Epic Grand Canyon Trip

We went camping at the Grand Canyon with our two daughters and a friend of our youngest. We were invited by my sister and her family who were visiting the area from Seattle. We left Thursday and planned to come back Saturday. Today is Sunday.

View of the Grand Canyon at sunset

Here's a little bit of what happened on the trip. It was pretty epic, so I thought I'd better document it for posterity (and for your amusement). I've color-coded the positive and negative aspects of the trip for your reading pleasure.

• Our cooler broke on the drive to the canyon
• We saw a ton of elk near the campsite the first night - they were beautiful
• We later saw more elk, wild horses, and crows (one of which tried to eat our Cheerios box)
• We had a campfire Thursday night with extended family, s'mores, jokes, and songs accompanied by a ukulele
• The stars at night were incredible
• I haven't seen that many stars in the sky in years
• The first night, we went to find a bathroom after dark. We knew there was one near the registration area, so we hiked there only to find it was locked. On our way back, we got lost, thankfully stumbled on an open bathroom, and eventually found our way back to camp.
• There was wind and rain overnight
• Multiple bathroom breaks in the middle of the night were more fun with a little rain
• The car battery was dead in the morning - we still don't know why
• Friday was COLD and very windy
• The forecasted high for Friday was 67, but it probably didn't get above 47
• It's usually mid- to high-80s this time of year
• Nobody was prepared for how cold it was
• Most people ended up wearing their pajamas on Friday for warmth
• My youngest daughter forgot to bring a sweatshirt and blanket and ended up borrowing one of my layers (and the picnic blanket) for the rest of the trip
• Our lighter ran out of fuel partway through the day
• We went to see the canyon, which was breathtaking
• We did some hiking, saw some amazing views, bought a beautiful print of the canyon at sunset, and soaked in the wonder of the place
• Along the way, my daughter's friend found multiple opportunities to flirt with death in order to capture stupid photos (which turned out pretty cool)
• A hot chocolate stop midday made the cold more bearable
• We came back to camp for lunch to find the wind thrashing our tents, tearing out the stakes (one of the tents was completely blown over), and threatening to carry them to some other part of the park
• We fixed the tents, had lunch, and started seriously contemplating leaving a day early because it was so freaking cold
• We went driving in the afternoon and saw a lot of other views of the canyon. Each one was pretty mind-blowing.
• We headed back to camp with most of us feeling like it was time to go home because the cold and wind were so uncomfortable. We finally decided to cut the trip short (it was supposed to be a two-night trip, but ...), and as we were breaking camp, it started snowing and hailing pretty heavily. Not crazy heavy, but enough to make things uncomfortable.
• Frozen fingers trying to zip up bags
• Mud everywhere
• Hail in the bags, which would mean later drying out at home
• Keep in mind, this is Arizona ...
• We finally shoved all of the luggage in the car and in a roof rack carrier we had borrowed from a friend
• As we drove off, we discovered that the straps of the roof carrier weren't tight enough and were making noise in the wind. The noise was a bit like having a bunch of angry wasps in the car with us.
• As we're thinking about how to handle this new development on our way out of the park, someone rear-ended us. No one was hurt (except for a bit of a banged-up knee), but we had to get out and take care of that. Thankfully, the guy who hit us was very apologetic and really nice.
• We saw a dead elk on the side of the road on our way out
• We ended up stopping about 4-5 times trying to fix the stupid roof carrier. Somehow, we had made it work on the drive up, but we couldn't get it to work on the drive back.
• Finally, we pulled it off and stuffed everything in the car because we felt like spatial comfort wasn't as important as stopping the noise.
• We stopped for dinner (where the lines were long and the restrooms had no toilet paper), and my daughter's friend lost her phone, which set off a scramble. Thankfully, we found it in an obscure place in the now-slightly-cramped car.
• According to my youngest, the most traumatic experience of the entire trip was that her fortune cookie from dinner didn't have a fortune in it.
• As you can see, it was a rough trip ... :)

We ended up getting home around midnight on Friday. I think the negative events outnumbered the positive events by at least 2:1. But the positives were awesome. And the negatives were funny (we laughed a lot on the way home as we talked about how crazy the trip was). It turns out, there's no such thing as negative. Maybe Shakespeare was right when he wrote, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

Overall, the trip was awesome. We will definitely be going back sometime for more views, more hiking, and the incredibly starry skies.

