Rasmania 101: Back up to Flaming Gorge

This week we tried to squeeze in camping with the families that haven't been up with us this year. We have a big family, so we're lucky to get each family camping and on the boat one time each year. Crista, Matt, Adrienne and AJ and their families, and also Jennie and Jordan accompanied us this time. We were blessed with the best water we've ever had at Flaming Gorge. Monday was fabulous, but Tuesday was even better. It was hot and sunny, so the cold water just felt refreshing. It was easy to jump in and even the little ones loved it.

Bridget with grandma

Bridget with blueberries

In the trailer!Gunnar, Oli, Jennie, Jordan, Ruby, Ila, Roy, Finn and Greta

Gunnar, Greta, Oli and Ruby

Crista, Bridget and grandma (Bridget even liked getting
in the water which was a little surprising because it feels very cold--
at least initially.

Matt

Adrienne and AJ came up previous to everyone else. They stayed the weekend in a rustic cabin in Dutch John and then joined us Sunday evening. Crista and Matt arrived a little bit before the Greens. Greta looked around the trailer and then asked us, "Why did you move?" Greta also fell off the swing almost immediately after we arrived. She was bleeding all over, but the scrape wasn't deep. She did have a big bump behind her ear, but luckily that had mostly gone down by the next morning. When Jordan asked her how her "owie" was doing, she asked, "What owie." Later, Crista told her she needed to put more medicine on her head. Greta said with emphasis, "Seriously! It will Freak me out."

When AJ and Adrienne come with us we have the added pleasure of two boats. AJ's dad owns a Malibu and AJ has great access to it. It's fun because you can surf on the Malibu, which you can't do on our boat. We handled the wake boarders and tubers, and they handled the surfers and slalom skiers (only Adrienne and AJ did that this trip). Oli also wake boarded on their boat. He is very athletic. He wanted all of us to see how he could wake board--even going over the wake. We love having the extra boat and thus extra room and more activities, but it does mean we don't see as much of Adrienne's family--especially since they are die-hard skiers and love to stay out on the lake as long as possible. I admit I was totally worn out Monday evening. I went with the Green's for the last hour after everyone else got off and actually tried to surf, with very limited success (meaning I could get up but I couldn't figure out how to stay up).

I had tried wake boarding for the first time last week. I was able to get up but I was using Dallin's wakeboard. I found that our old wake boards were a lot harder for me (though I had some success with Nick's larger board). I was finally able to get up and stay up for a couple of minutes, and then ran out of energy. I love being in the water and being active. I'm happy that at 60 I still have the strength to pull myself up.

I was able to stay up for about 30 seconds on
Dallin's board (This was last week).

We had some unfortunate news this week. Caitlyn had an MRI last Thursday to check on her arthritis. This is what the report said, "Your MRI shows some persistent inflammation and progressive damage. I recommend continuing to take Humira. "We were very disappointed with this news. If things don't stabilize for her it could mean further surgeries and pain. We will know more in a month after her doctor confers with another radiologist.

It seems like many in our family are dealing with health issues and other concerns right now . Roy and I spoke with Barbara and she is still struggling. She said that everything has changed--even her voice. And she can't walk without assistance. All this started from her contracting shingles. Dave Cook, too, has had some struggles. He has a serious infection and has been on antibiotics for a couple of months. He says if they don't work this time he's not sure what the doctors will have him do. Even though he lacks energy, he still puts in a 40 hour missionary work load each week. Also, Christine mentioned in her letter that her little granddaughter Lizzy worked her way out of her daddy's arms and fell on the concrete on her head. Thankfully she was all right but had two black eyes. Christine's letters are usually a little belated, so this may have been several weeks ago.

Gunnar came on our boat a lot of the time and demonstrated how much like his grandmother he is by keeping his head in book for much of the day. He nearly finished the book "Hatchet" which I brought from home so he'd have something to read. After boating on Monday, Gunnar returned to camp with Roy. While in the truck he picked up our Bon Appetit magazine. He was very interested in telling Roy all about the article he was reading about how they are genetically engineering the perfect size watermelon to fit in the small Japanese refrigerators. He reminds me of Nick and Dan when they were that age--always willing to learn new things and curious about everything. How many 10 year-olds would bother looking at a magazine article like that?

