LAKE POWELL-- 2015

We just got home from Mt. Rushmore and LaVerl takes off again for another trip to Lake Powell with his fishing buddies, who are actually all in the High Priest Group Leadership in Milligan Valley Ward! They left early Wed. October 7 and went to Roosevelt Lake first to pick up the boat.  All went well until about 3 miles out of Page when they had a blow out on the boat trailer!! They just crippled into Walmart to get it fixed and buy their fishing supplies. They put in at Antelope Point Marina about dusk and away they went. It was getting darker and darker while looking for a sandy beach to put in for the night. While searching with their flashlights, they found (luckily) and really nice sandbar!

 Merrell Hamblin fishing that first morning off the little sandbar.

 This trip was kind of for Merrell, he didn't believe a word of all of the fishing stories from LaVerl and Ron!

He caught this one little fish and said, "OK, I caught my fish, I'm done!"

 LaVerl caught a fish here too!

He really enjoyed driving the boat and telling the guys where the fish were and how deep, from the fish finder. 

Ron Cole is a 'real fisherman'! 

 "Come on LaVerl, lets get fishing!"

 Lake Powell is so beautiful!  This was up Rock Canyon!

 They didn't catch a lot of fish the first couple of days, but the scenery made it all worth it!!

 Bacon and eggs for breakfast!  Yummy!

 Finally on the last morning, they started catching fish!

On the way home, another flat tire! This little place called "The Gap" was opened (again, luckily) and a 80+ old guy had a really hard time getting the tire off. Then on the I-40 there was a wreck and cars and trucks were backed for miles so they decided to go around up on the reservation to get back on the I-40 this side of Holbrook. It took them 9 hours to get home!!! After all that-- 

IT WAS A GREAT FISHING TRIP!!

Pictures of our GRANDkids.....

.....that are just too CUTE not to post!!

 Lilly's first bath, she loves them, they make her happy!

 CUTE!

 Precious!

 My 3 girls and Lilly

 "Man, its been a hard day!"

"Oh dear, Do I look like a burrito?"

 "Priority Mail" Lilly came FAST!!

 Bret's kids helping shuck corn. I found lots of little bites in the corn!!

 Happy little Ivory

 Dempsey and London picked flowers for Gma!!

 Good Daddy, teaching his kids to play 'Risk'.

Gpa with #15 grand baby-- Lilly 

 Ivory  turned TWO - Oct 4th

 Sisters

 Ivory LOVES ice cream!

 Can one be any cuter??

Gpa's new baby!!  He just put in this 1000 gal propane tank!

The Last Day---at Mt. Rushmore

Our last day!  

We woke up to a cloudy, cool day, but a nice day to travel around and see the sights. We decided on Custer State Park and Crazy Horse Memorial. As we were driving around the Park, we noticed we were NOT the only travelers. We kept seeing these long lines of cars coming our way, not just cars, but all kinds of Porshe's. I guess they were having some kind of 'road rally' and picked Custer State  Park to drive through!!

 First, just as we entered the Park, we saw antelope, no big deal, we see these a lot on the way to Show Low! but these are practically tame!

 We were disappointed as we kept driving that we hadn't seen any buffalo, so a park ranger told us we could take any of the dirt roads and we would probably see some. We drove down the first dirt road we found and in the distance saw an opened jeep "tour" thing and followed it through a gate and sure enough--BUFFALO!  This big buffalo started after the jeep, and was butting the front of it. We stayed back and just watched. When they left, the driver told us we weren't supposed to be in there, I guess he had opened the gate and these buffalo were for "paying guests" only!! ($48 a person!!)

 The Ranger told us in the Fall they gather them and then auction some of them off, I guess that's why these were fenced up. The park generally sells 250-450 head of buffalo at the live auction which is held the 3rd Sat of November each year. Last year a mature bred cow sold for $2,542.86.  A 2-yr. old Grade bull- #2,300.

 Further along the main road, we saw all these buffalo.

 Its pretty cool to just see buffalo roaming the prairie!!

 This big guy was just along the side of the road. This was taken from the car window!! LaVerl could almost reach out his arm and touch him!!

 For lunch we stopped in the little town of Custer and ate. LaVerl had a buffalo burger!  He said it tasted just like regular hamburger.

 A cool old wagon at a Museum.

 So what is this?? Its hard to tell, but this is Crazy Horse! Its the worlds largest mountain carving, still in progress. It was began in 1948 and the 87ft. head of Crazy Horse was completed in 1998.

 In this picture you can see the drawing of the horses head. They still have tons of work to do!!

When finished, it will look like this --hopefully!!

 We stopped in Hill City where they have an 1880 steam train that goes to Keystone, SD and  back in 2 1/2 hours. Its pretty cool, but we missed the last train that day. 

We didn't do it all, but we saw and did lots!! It was a great trip!

Waiting for the plane -Heading Home!