to be lukewarm. Touching the package even after 20 minutes, was surprisingly hot. When I unsealed the package steam came out.

The lasagna was REALLY good. I would purchase again and keep some around the house for emergencies.

Eli got a kick out of eating in the dirt and on rocks.

After dinner we looked for wildlife. We did spot a deer that came through close to camp.

We played a few games of hide and seek with the radios.

Time for Eli to hide!

Time for bed. I unpacked my bear spray 🙂

Lights out. Literally. The tent had lights. How fun is that!

The following morning, we had an easy breakfast of muffins.

Went for a very short hike around the corner. We have been coming up to the meadow for years, but have never hiked past. So, today was a great opportunity to see what was up there. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far. We needed to head back to camp, pack up, and head out.

Hiking back down.

We will never go on another hike again without the radios. 🙂

It was a fun and successful trip! We are excited for more overnight trips next year.

When we drove into the valley, I had to take a picture of the temperature. 105′! I’m heading back up the mountain where it’s cooler 🙂