While Gunnar was reading in our boat, Oli was practicing his wake boarding skills. He's very athletic. He loves back rubs from grandma while sitting on my lap and I'm always amazed at his muscular arms.

Oli

At the pond

The first evening we went on a walk to the Gorge overlook with a stop at the pond. Kids sure know how to get dirty.

Catharine, Crista, Matt and Adrienne

Jordan, Jennie and Crista

Finn and Ila in one of the moments they were
choosing to get along.

AJ and Adrienne

Greta

Finn

Jordan, Ruby and Ila

All the kids rode the tube sometime during our two boating days, except Finn, Ila and Bridget. Jennie and Oli enjoyed a calm ride together, too.

Boating

Gunnar

Crista, Matt, Greta, Jordan and Oli

Adrienne and Finn

AJ and Finn

Adrienne and Ila

All of our guests left the lake and the campground to go home at about 3:00 Tuesday afternoon. Ruby didn't want to go, she wanted to go boating again, but she was scheduled to start kindergarten the next day and it was important for her to be present her first day. We toyed with the idea of keeping Gunnar, but he decided he was ready to go home. Adrienne would have preferred to leave Finn with us because he's been quite the trouble-maker for her lately, but that would probably have been too much for me.

Roy and I stayed in Flaming Gorge until Saturday. Wednesday he had to work, so we didn't take the boat out. He got some work done and I did some reading. We called Ruby to see how her first day of school went--apparently not very well. She got on the phone with us and told us that everyone on the bus was really noisy and she asked one girl to be her friend and the girl said no." Hopefully kindergarten will improve for her. Because she's just in kindergarten, she will go to school 1/2 day every day, which will be nice for Crista.

Thursday it was nice weather in the morning. We took a hike on the Canyon Rim trail. We've been going to Flaming Gorge for many years, but this was the first time we have taken this trail. It was beautiful. After about a mile we ran into four large, male, big horn sheep. They were casually grazing on some bushes. There was an overlook right by them, so we checked out the view and then I started back on the trail. Roy called me back and said we needed to give the bighorn sheep a wider berth. He said if they felt bothered they could probably be dangerous. We walked off the trail a bit to get around them. We really enjoyed the flora and fauna on the hike. Along with many different plants, we saw chipmunks, turkey vultures and other birds, and even a couple of marmots. The hike was about 5 miles round trip. As we neared the end the storm started coming in and we got sprinkled on. Since we were fairly hot, it was kind of nice. We got a lot of rain a little bit later as we rested in the trailer. We have always wanted to take an evening boat ride and have never done it, so, after the rain cleared up we took the boat out and puttered around perfectly glassy water. We took a picnic on the boat and ate our dinner there.

Friday was supposed to be beautiful, and it was great water for most of the day, but the smoke from the California fires made it seem like it was overcast. It was so gray I couldn't believe it. The haze stayed with us the whole day. We rented a paddle board and boated to the Wyoming side of the lake and found a cove to paddle in. It was fun but my shoulders are pretty sore today, though it could be the wake boarding I did on the way back that evening. The water was so glassy that Roy stopped and asked if I wanted to try one more time, so I hopped in. I had a couple of good falls, but finally I was able to stay up until I got tired (maybe 2 minutes 😊).

We were planning on going to the Firefighters Memorial Campground in the evening to hear from the rangers all about the Cart Creek Fire that occurred in the 80's, but we were both pretty exhausted so we just ate dinner and watched a movie in the trailer.

It took us a little longer on Saturday morning to get everything ready to go home than usual, but we were on the road by about 11:30.

Caitlyn had invited Nick and Sara and their family to dinner on Sunday, so Caitlyn and I made lemon chicken together. The girls always have to have snacks, etc. after dinner.

Effie and Avie eating cheetos

Bridget wasn't with us Sunday evening, but here she
is enjoying her dinner--avocado.

More Boating Pictures

Greta, Matt and Ruby

Jennie

Crista

Ruby with grandma

Finn and Greta

Matt surfing

Greta, Jordan and Ruby

Adrienne on one ski

Jordan was the last skiier

After everyone else went home

After boating we saw this in the Marina. It is a "hot tub boat."
You'd have to be pretty committed to store a boat in the marina to
keep a hot tub full of water there.