Been there, done that

I read my last blog and saw that I was going to tell you more about the camping trip. I am still not sure I have had enough time to get over it. We went on a four day trip to my secret creek. After an initial day of hiking, the bishop and I (the only adults) had one of those "Chicken-Out Narrows" experiences where we thought "Ha! This is really not that bad. Let's get down to some serious hiking". We planned out what we thought would be a nice 3 hour hike up to the next fishing hole. Trouble is, the trail shoots up to several hundred feet above the river and provides no stopping points before you arrive at the next hole. Once we started, there was no turning back. Three hours into the hike, we finally found our first water where we gratefully filled our bottles. Three more hours and we still had not found the descent back to the river and I was getting worried as night was coming on. The boys were intractable and only constant threat of hiking in the dark and/or dire consequences kept them moving, albeit at a snail's pace. It did not help that my nephew was wearing Mom's old outer frame backpack that was old enough that she had even received it as a gift from grandpa, who had found it as a "steal" at a yard sale. I knew it was the pack because the very cheery "Have a nice day" patch was dancing happily on the top flap. I am not sure who came up with the plan of putting that on a pack, but I can tell you they probably never had been hiking; it did nothing for my mood as I proclaimed "you CAN keep going" for the thousandth time. We finally hit the river again just before dark and we were all completely exhausted. The irony was that at this "remote" fishing hole, there were two guys in lawn chairs sitting on the other side of the river (and in the only camping spot) drinking alcohol from flasks and enjoying a pleasant fire. We had to sleep on a bridge. It was hard to imagine what had made me think it was a good idea to hike all that way with boys who were not prepared. After a difficult night of waking of and trying to figure out what we were going to do to get out of there, I got up in the morning to a brand new, beautifully sunny day. Everyone woke up with a positive attitude. We broke camp quickly and headed back down the way we had come. Halfway through, I began to sing grandpa's old campfire song and soon the boys and I were belting out "The other day" and "Alloweta (sp?)" at the top of our lungs and moving out. We made the return trip in under four hours and were feeling great. Having conquered such a difficult hike inspired the boys to realize they could do a lot more than they thought they could and helped the Bishop and me realize that they are capable of a lot more than we think. All told, we covered 26 miles in two full days of hiking and a couple of half days. We were tired, and were needed a break from the young men, but we had a good time (generally). The moral of the hike was get the boys out practicing before ever attempting that again.

This week we got to visit the operations center for the Phoenix Mission. This is something I had always wanted to see. I took some pics from our visit with I will attach. Most of the mission personnel had left to go back to their day jobs because it had passed its 90 life span so there were relatively few people there. However, they were still getting things lined up for the mission (funding was extended due to the continued life of the space craft) and we participated in a couple of those conferences. They have not done nearly as much with the probe as we would like, but we left them with some ideas of things they could use if for but have not done yet. Several of the science team members were surprised to learn that they could bury it next to the ice layer in the soil and detect the liquid water in the soil/ice mix (there will always be liquid water to some degree in the soil). So, our visit was timely because it opened the opportunity to try to get them to do more things with the sensor than they have (only four total measurements, three of which were in the same general spot and the fourth was not all the way inserted). We'll see what happens. The pictures I am attaching are of the lander they use to run all the programs they send to Mars and the Senora National Park.