Road trip to Mesquite and Coronado

We took off on Sunday mid-morning so we could have a leisurely drive to Mesquite to start our Coronado vacation. TB always drives, and I never do.

It's a pretty drive when you can sleep through the boring parts like I do! TB's grandfather's construction company built much of the Virgin River Gorge, so we always oooh and aahhh appropriately.

It was hot. We left hot weather in SLC and found hot weather on the whole drive to Mesquite.

 

The kids are pretty good on long drives. They can last for a long time before we have to break out a movies on the iPad.

 We checked into the Casablanca and headed for the pool to cool off.

 We had dinner at Peggy Sue's and the boys loved it!

 

We had breakfast at the Casablanca and it was a great deal. The kids were pretty distracted by all the lights and bells from the slot machines. Our car couldn't take the heat the next day, so we were sidelined in Las Vegas for a few hours while it had to get checked out. Luckily, we made it to Pete and Dan's place on Monday afternoon as we planned and we had a great dinner with Pete at Miguel's.

 

Timpanogos Cave

I loaded the kids straight from bed in jammies into the car at 6 am. We stopped to fill up the car with gas and pick up cousin Sierra. We checked in to the Visitor Center, strapped on "monkey backpacks" (those are leashes for kids!) and headed up the hike at 7:15. It's a paved trail that is 1.5 miles one way with 1,100 foot elevation gain and really steep drop offs.

Sierra and I traded kids every few minutes and we marched right up to the cave entrance. It took about an hour and we didn't have to carry the kids at all.

A lot of people were hiking for exercise, but I didn't see any other 3 or 4 year olds on the trail. We got a lot of comments about their good hiking skills and their backpacks.

The cave was CHILLY. It's 45 degrees all year and I didn't have a jacket so I was a little cold. It was 100 degrees outside, so we were glad that we started hiking early. Isaac was the "door opener and light switcher" on the tour of the cave.

We had a picnic and ice cream cones at the snack bar. Ikey was really tired. He said he took a nap on this bench. He didn't stop talking the whole time we were there, so I'm not sure he actually fell asleep.

Alpine Loop, Cascade Springs, Sundance

I've felt sick every time I've been a passenger on the Alpine Loop trail, so I did a little experiment today to see if I like it better when I'm the pilot. After ballet class, we headed south to Utah County and up American Fork Canyon.

We stopped here to see if we could miraculously get tickets for a cave tour right away. They said we could hike together, but one of us would have to do an earlier tour. I volunteered to send the kids in with the tour guide and no mom, but they didn't take me up on that, so we couldn't get in to the cave today. One of us promptly threw a crying fit on the floor of the visitor center and  one of us did not yell at the other one. We signed up for tickets for a very early hike on an upcoming very hot day, so check back for details on that.

 
 Next stop was Cascade Springs, which is a series of loopy trails and boardwalks around a pretty little spring. 

Jovie said "I want to watch the brown trout all day."

 

 

Video of Jovie and audio of Ikey. It seems like there is cursing, but there's a good explanation for that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNxOB20ZCY&feature=youtu.be

 

A guy at this stop was excited to show us a snake slithering through the grass. He chose the wrong family to share with because we do not want to see snakes. Jovie drenched herself with a water spigot just before this spot, but since it was hot, she dried out quickly.

The Alpine Loop is pretty! Come back in fall for the changing colors.

 

 We stopped for a late lunch at The Foundry Grill at Sundance. It was good and we used our best late-afternoon-on-the-first-day-of-summer-outdoor-restaurant manners.

 

It was a nice way to spend a day that was too hot at our house.

Dinosaur Train at Heber Valley Railroad

AJ, Jovie, Tommy and Isaac at the station.

 

There were some wacky dinosaur characters at the station and on the train. When the kids saw the orange one, they yelled, "Alien" and ran away. The Preeces were planning to travel with us, but they only made it as far as the station before Miles was too sick and tired to get on the train. Don't these kids know it's summer and illnesses are not on the schedule?

The conductor hardly has time for photos.

 

The crowd was very into making weird faces.

Me: Do you want to get some dinner after this?

Jovie: Yes, let's go to a very trainy restaurant that Isaac will like. How trainy is Dairy Keen?

 

We haven't been to Dairy Keen before, but Grandma Rainey told us about it when we were driving through Heber last week on our way to Wallsburg. Jovie remembered that I guess, so we went to Dairy Keen and it is very trainy and Isaac liked it.

 

Sight seeing

Todd has spent a lot of time sight seeing lately.



The view from TB's hotel room.



Patriotic!

Sickos

I was diagnosed with an ear infection on the 14th. Isaac was diagnosed with an ear infection on the 17th. Jovie was diagnosed on the 24th. You don't usually think there will be an outbreak of ear infections. I guess we've been listening to each other too much. TB is avoiding us this month or he'd have one too probably. Thank goodness for antibiotics. You drug companies get some things right. =)

Ikey borrowed my camera and this was the best photo from his adventures around the house. He's really put on a few pounds since he got sick.

Antique Power Show in Wallsburg and Bridal Veil Falls

We've never been to Wallsburg. It's near Deer Creek Reservoir and Heber. It's a beautiful farming town. Grandma Rainey and Ross directed us to Richard Erickson's Antique Power Show this weekend and it was fantastic. It only happens once a year, so set your alarm clocks for the first weekend of summer and don't miss it next year.

A tractor towing a "people mover" will take you from the parking lot in a hay field to the pioneer village.

There are cool old and weird things in every building. There was a carbon fiber fishing pole that had been hit by lightning and a potato picker belt (looks lethal), old stop lights and toys, corsets and washing machines.

Ikey tap dances in most photos now.

These old cabins were moved from Salt Lake City and house collections of printing presses, shoe shop, an old soda shop.
 

 

 

The ice cream was made with a "Poppin' Johnny" John Deere engine

  churning the freezers.

I can't even guess how many tractors were at the museum. A million maybe.

Ikey climbed around on the caboose and the kids tried a merry-go-round for the first time. Ikey didn't like it. Jovie wanted to go faster.

Some of these motorcycles were as early as 1907. Steve McQueen's personal HD was in the collection.

We ate a picnic lunch in the hay field and the tractor driver came over to show us pictures of his own restored vehicles and to share some carrot sticks.

Ikey insisted on a hike, so we walked on a path from the Bridal Veil Falls viewpoint down to the park. I carried Jovie on my shoulders because her socks were stuck through with cheatgrass from our bushwacking to check out a sheepherder's wagon.