Summer Trip to Lake Powell

On June 16 we left home for our annual trip to the west and Lake Powell.  This year we were not pulling a boat (Keetons provided the speedboat for LP) so we had more flexibility in choosing our route out west.  We decided to go through Rocky Mountain National Park.  We drove over the Trail Ridge Road which summits at 12,181 ft and provides amazing views of the snow covered Rocky Mountains.

Trail Ridge Road in
Rocky Mountain National Park

We stayed for two nights in Timber Creek campground near the headwaters of the Colorado River.  The campground apparently had it's own private herd of Elk that freely roamed through the campsites.

Local Elk herd at
Timber Creek Campground

We also hiked along the headwaters of the Colorado River and visited the Holzwarth Historic Site which was a fishing lodge in the early 1900's that catered to trout fishermen who wanted to fish the upper Colorado River.

Upper Colorado River

Holzwarth Trout Lodge

After leaving Rocky Mountain Natl Park, we headed west on highway 40 through Steamboat Springs and on to the Green River Campground in Dinosaur Natl Monument in Utah.  We spent a day here exploring the area.  We hiked up to Split Mountain Campground which is where Topher and I finished up our river rafting trip down the Green River in 2006.  At the visitors center we looked at the partially excavated dinosaur bones still in the wall where they were found....very interesting.

Split Mountain on the Green River in
Dinosaur National Monument

Wall with partially excavated dinosaur bones
Visitors Center - Dinosaur Natl Monument

Next we traveled on to Flaming Gorge Natl Recreation Area and found a beautiful overlook of the lake.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir

On June 22 we arrived at Bear Lake, Utah for a family reunion with Liz's siblings.We had a dinner and family meeting at Jacob's cabin to address the plans for the disposition of the family farm.  We stayed two nights at the Bear Lake KOA which was more like an amusement park than a campground.  We had a great time catching up with Liz's siblings and their families.  We also spent some time looking around the family homestead in Paris, Idaho and took a tour of the tabernacle.

Paris, ID Tabernacle

From Bear Lake we headed to Tetons Natl Park, one of our favorite spots on earth.  We stayed at Colter Bay campground for 3 nights and spent the days hiking and biking the area.  It was as beautiful as ever with much more snow than usual.

Tetons from the trail

Pic from the trail around String Lake

On June 30 we arrived at Craters of the Moon Natl Monument in Idaho.  This was a hotbed of volcanic activity just a few thousand years ago.  On site you can see volcanic cones and fissures, old lava flows and lava tubes.  We had a great time biking and hiking the area.

Core of an old volcano

Campground in the lava fields

Lava tube

Cinder cone

The next few days we drove through the Sawtooth Natl Forest passing through Sun Valley and Stanley on Hwy75.  Then we took Hwy 21 to Lowman and then Hwy 17 to Banks.  Along the way we went through some beautiful Idaho mountain country.  We also found a 20 mile bike trail (Harriman Trail) through the forest.

Harriman Trail bike path
over Wood River

Overlook of the Sawtooth Mountains

Red Fish Lake

From Banks we went up Hwy 55 to Donnelly, ID where we spent the night at the Chalet RV Park.  On July 3 we met up with Liz's friend Tresa Frost from McCall and she showed us the town and took us on a beautiful hike up to a waterfall.  The scenery around McCall was amazing, reminiscent of the heavy foliage along the northern coast in Oregon and Washington.  That evening we drove down to Boise to spend the night.

Waterfall on Trail Creek near McCall, ID

Liz's friend Tresa Frost

Public Garden near McCall

On July 4 we arrived at Burley, ID.  That evening we watched the fireworks in the park and spent the night at the farm of Thales and Bonnie (Liz's brother).  Next day we got up and took a tour of the farm on our bikes.  The crops looked very good....there has been plenty of water this year.  That afternoon we headed to Provo where we stayed at Nuns Park in Provo Canyon.  We biked the Provo Canyon trail and drove down to Orem to visit my mother and sister (Claudia) at the Seville Retirement Community.  After a nice lunch and catching up with them we drove on to the Sam's Club in Provo to begin shopping for the Lake Powell trip.

We arrived at Lake Powell on July 9.  This year we had the Keeton family and the Topher Dayton family for a total of 6 adults and 5 kids.  We spent July 10 exploring up river and found the lake water high enough this year to reach the Indian ruins in Forgotten Canyon.  Tuesday we headed down river and found a nice spot in a water cave on the Escalante River.  That evening a big storm came up and the wind pulled out 3 of our 4 anchors.  We had some exciting moments while we got the anchors re-set. After that crisis we were able to enjoy the storm which sent a flurry of waterfalls cascading over the canyon walls.  We enjoyed boating, exploring, cliff jumping, skiing, tubing, fishing, and swimming during the rest of the week without further incident.  The houseboat ran very well this year and provided comfortable living quarters.  Topher brought his projector so we had a couple of outdoor movie nights.  We also had a campfire with marshmallow roasting, stargazing, and singing with the guitars.

My, Kathryn and Liz assume a
yoga balance pose
in front of Rainbow Bridge

Reayen, Kathryn, Denae, and Akston
enjoying the sun

Cliff Jumping

Akston and John
get some Air!

