Watch Out Utah, the VanBuskirks are a-comin'! We'd have made great pioneers, I think. Hey boys, go collect some buffalo chips, will ya?Well, the first leg of our trip has begun. We have made it to Utah and are ready for the fun to start. We left a little later that we had hoped on Tuesday night, and made it to St. George at about 3:30 am where we stayed, thankfully, at Dennis' Aunt Marlyn's second home. Our suburban is completely packed with eight people, all of our stuff for a long road trip, and camping gear. It's cozy!
Wednesday morning we headed north. We stopped once at Cove Fort. The boys and I really love that old fort. I am so impressed with how well the church keeps it up.
Dennis entertained the 2 little guys on the lawn...
while the four older boys and I took a tour. I love to think what life was like back in those pioneer days. Brushing with hog's hair toothbrushes, and sleeping on rope beds. I am always fascinated by the kitchen at a place like that. The 5lb. bread pan was huge. Mother Hinkley would bake 15 of them every day! There was so much work to do back then. They would have never had time to have a blog.
The boys try their hands at rolling barrel hoops.
Later, down the road, Dennis insisted at stopping at Cabela's, a huge, two story, outdoorsman's hunting, fishing, camping store housed in a gigantic log lodge. It was amazing, and quite impressive.
There was a walk-through aquarium filled with freshwater fish like trout and catfish. Luke loved it and kept trying to find Nemo.
In the middle of the store is a two story Matterhorn-like mountain covered with animals- deer, bears, moose, elk, and other smaller animals, posing in "natural" stances. The kids thought it was amazing, but the whole place gave me the creeps. There were literally hundreds of shot and stuffed animals there. Now I know it is practically heretical to say such a thing in these parts, but the whole sport-hunting thing just seems wrong to me. They were supposedly celebrating these beautiful animals and putting them on display so we could "appreciate" them, while at the same time stocking their shelves with a plethora of stuff you need to kill them with. Animals displays like this don't bother me in a museum setting, but in a hunting store, it struck me as ironic and prideful (yes, I know there is great pride to be had in killing an unarmed animal with a big ol' gun. Do it with your bare hands and you have every right to boast.) Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I am NOT an animal lover (drill in Anwar, please!), but I just think those animals would be much lovelier out roaming their native habitats than frozen in a pounce, on display, gathering dust. I'll prefer to see them, breathing and protected, in Yellowstone next week.
With great effort, Nathan manages to lift the lid off this gigantic Dutch Oven. Grandpa would love that to feed the whole Signs gang, but it is definitely NOT for backpacking!
We made it to Salt Lake by early evening, and I had time to check into my convention. I'm so excited to get started in the morning. What fun!
1 comment:
Wow! That Dutch oven was HUGE!!!!
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