Saturday, May 15, 2010

Wyoming Snows 2010

      We left Casa Grande on Gary’s birthday, April 25th for a week of travel on our way to Wyoming.  We started out at Navajo National Monument and hiked to viewpoints for the Batatakin Indian Ruins.  The ancient cliff dwellings are always impressive.     Next we went to Monument Valley, where we stayed in their primitive campground with views of the mittens, seen in many of the old westerns.  By then I was craving a Navajo Taco, having spent a couple days on their reservation., and we had wonderful ones from their hotel dining room.
     From there we went to Natural Bridges.  We stayed in their overflow area for larger trailers and enjoyed the loop drive to see bridges.  We has a VERY windy down day, just relaxing.  Then we were off to Goblin Valley State Park in Utah.  We spent 3 great days with Pam and Jim, Gary’s sister and brother-in-law.  We drove to Green River, Utah for dinner and caching.  The Crystal Geyser geocache took us to the largest cold water geyser in N. America.  It was created through a drilling accident in the 1930’s.  We weren’t lucky enough to see an eruption, since they vary from 8-22 hours apart,  but it was still impressive.
     We spent our last night in Utah in the AL&L Office driveway., in Orem, UT.  The next day we got the company truck and one 4-wheeler, which I drove on to Evanston, while Gary towed our rig.  We stayed with Riki’s family for the next week.  Although tired, we had to turn around and attend  all day classes on water sampling and civil rights, as well as  pick up 2 more 4-wheelers the next day.  We were ready to relax by the time that was over.  The lot where we usually parked has been sold, so we searched through our in town friends and  were able to park our 5th wheel and open the slides by Smith’s Auto Body.  Martin even offered us electricity, which has been great.  It was nice staying at Riki’s, but it’s always nice to get back into our home.
      We're still in Evanston, WY, waiting for the snow to melt, to get into our campground.  They had over 30 inches in the mountains last weekend and another 6+ inches this week.  We only had a couple inches here in town and it's all melted.  The good part is the waiting gives us time to get my ankle taken care of before we get too busy.
       I finally saw an orthopedist about  my ankle that has been sore and swelling off and on for several months.  As I feared, it’s osteoarthritis, with added stress from a 25 yr. old fracture.  The degeneration is pretty complete between the bones, with little cartilage left.  There was also a large bone spur on the front of the ankle.  I  had arthroscopic surgery on the 14th, to remove the bone spur and clean up any other jagged edges.  This should relieve some of the pain and hopefully buy some time.  Fusion or a total ankle replacement are probably in the future.  Total ankles haven’t been as successful as hips and knees, but are improving all the time.  It certainly wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I’m sure we’ll adapt.  It’s a good thing we hiked the Grand Canyon last fall.
       Cory (Robert's oldest son) graduates this year.  We were able to attend the high school awards assembly.  Cory got awards for architecture, computer programming and will wear a special honor cord for the National Forensic League (Debate), with his cap and gown.  He’s leaving for S. Korea the middle of June, to stay with Anna’s sister.  He’ll  go to school for 6 months there, studying the language and culture. Keegan, Riki's oldest boy, is only a sophomore, but earned top honors for the math department, out of the entire school.  He was also honored by the University of Wyoming, as one of the top 100 sophomores in the state and will attend a three week summer institute program at the University of Wyoming campus, in Laramie
      Last Saturday we went to Salt Lake to see our little Bowdie, born 6/25/09, at 1 pound, 1 ounce, 12 inches.   He’s over 13 pounds now and doing great!  We were finally able to hold him and passed him back and forth to enjoy his smiles.  Their family plans on camping with us this summer, & it will be fun    to have them all there. 
     As I mentioned in the last travelog, our cell service ranges from patchy to nonexistent at our campground, but we do check our phones every day or so, so call and leave a message if you’re in our area.  We’ll be at Stillwater campground on Utah State Hiway 150, between Kamas Utah and Evanston, WY.  We’d love to have you stop by and spend some time with us. 
      Dancing (& dodging snowflakes) toward summer……………………………….
Hugs, Katy, Gary, Rusty and Spicy