Naturalist Basin

We may not make it to Glacier this year, but we've sure made the most of the mountains near our house! Last weekend we backpacked out to a nice area called naturalist basin. The tough, manly Hawkins men have their annual fishing trip and I talked them into going to a place that the author of my "Utah Hiking" book gave 5 stars! I had to see what this was all about. I totally recommend this hike. It's only 5.1 miles into the basin, but it's relatively flat through a pine forest.

Unfortunately, the men hiked in Thursday, and I had to work Friday. I still wanted to meet up with them because I hate being left out. I'm not a big advocate of solo hiking, it's far too boring, but then I thought of listening to an audio book while I hiked. It's amazing how fast the time went! It's also amazing how many other soloists I passed... that weren't listening to audio books.

The basin was beautiful and do to the abnormal snow last weekend, there were hardly any mosquitoes!!! It was perfect! The boys fished for a while on Saturday morning while I poked around the basin a little more and took heaps of pictures. Lloyd, Bryan, and Bryson all took off around noon, but we bushwhacked a little more and found some random lake that had a ton of fish in it! I used to love desert backpacking more than mountain, but now they're about even. There's nothing like blue sky, green trees, and turquoise lakes that makes you feel like you can stay there forever!

I PASSED!!!

For all of you who have been with me every step of the way, and those who I never talked about it with because it was too embarrassing saying how many times I failed, I finally the passed final section of the National Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE). It's taken 2 years and about $2000 in exam and review fees to get to this point. Now I just have to wait a little longer and pay a little MORE money while I submit stuff to the state, like a college transcript and a seal I can stamp construction documents with. I don't know what documents I'll stamp. I've never done anything big enough to require a legal stamp. Any ideas? For now, I'll continue to figure out sprinkler systems and top soil quantities.

Cousins and Fishing

We were so excited to have my cousin Charles, his wife, Julie, and their boy, Sammy with us this last weekend. It seems like the cabin is the place to be these days, at least while the weather is nice. We had a barbecue, ate some ice cream & cupcakes, and played endless rounds of Ticket to Ride -Europe (the better one)! We were sad when we couldn't go outside to have the traditional hike and roasted marshmallows in the fire pit. The weather started to turn nasty!

The next morning it cleared up enough for a short hike, but then the temperature dropped and it started hailing! I guess that we fared better than others. For lunch we went to the Rhode Island Diner in Oakley. It's famous for it's "50's diner" atmosphere and pretty decent food. The best part was being crammed in there with a bunch of refugees from the High Unitas. We heard stories of cars with several inches of SNOW on them at Trial Lake! And backpackers hiking through the snow in shorts! Some freak August weather.

After we said goodbye to Charles, Julie, and my parents, we decided to go fishing and catch some dinner. Mill Hollow Reservoir was just barely repaired, filled, and stocked with thousands of trout! By this time the sun came out and and it had warmed up nicely. I brought a comfy chair and a road atlas to study . I'm planning our next adventure to Glacier. Bevan had tremendous success and caught his limit within the hour!

Afterwards, we wandered up to the Mill Hollow camp, where I went 3 times while in Elementary school. Growing up in the city, it was the closest thing I had to "the great outdoors". It's still run by Granite School District and they're actually celebrating it's 45th year! An old maintenance guy showed us around and told us endless stories. Of course, it looked smaller than I remember, but it still had those same smells! I loved that place. It was a great way to end a Saturday!

Julie, Charles, and little Sammy

Looks who's happy!

Dreaming of Glacier

Mill Hollow Reservior


The endless trail...

Why I Love Small Towns...

Reason # 13: Rodeo Zambonies!

Bevan won free tickets to the Summit County Fair Rodeo in Coalville! You'd think we won the lottery, I was so excited! That's how desperate we are for entertainment on a Saturday night. We decided to go 2 hours early to scope out the action!

My anticipations got mixed results. For a "county fair" it was no bigger than West Fest... actually West Fest had more rides! This had just a bunch of blow-up slides and jumping things. They had the North Summit High School organizations doing the food stands and the cheerleaders were in charge of the funnel cakes. Needless to say, they were tiny and overpriced. We looked at all 8 booths, watched the band for a little bit, saw what was left of the animal judging... and we still had an hour left until the rodeo!

It was well worth the wait! I actually rate this rodeo better than the one in Oakley. The clown was funny, the contestants stayed on their animals, and there were plenty of rodeo royalty with their pink Wrangler jeans and poofy hair. One thing I'm glad we anticipated was what the weather was going to do. The day was pretty nice, but we knew it would get cold. Our friends in back of us chuckled when we pulled out our down coats. By the end, they wanted our coats! It dipped well into the 40's and continued to fall as we drove home. Who ever heard of near-freezing temps at the beginning of August?! Only in Summit County!

Ackerson Reunion '09

Only in Utah can you attend 3 family reunions within 3 weeks. There's definitely a "season" for it. I figured I'd better do my part and blog about our own 2nd annual Ackerson family reunion... before Nora beats me to it. It was held in Woodland/ Park City/ Kamas at it was heaps of fun! Friday night, the whole gang brought their tents and we all camped out behind the cabin. I realized that maybe Bevan and I shouldn't have waited to be the last ones to pitch our tent. We got snickers and comments from just about everyone. There's no shame in owning a tent that's smaller than the size of our bedroom. Good thing we didn't pull out our "small" tent.

Saturday morning, we drove into Park City to ride the alpine slide. It sure is different riding ski lifts during the summer. They go so slow, but the weather is so nice, you don't worry about it! Afterwards, we went to reminisce at our old Sweetwater Condos. The pool was smaller than I remembered. Probably because I haven't seen it since I was 8.

After lunch in the park, we headed back to Kamas for swimming. When you're there with family and having a good time, you don't realize that 2 1/2 hours have passed. There were plenty of pruney fingers to prove it. It was wonderful to see everyone, but we missed Sharon and Paul. Hopefully next year!