Topher, Beau and My
ready to tube

Akston teaching Grandpa how to fish

Denae, Akston and Reayen
relax at the end of a hard day

Waterfalls during a rainstorm
There is a houseboat parked in that water cave

Elynn not ready to go

Elynn ready to go

We had an awesome week on Lake Powell in 2017.  Let's do it again!!

Sacramento, Disney Land, San Diego Zoo

At the end of April we took a trip to Sacramento CA, to visit d, Zhouyi and Meila.  Part of the trip was dedicated to a work project.  d and I did some home repairs and painting. The project took about 10 days to complete.  Here are the "before" and "after pics:

Start

Finish!

While we worked on the outside of the house, Liz got busy on Craig's list and posted for sale an assortment of items that Zhouyi no longer needed.  In the end she was able to sell a keyboard, a bike, and several other useful items.

As a reward for all our hard work, at the end of the week we got a rental car and took a road trip to Los Angeles and San Diego.  On May 6 we went to the San Diego Zoo where Meila loved to watch the orangutans play.

Meila and her parents at the zoo

The next day we went to Disney Land.  Meila got to meet Mickey Mouse.  Her favorite ride was Dumbo.....she could ride the Dumbo ride all day.

Meila with Mickey

Meila on the Dumbo Ride

We had a great time in California and loved the chance to spend a couple of weeks with d, Zhouyi, and Meila.  We realized that we need to take advantage of every opportunity we have to visit them while their still in the States.

Padre Island National Seashore

On Feb 1, 2017 we took a winter trip to the beach at Padre Island on the gulf of south Texas.  This national seashore allows camping right on the beach.

Motorhome Parked on the beach of

Padre Island National Seashore

Motorhome Parked on the beach of
Padre Island National Seashore

Padre Island has a wonderful visitors center and a campground with hookups that caters to snowbirds from the north who spend a few winter months in a warmer climate on the beach.  The national seashore includes about 30 miles of beach with hard packed sand that makes for great bike riding.  Liz and I spent a couple of days biking down the beach and exploring all the sights and sounds along the seashore.

Padre Island Campground

Visitors Center at Padre Island

Sunrise over the gulf of Mexico

On our way back home we stopped in San Antonio and spent a night at Topher & My's house.  We spent the next night in Cabela's RV parking lot in Allen before going home.  The next morning we discovered that our 25 ft slide out was stuck and would not slide in.  We had to call emergency service and they sent a technician who brought in the slide using the manual over-ride.  As it turned out, this was the beginning of a 3 month ordeal of taking the RV in for slide repairs multiple times and waiting weeks each time for the right parts to be shipped to the repair shop.  In the end, the slide rails, gears and motors all had to be replaced.  We finally got the repaired RV back in June and the slide has been working properly since then (fingers crossed).

Pagosa Springs Cabin

Dec 16 - 21, 2016

Our daughter Kathryn rented a cabin in the mountains at Pagosa Springs, CO and invited us to come.  We decided to make the 14 hour drive in two days stopping overnight in Tucumcari, NM. We arrived at the Tucumcari Days Inn on Dec 16 and planned to leave early the next morning and drive to Albuquerque, NM to pick up Rachael and Kevin at the airport.  However, as we drove to Alburquerque we got word from Rachael that their plane was delayed...for 10 hours it turns out.  We finally picked them up at about 6:30 PM and arrived at the cabin before midnight.

Cabin at night with Christmas lights

The next day we awoke to a beautiful sunny day and went sleigh riding down the hill leading to the cabin. It was a first time experience for the Keeton kids and Kevin.  We had some great fun and great wipe outs!   We also spent part of the day trying to get the cars back up the driveway from the cabin so we could go skiing the next day.  We had beautiful days with temps from 0 to 35 degrees.

Driveway to Cabin - a sheet of ice

Sleigh riding hill was the road

On the last day we went skiing at Wolf Creek Ski Resort.  After spending about 3 hours getting tickets and skis (should have rented skis in the valley instead of at the resort), we finally hit the slopes about noon.  Kevin, Akston, and Reayen were new skiers and so we spent some time on the bunny slope. They all quickly got the hang of skiing and soon Kevin and Rachael were off trying more challenging slopes.  Toward the end of the day John, Kathryn, and Lee got to try a few intermediate runs and had a great time.  I got to try out my new hip (left hip replacement done last year) for the first time on the slopes.  I found that skiing with two hip replacements works just fine...glad to know that I have a few years of skiing left.  

The Ski Trip Crew

Liz and Elynn stayed back at the cabin during our ski trip and Liz took some great pics of the cabin.

The cabin was a beautiful place and accommodated our party of 9 very comfortably.  The experience made us realize this is something we should do again and try to include the whole family....something to factor into our plans for the future.

2016 Zollinger Sibling Reunion

On Dec 1-4 we hosted a Zollinger sibling family reunion in Orlando, FL.  All of Elizabeth's brothers and sisters and their spouses attended.  We rented a vacation villa in Davenport, FL near Disney World.  The villa had 8 bedrooms, a rec room, movie room, pool and spa and comfortably accommodated our party of 17.  We had a family business meeting and dinner at the villa and used our free time to enjoy the local attractions including EPCOT at Disney World, the Gaylord Hotel Christmas decorations and the Mormon Church welfare farm.  We had a great time and it was good to catch up on the latest news of family members.  Here are some pics from the reunion.

Dinner at Chuys Mexican Restaurant

Gaylord Hotel Atrium

Family Pics at the Vacation Villa