Cove Fort
The next morning (Saturday) we took off for Las Vegas. We left Gypsy with Carolyn's parents. On the way down Carolyn saw a sign for Cove Fort and we pulled off to investigate. It wasn't open yet but an older missionary saw us wandering around and he came over, opened everything up, and showed us around. The fort was built by President Hinckley's grandfather in 1867 on assignment from Brigham Young.
Inside Cove Fort
The fort was a way station for travelers heading to and from southern areas of Utah and Arizona. The fort was never attacked.
Pawn Stars TV show location
While we were heading to Las Vegas, so were Paige, Chris, and the grandkids from South Pasadena. We needed to meet somewhere so we picked the location of the History Channel's TV show about the pawn business. Paige wrote about it in detail on her blog.
Watching the grandkids
We all drove to the Las Vegas temple where Carolyn and I took over Fox and Jane. While Paige and Chris were at the temple, we took the kids to the Clark County Museum. Fox loved it because it had trains, wolves, and a lot more.
Prototypical Fox
This is typical Fox, a toy in each hand.
The reception
We reunited with Paige and Chris at our hotel in Henderson. All of us put on our suits and dresses and drove over to Tate's house. Tate's dad has a restored 50's truck that was decorated in the driveway. Each guest took an Instax photo in front of the truck and the photo was pasted into the sign-in book. Around back was the party. Paige wrote many more details about it here.
The bride
Here's Allison looking beautiful in her wedding dress. We are so happy that she has married a great young man from a nice, strong family.
Their first apartment
On Sunday morning we loaded some more furniture Tate's parents had given them in the truck and caravanned with Tate and Allison in their car all the way back to Provo. In Provo we loaded up the truck with everything we brought from Redmond. It was a quick stop and we were on the road again for Rexburg. Gypsy was with us again. In Rexburg we drove to their new apartment complex where they picked up the key. They were so excited. It was cute. We unloaded their car and our truck and went to a storage unit and collected their remaining things they had stored after the last semester ended. By now it was late and Carolyn and I stayed in a hotel. Gypsy spent the night in the truck.
Still winter
On Monday morning we headed off for the next leg of the trip home, destination Wallace, Idaho. We weren't far out of Rexburg when we hit snow on I-15. There was snow all the way to Missoula. I'm tired of snow. Let's get summer going.
Anaconda stack
Shortly after I-15 hit I-90 we turned off a few miles to the town of Anaconda, MT. Anaconda was a smelting town for nearly a hundred years until the smelter was suddenly closed in 1980, leaving the town with thousands out of work. The Anaconda smelter stack still remains. It was built in 1919 and is 515' tall. Supposedly the whole Washington Monument will easily fit inside the stack.
Frozen Silver Lake
We continued through the town, passing an LDS chapel that looked like it was built about the same time as the Norwood, Cincinnati chapel. We took a scenic backroad for about 50 miles before rejoing I-90 at Drummond, MT. We passed by a couple of lakes that were still frozen over. Hard to believe that the day before we were in the hot climate of Nevada and Arizona.
GPS track up Jewell Gulch
We finally arrived in Wallace on Monday afternoon, after driving 2,500 miles the last few days. After unloading the truck with the few things we brought for the Wallace house, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and go on an ATV ride. We pulled the ATVs out of storage in the garage. We've kept them on trickle chargers all winter and they started right up. We put on some protective gear, gassed up, and drove the ATVs to Osburn to head up the Jewell Gulch trail. We tried this trail last Labor Day, but my machine overheated and we had to turn around.
Start of the trail
The trail starts off climbing the side of working quarry. This trail is popular with dirt bikes and mountain bikes, too.
Puddle
My GoPro mounted on the front rack captured this shot of splashing through a mud puddle.
Steep and sloppy
Moving a fallen tree off the trail
Snow and we're still climbing
A mile up the trail we hit snow but kept going. I was surprised how much traction these machines have, easily climbing steep snow covered trails.
