Trip to Jackson Hole

The Jones family, Elaine and Lexie recently took a qick trip to Jackson Hole and the Teton National Forest. We stayed in the Teton Village, cruised around Jackson, had dinner and were entertained at the Bar J, canoed on Jenny Lake, saw deer, antelope and moose (but no bears). The highlight of the trip was horseback riding through the Tetons. It was awesome! This was not some "dude" ranch riding on "plugs". The horses we rode were well trained mountain horses and mules. Our guide, Heidi, took us on a 4 hour ride that was similar to riding up North Fork and on the backside of Ben Lomond. The weather was perfect with bule skies and the mountains were green with wild flowers growing everywhere. We sat and had lunch (not exaclty "cowboy" sandwiches) with a perfect view of the valley below. This ride was not for beginners and even though McKenzie, Cole, Brock & Lexie are experienced riders they did great? Did I mention it was AWESOME?!

The gang in Jackson Hole.

Brock & McKenzie

Brock encounters Big Foot.

Elaine on Bunny

Brock riding Steel.

McKenzie on Buster.

Elaine & Lexie

Elaine on Bunny & Anne on Clyde.

Cole on big Waylen.

Raymond riding Winchester.

Moose in Teton National Forest.

Raymond, Brock & McKenzie canoeing on Jenny Lake.

Elaine, Lexie & Anne on Jenny Lake.

Ode to a Beloved Tree

Some two weeks ago we had to say goodbye to our beloved 130 year old tree.  He was a white oak and was being eaten from the inside out by nasty carpenter ants.  Couldn't they just go and destroy somebody else's tree?  Oh dear.  After a huge limb broke and fell into the street, we had to contact a tree "take it down" company; the next day they were here "bingo bango" with chainsaw in hand.  It was interesting to see and made me sad to have our big tree gone.

TREK PIX

Cole and Brock participated in our stake's trek last week up at the chruch owned Deseret Land & Livestock property near Evanston. This is Coles second time and Brocks first. Both said it was hard but that they had a great time. Hopefully, they have a little better appreciation for our pioneer ancestors. It is quite emotional to see them pulling their handcarts and walking in with their "families". It is an extremely small taste of what the pioneers had to endure and makes you realize all they had to sacrifice and go through for what they believed. Thank you Niels Larsen, George Brown and many, many others.

Here are quite a few pix of them before they left and as they arrived to their final destination after trekking for 4 days.

Cole, Merri, Maddi & Brock

Cole is the big guy in the middle of this pix.

Grandma's Marathon

Scenes from the site of the 2010 Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota

Roger & Kirk

Lindsey & Kirk/Poppie




Galloway Family regrouping



Kirk thrilled to be at the finish

Marathon Buddies and Finishers


Leigh & Lindsey


Justin, Ashleigh & Braden at the edge of Lake Superior

Roger's finishing time was:  4:02:25  Roger's goal was around 3:45, so this was wonderful!
Kirk's finishing time was:  4:33:39.  Kirk's goal was 4:30 and he, too, came "right" in at his goal.
They both declare that they are going to go for it again next year and learn from the mistakes of this year's race and apply them to next year's race.  Crazy how one wants to torture oneself all over again, but that's the challenge and so I'll have more to report next year.  Stayed tuned.  Same channel.  Same place!