Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves

I can't believe we've never been to Great Basin National Park. It's just over the Utah/Nevada border about four hours from our home.

We stopped at JC Mickelson's in Nephi to watch the trains and eat some breakfast.

 

Ikey was so excited to have his coloring sheet posted on the wall.

 

This delightful old church is in Leamington. I'd never heard of Leamington before this trip, but don't be surprised if I move there.

We took a tour of Lehman Caves. They kids did not touch anything but the railings as they were asked.

 

Ikey wore a glow-in-the-dark shirt which we busted out during the "lights out" portion of the tour.

This cave has been toured for 130 years. When the kids heard that they used to have dance parties in the Lodge Room, they showed off some of their moves.  

Grandma Rainey toured Lehman caves over 50 years ago.

We looked at the sun. We did a little nature hike, had a picnic lunch and ate ice cream cones at the soda fountain.

We checked out Pictograph Cave in the Grey Cliffs area of the park.

 We drove up the Wheeler Peak road. It's the second highest point in Nevada and the tallest mountain completely in Nevada. It was really beautiful. We're definitely coming back to camp at Wheeler Peak and hike to the summit and around the lakes. Since we didn't bring camping gear this time, we headed an hour west to sleep in a caboose in Ely.

NHMU and Shoreline Trail

TB has a new job with his old company. It's a promotion and a totally new thing and we're really proud of him and quite relieved. He has tons of training to do, so he's spent hours and hours in his basement office wearing a coat and staring at a computer screen. Now he has to spend several weeks in Indianapolis, so we squeezed in one last activity before we had to drop him at the airport. We showed him the Nature UNLEASHED exhibit at NHMU, had a picnic lunch with dinosaur cookies, and hiked above the museum and around Red Butte Garden. We ran into Cyrie which was a wonderful surprise. She smelled so good and she looks exactly like she did 15 years ago, just with stronger legs. She's a wonderful person and I hope we run into her more often!

Jovie told TB to take her with him on the airplane. She almost fit in his carryon bag.
 

 

Summer begins

We ate pancakes at the neighborhood Boy Scout's breakfast and car show before we headed to Ikey's last soccer game. Halfway through the game, I called out to him, "If you make a goal, I'll give you an RV toy." I've been trying to bribe him like this since the third game of the season. Two minutes later, the field seemed to be in slow motion and he took the ball from mid-field right into the goal. He put up his arms and ran straight to us and said, "I did it! I get an RV toy!" He ran to his coach for a high-five and told him, "I get an RV toy!" He told the referee, every kid on his team, and every kid on the other team. It was totally exciting.
We went back to the car show to look at a 100 year old Ford and a 2013 Tesla.

We looked at RV toys online and I fell in love with a big metal Tonka Winnebago, but it was going for $100 and Todd reminded me that the prize was for Ikey and not me. Although, I totally could have scored on that preschool soccer team by at least halftime if I'd been in there.

We had to take Todd to the airport to go to Indianapolis on Sunday, and on the way home we stopped at the big Walmart (no RV toys, but tons of other prizes) and Toys R Us (Matchbox RV for $1!). Ikey was totally happy.

 

I was moved by this blog post on The Orange Rhino so I quit yelling at my kids right after this ridiculous display. The kids and I have both loved it. During our RV shopping trips, I found that almost every mom at Walmart and literally every mom in Toys R Us have not taken on the no-yelling pledge. I think they and their kids might like it if they tried it. Let me know if you think I seem calmer and the kids are more moved by my less intense and more in-control interactions.

Me (in a calm and peaceful voice): Jovie, just do one squirt of soap.
Jovie: I did. I did one with another hooked to it.

Jovie: I'll love you for 17 years.
Isaac: You'll love me way longer than that!
Jovie: I'll love you till I'm 70, until I'm a wrinkly train.

Tooele Fireman, Mining, Railroad and Pioneer Museums

We made a list of all the museums in Tooele County, and got to four of them before we were worn out. Grandma Rainey showed us the Utah Firefighters Museum in Deseret Peak Complex. The fireman guide had little vehicles ready for the kids and they had a great time screeching around while we checked out about a million fire trucks.

 

 

We talked the fireman into letting us in the Oquirrh Mountain Mining Museum, which seemed mostly to be mining company propaganda (no judgement!) with some cool trains outside.

 

 

 

Next stop was the Tooele Railroad Museum which was predictably fantastic.

The kitchen in a military personnel car.

The refrigerators in the personnel car.

A model train inside another personnel car.

This bike runs on rails inside a mine.

We had lunch on the pretty grounds. They give rides on a garden train on the weekend, so we'll have to come back.

 

We hit the Daughters and Sons of Utah Pioneers museums next. We had the most patient, most kind, most interesting guide ever at the Sons of Utah Pioneers museum. The woman at the DUP museum was his wife and she was pretty likable herself.

Good luck to Ikey's preschool teacher this fall.

  

 

 

Cowboy Legends at Antelope Island on Memorial Day

They have mastered "pouty face" and "far-off look" in modeling class.

Cowboy Legends is a music and poetry festival at beautiful Antelope Island. We loved it last year so we were excited to go back. We rode a covered wagon. (Ikey told everyone, "My mom is a paleontologist." I'm not.) We stamped dolphins, Native American pit houses, and dragons into leather necklaces. We ate pulled pork sandwiches and brownies. We sang along to cowboy songs and laughed at cowboy poems and watched a big crowd follow a four-foot-long snake.

 

Jordan River Parkway...more of it

Despite TB's wish to never repeat an activity (especially two days in a row!) we rode our bikes on Jordan River Parkway again. Ikey said he thought he could do six miles this time, and he did.

Jordan River Parkway Bike Ride

We took Ikey's new bike on Jordan River Parkway for the first time. I have a 5K measured  from the parking lot at 4800 South, so we started there and headed south on the boardwalks.



Jovie took photos during her ride as usual. The view only changes if you're the lead dog.

We rode for 1.55 miles and stopped at a park to eat a picnic. I left the kids with TB at the park so I could get a quick 20 minute sprint in while they ate and played before we headed back to complete the 3 mile trail.

Ikey rode a 5K with no problems, so we're going to keep going longer distances so he's ready to ride the 14 mile Trail of the Hiawatha in northern Idaho this summer.