Snow on the branches
Being in front, I hit all the low hanging branches and knocked off the snow onto the ATV and me.
Covered in snow
Carolyn
Following behind me, Carolyn stayed nice and dry. She was afraid of getting cold so she put on everything she had available, something like 5 layers.
Turn around point
We had hoped to loop around and come down Twomile Canyon back to Osburn, but eventually the snow became so deep that it didn't seem prudent to keep going and risk getting stuck. My GoPro's lens is covered with snow.
Pass me if you can
We've turned our machines around on the fairly narrow trail and are about to head back down.
Osburn, ID
We rode the three miles back down the trail to Osburn and then on the road to Wallace.
Work surface
Back at the house we setup a work surface I made and brought with us. Previously, there was a tall particle board cabinet with a microwave on top. Carolyn suggested I build a table with a top that matched the rest of the countertops. When we were here in February I wrote down the measurements and built the table back home. The top is fir floor boards like the rest of the counters and the base is made of cherry, mortised and tenoned together.
Lights
Carolyn also brought some lights to hang on the front porch.
Basement
Carolyn purchased all new bedding and pillows for the beds in the basement room. She also installed more lights to brighten the room up.
Sixth Street
On Monday evening we walked to City Limits restaurant at the mouth of Nine Mile Canyon. It feels like Wallace is just coming out of the grips of winter.
Train station
Back side of the City Limits restaurant
The restaurant is in some old mining building constructed over Nine Mile Creek. The food is delicious.
30th Anniversary
We woke up Tuesday to our 30th anniversary. Carolyn dug this picture out of the archives. It's been a great, glorius, exciting, and fulfilling 30 years and now we're really empty nesters.
Power switch
Last fall I installed a 12v-to-5v DC/DC inverter so I could power my GPS and phone while on a day-long ride. When nothing is connected, the inverter only draws a few milliamps of current so I hardwired it into the machine's power bus, not worrying about the standby current draining the battery. However, this morning I decided to add a power switch after all.
John's KTM
Early in the afternoon Carolyn and I went up to John's house to retrieve his motorcycle and a list of gear to bring back to Washington for the Dirty Face Dual Sport event at Lake Wenatchee in June. When I opened the dark cavern-like basement under his house and turned on the lights, there was a sparkling Kawasaki and KTM sitting there. I felt like Howard Carter peeking through a hole into King Tut's tomb for the first time. When Carter was asked, "Do you see anything?" He responded, "Yes, wonderful things." That's how I felt.
Oops
We left Wallace around 4 pm towing John's trailer behind the truck. We stopped in Coeur d'Alene for Cafe Rio tacos (it was Taco Tuesday, afterall) and headed across eastern Washington. Around Cle Elum we started seeing highway signs announcing that Snoqualmie Pass was closed for blasting. Besides the overhead lit signs, there were trucks parked on the side of the road carrying more lit signs. Then we passed several rows of orange construction signs warning us to slow down and prepare to stop. We eased onto the end of a miles long row of stopped cars and trucks. A few minutes later a car slammed into the back of a brand new boat, still in its shrink wrap, on its trailer. The driver of the car must have been texting or something and veered off at the last instant. A four foot piece of fiberglass from the boat's corner pierced the windshield, just missing the driver. The car side swiped the corner of the boat and surgically peeled off the whole outer skin of the car, exposing all the wiring and gears in the doors and fenders (like the body exhibit). How the driver missed miles of signs and the miles of stopped traffic is hard to comprehend. Glad no one seemed hurt and sad for the family with the damaged boat. Meanwhile, Carolyn, Gypsy and I had a pretty good time walking around on such a beautiful evening in the mountains. We heard the blasting and were stopped for about an hour. Eventually, the highway was opened and we made it home around 9:30 pm.
We drove approximately three thousand miles over the past 5 days. It was great to be able to help Allison and Tate, participate in the reception in Las Vegas, see Chris and Paige and the grandkids, and spend 24 hours in Wallace. It was a really fun road trip.
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