Starry skies at the Grand Canyon

(Almost) Hurricane Karen

The kids had a few days off school, so we made our way to the Florida panhandle to visit the beach. We arrived on Thursday with plans to stay until Tuesday. When we got here, we saw signs telling us of a tropical storm that was going to be developing into a category 1 hurricane and impacting our area starting Friday. We looked up the weather forecast and, sure enough, rain and high winds predicted Friday through Monday. Ouch! Here's the predicted path as of Thursday morning.

Emily and I talked about it, were a little disappointed that our vacation might not turn out quite the way we had hoped, but ultimately decided that we would make the best of it. God knows how much we needed a good vacation to break away from the stress I've been feeling at work and bringing home to infect the family. So we tried to put our trust in Him.

We told the kids about the situation and they immediately went to work. They started praying the storm away. Child #3 has developed an intense faith in God that I can't really explain. His faith beats out mine easily. Whatever he does, he does intensely and I suppose that may explain some of it. In any case, I have learned that when he prays, he often receives what he prays for.

I can't remember exactly what he asked for, but I remember hearing one of his prayers where he asked God to make the storm go away. Something to that effect. We woke up Friday to beautiful sunshine. I checked the forecast and it now showed Friday completely clear with rain starting on Saturday. We made the most of the day and had a great time on the beach and at the pool. I think it was Friday when I had the impression that God actually was holding back the storm and that it wouldn't impact us at all. That was a little too bold an impression for me, so I didn't share it with anyone. I know I'm a wimp.

We woke up Saturday to beautiful weather and now the forecast showed rain on Sunday, but none on Saturday or Monday. Looking into the situation a little more, it seems that the tropical storm never did gather the strength they predicted it would, it traveled to the west of our position farther than the models predicted, and a cold front was coming in from the west and was predicted to sweep the storm away into nothing. That sweep was predicted to last through Sunday. Sure enough, Sunday came and it rained quite a bit, which was fun - we don't usually do outdoor activities on Sunday anyway and we were watching our church's General Conference a good part of the day anyway. So the storm didn't really affect us.

This morning, the weather looks beautiful with a very small chance of rain in the forecast (20% for about an hour this afternoon). I feel so blessed that our vacation has been so beautiful. God didn't have to dissipate the storm. But it seems to me that He did. I can't imagine we were the only people happy about the outcome and I can't claim that our prayers made all the difference, but I am grateful that they were answered so wonderfully. And I'm so looking forward to another full day of beautiful weather on the beach before we head back home tomorrow.

Colorado

We went on a road trip to Colorado recently. Along the way, we made our mark. If you see one of these, you'll know where it came from.

It's not a crazy attempt to take over the world. Hopefully the heart makes that self evident. Along the way, we made some friends,

went hiking,

 enjoyed beautiful views,

befriended wildlife,

went swimming,

and had a GREAT time!

I hope you and your family had some good summer fun too.

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion recently and my brother got married. It was really nice! Keystone is a great place to vacation and we really enjoyed it. Here are a few photos of the trip.

England

I had a business trip to England recently and I got some great photos. My favorite parts were standing in line at customs for over an hour, waiting almost an hour to get a rental car (yes, I had a reservation), and driving two hours while feeling a little groggy and trying to focus my mind to get used to driving on the left side of the road. Thankfully, I got pretty good sleep on the plane because for some reason, the guy at the gate gave me a business class boarding pass when he took my boarding pass as I was getting on the plane. I don't know why, but I didn't complain. Those seats are fantastic! It's hard to sleep on the plane no matter what, but those seats make it a LOT easier!

