While in Utah, without Brian, I tried to see my old friends that still live in Utah. One of which is Jill who lives in Price (two hours away) and is a little more difficult to see because of the distance. While talking to her and figuring out how we could get together for dinner, she got a call from her mother-in-law saying that her and her step daughters wanted to come visit. Jill figured that while she would be entertaining people for a few days why not add to the party, and invited me to come play with them also. I gladly took her up on the offer as a couple of days to play with good friends is always better then a couple of hours. I am very happy that I did. We had a great time playing and visiting.
We drove down in the evening and spent the night. The next morning while deciding what we should do, we got word, from Jill's sister-in-law, that the fire department was going to be hosing down the dome, so we decided to go watch and get a little wet in the process. How many places can say that there government offices are located in a dome.
Here is the fire truck.
And here is the dome. I wonder if they found the leek after soaking it with water.
After lunch we decided to hike up to the C cave. It was a pretty steep hike, but the kids did very well on it. We started by going up this steep sandy part.
After hiking up the side of the dirt they got lifted up into the cave, which is just above where Jill is.
Here they are waiting in the cave for me to finally get up. This is about how big the cave is, just a small passage through the mountain.
Then, we climbed up another steep part with lots of rocks to reach the top of the mountain.
And when we got on top this is what there was to see. Just about all of Price was laid out in front of us. And look they are still smiling.
Thankfully, Jill drove up and picked us up. I don't know how the kids could have gotten back down from that hike.
Later that night we went swimming at the local wave pool. The kids got really scared the first time the waves came on. After a while they got used to it and loved running in and out of the water, waves or no waves.
The next morning we went to the dinosaur museum. Here is a picture of all of us (minus Jill) in front of some bones.
Here is Jamie standing on a dinosaurs foot, thankfully it isn't the other way around. We heard about a man being killed after being stepped on by a dinosaur, well running his head into a foot print in the ceiling of a mining cave.
They even had cool rocks that glowed in the dark. Who knew that rocks could glow in the dark.
Here is my little family hanging out with the cave men of old.
And the kids playing in a teepee.
They even had a place for the kids to dig in the sand and find some bones and some other activities in the little play area. I think that kids really enjoyed the museum and learning about dinosaurs.
Here is Jill and family with us. Again in front of some bones.
Sadly, after the museum we had to start the long drive home, to my parents house. We had such a good trip and I enjoyed spending some time with a good friend. It made me realize that dinner with friends is just not enough time to truly catch up with them. Thank you Jill for the great couple of days and for all of the fun.
As I drove home through the canyon I could finally see the beauty of the desert and thought that maybe living in Utah again some day wouldn't be to bad.