Saturday

Saturday we packed up, played Frisbee and fetch with Michelle and her dogs and headed out to Tonopah.  There was a mine there that we wanted to explore.  We got there, got dinner and all the hotels were booked, so instead of checking out the mine we headed to Ely instead. This is a creepy Clown Motel that we chose to drive by in Giggle Springs.... Evelyn and Seth listened to music with a headphone splitter... that they that was pretty awesome.  The rest of us finished reading Harry Potter 6 and we're half way through number 7. 

Just a note about organizing... I love doing things with people.  I love learning about things they are passionate about and being part of a good conversation.  That's one of the reasons that after we opened up our two reserved camp reservations to family we also invited my friend Michelle who has been my camping and hiking buddy for 20 years.  She and I hiked Angels Landing together after 2 other short hikes that day as a graduation campout.  She also helped me carry Ada down Stewart Falls the first time I went hiking with a baby.  By the time that Evelyn was a year old, she was in town and we went hiking with her two dogs, her dad's dog, my 3 kids and Pips who I was watching at the time.  I carried Pips on my front and Evelyn on my back.  We've been hiking in the Uintah's together and camping at Bear Lake together.  She's a fun and interesting person to talk to.  She's the only child of an only child.  Her parents were older when they were finally able to have her, but that means that her parents are older now as she's getting to be middle aged.  Her mom died of cancer 5 years ago just as she was trying to finish her PhD.  Her grandparents and uncles have all died at this point.  She has a blind Aunt that checks in with her occasionally, cousins that she never met and a Dad that has a lot of health problems.  She wasn't going to bring her dogs camping, but her semester got out with too little time for her to be able to drop off her dogs in Utah and drive out to Yosemite.  When my brother and sister ended up not being able to come like they'd been planning on I offered to take one of Amy's kids and let Michelle bring her Dad.  Amy ended up coming (I think she rather enjoyed it.) and so did Michelle's Dad.  He'd been wanted to see Yosemite for a long time.  He's actually a fairly good landscape photographer and was glad to have the chance to do this with his daughter.  Right now, they are all each other has.  I'm grateful to have had the chance to have them both there.  Organizing who, what, where, how many was a nightmare... but it was fun to be able to do it.