The English countryside is absolutely beautiful! The rolling hills, the green meadows, the stone fences, the lovely (yes, I said lovely) architecture ... it's just beautiful. Bangers and mash was great. Swordfish and prawn curry was good, though a little less English. I didn't have much time to tour, but I enjoyed what I saw. I've been there a couple times before and I would love to go back and spend some time seeing the countryside.

I love Europe. I have a goal to take my wife to Italy, but I don't know when that will happen. I'd love to visit Greece, Switzerland, France, Spain, ... lots of places. I speak German and Emily speaks Spanish, so we look pretty good for a lot of countries there, but I think I'd better learn some French.

Taiwan

I traveled to Taiwan last week to present a paper at a conference. It was my first time to Asia and I really enjoyed it! It's fun for me to see different cultures, hear different languages, try different food ... and at the same time, to see how similar we all are regardless of culture, race, etc. I also got to catch up with one of my favorite professors from undergrad days years ago and that was really fun. He's a great guy and it was refreshing to talk to someone so intelligent that shares a lot of the same values and ideas that I have. I think he's one of the most intelligent people I've ever known and I was happy that he thinks well enough of me to want to spend time talking with me.

I was gone for a week, but being so far away from family made the time seem a lot longer than that. I had a bit of a rough time adjusting to the new time zone, but it wasn't as bad as adjusting to Europe. I didn't sleep very well while I was there and only had about 2-3 hours' sleep on the 17 hour flight home. When I finally did crash last night, I slept so hard! I ended up sleeping for 15 hours and missed the whole day of work today. Waking up at noon kind of messed up my plans, but that's ok.

My wife let me borrow her camera, so I took a ton of pictures. Here are just a few.

A statue of a dragon in the hotel where I was staying. This dragon has some spiritual significance, though I won't do their religion the dishonor of attempting to explain it.

The LDS temple in Taiwan - I presume the lettering on the steeple says something like "Holiness to the Lord", but those letters mean nothing to me. I met some LDS missionaries there and I told them how amazing I thought they were for learning Mandarin. I have learned German and some Spanish, but I didn't have to learn a new alphabet. All of my languages are part of the same family, so they all have a lot of words that are similar. Asian languages are TOTALLY different. I did learn to say "Hello, how are you?", "Good morning", "Thank you", "butterfly", and a taxi driver even taught me to say "Hello, beautiful", but there are NO similarities to the Latin-influenced languages.

The entrance to the hotel where I stayed. Through the arch, you can see the tallest building in Taipei.

Taipei skyline including the tallest building in Taipei and what used to be the tallest in the world.

More of Taipei's skyline.

I loved seeing the Chinese lettering everywhere.

My hotel from a distance.

An intersection in Taipei. I saw a LOT of mopeds as I walked around.

I found a McDonald's and Subway. Once again, I love the lettering.

 

I found a park and snapped the two pictures above.
 

A closeup of part of the architecture of the National Museum. I walked to the museum and underestimated the heat and humidity. I was out for a couple hours and arrived soaked in sweat and pretty tired. I sat down for a few minutes in the air conditioned lobby to relax before going inside. As I got up to go in, the man next to me jumped up and followed me. In my exhaustion, I had left my wife's zoom lens on the bench. He jumped up to return it to me. By the way the man was dressed, I believe he was a Buddhist monk. Thank God for good people of all religions. He gave me a huge smile and I gave him one back. We bumped into each other a few times in the museum and exchanged smiles since we couldn't exchange much in words. I felt a connection to this strange, kind man and a warm feeling inside each time I saw him. I know a little of Buddhism, but after this experience, I have a desire to learn more. I read Siddhartha in High School, but that's about it. I've learned a fair amount about Hinduism and have a lot of respect for that religion, but I know much less about Buddhism. Any suggestions on where to start?

A piece of crystal in a store. I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but there were some amazing Jade sculptures there. This was the best I could do outside the museum.

I was a little surprised to find a Bible in my room. It was neat to see English with the Mandarin next to it.