Water Boy

On our recent trip to the Midwest to visit family and friends, we also had several opportunities to play in water. And Desert Boy loves water. I think that might even be an understatement. Most kids like water, but I think kids that grow up in the desert see so little of it get extra excited because they know water's a scarce resource.

One of our stops was the Face Fountain at Millenium Park in Chicago, an interactive place that was attracting large crowds. The water isn't deep, no more than an inch or two, but it feels oh so cool.

Desert Boy was lucky to have a couple of young ladies willing to accompany him around the fountain. That was great for me because I didn't have to keep a constant eye on him.

Instead I could watch the man-made waterfalls and occasional spurting of water. Desert Boy wasn't too sure about the spouting water, but some of the other kids got right in the spray.

Despite the shallow water, Desert Boy found a way to get wet--just get down and splash!

This fountain was at Lincoln Park zoo, and water squirted out of various spots in a random pattern, so it was a challenge to run through it and not get wet.

Of course, Desert Boy sort of wanted to get wet, so he inched his way closer to the water spray,.

The most water we encountered was at the hotel pool. Desert Boy jumped in by himself, was toted around the pool, and practiced swimming. But his favorite activity was to be thrown into the pool. We quickly learned that he just sank to the bottom, so the catcher had to be quick to pull him up. He wiped his face off, scrunched up his nose, and then said, "Do it again, do it again."

So he got thrown in again...

...and again...

...and again. Oops, something didn't go quite right with this entry. That didn't faze Desert Boy, though. He still wanted to do it again. 

Notice how so many different people are throwing him in? His aunts, uncles, and grandpa definitely wanted to have their turn!

Now every time we go to a hotel, Desert Boy wants to go swimming. And jumping. And go flying through the air. I think he's turning into an adventure junkie.

Almost 90 and Going Strong

Here's my Grandma, who I got to visit this last weekend. She's my hero. She's traveled around the world (and flipping through her photo albums when I was a kid gave me the travel bug!). She always looks on the bright side of life (why not?). She is certainly an example that in giving you receive--she is still active in the church choir, committees, helping with elections, and more. I sure hope I can age as gracefully as she has! Thanks, Grandma, for being such an inspiration!

Desert Boy Goes Flying

A couple weeks ago, Desert Boy got to go for his first plane ride with his Grandpa in the two-seater Cub airplane.

He wasn't too sure what to think at first.

But then he relaxed and thought it was cool to look at everything from a different point of view.

This is the pond on the ranch, which is often filled with hundreds of geese and ducks this time of year.

The meadows are full of cows. I'm not sure if Desert Boy realized they were cows or not. After all, they do look quite different from this angle.

Here's part of our little town. It sure looks brown late in the summer--almost all the vegetation is past its peak. The trees provide welcome shade. Many are quite old, with some planted by the first settlers over a hundred years ago.

This is a view of town looking out towards the ranch, where the irrigated meadows make it look a bit greener. The fire hall and school are in the lower left-hand corner.

Desert Boy liked his trip. And every time he sees an airplane, or even a contrail lit up by moonlight, he gets excited and points them out! I think he'll be wanting to go on some more plane trips in the future. 

Snake Valley Days

This weekend is the big Labor Day barbeque and dance called Snake Valley Days. It's a fundraiser for the local volunteer fire department and a great excuse for the community and visitors to come together. The barbeque begins at 4 pm and the dance at 8 pm. 

Following is a post I did last year about the barbeque. It brought back quite a few memories, especially because a couple of the people pictured have moved or passed on. It made me glad that I do this blog (sometimes I do question why I put the time into it)--but the pictures and tales help me remember places, events, and most importantly, people who are important in my life.

Every Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, the Volunteer Fire Department holds a barbecue to raise money. It's been held for decades and is a great place to catch up with folks you haven't seen for awhile. My husband and I are members of the Volunteer Fire Department and the barbecue is held at the cookhouse next to our house, so we had great views of the event from start to finish.

The start actually begins several months in advance with the planning. Food is ordered, a cleanup day is scheduled the weekend before the barbecue, and tasks are divvied up. Finally the big weekend arrives.

On Friday night the meat (tri-tip roasts) is taken out of the huge walk-in cooler, rinsed, and marinated with yummy barbecue sauce. At first only one person squirted a bottle of barbecue sauce.

That was going slow, so another person started squirting. His squirt looks more sporadic than the first. Neatness didn't count for this part, because we had several coolers to marinate, plus the more barbecue sauce, the better!

One volunteer reaches into the cold meat to make sure that it is all covered. Looks nice and messy, doesn't it!? The meat goes back into the walk-in cooler until the next day.

At mid-morning on Saturday, more preparations take place, like shucking the corn. Coming from the Midwest, this is one of my all-time favorite tasks. As I shuck the corn I just imagine biting into those firm, sweet kernels, releasing a wonderful squirt of corn juice. Mmmm.

Tables and chairs are set up, signs made, lemonade mixed, potatoes wrapped and baked, beans prepared, and much more. Desert Boy kept me occupied for a little while so I didn't get a chance to take photos of all the separate parts, but you get the idea.

The serving line was set up in the cookhouse. Folks enter through one door and exit through another, making it an efficient process. The smells in the cookhouse are getting better and better as we approach the appointed hour.

At the back door of the cookhouse, the corn station is setup. Two huge pots are filled with water and a flame thrower is used to light the burners. Okay, it's probably not exactly a flame thrower, but it sure looked like one to me.

On the front porch of the cookhouse, this huge cauldron is set up. Can you see the smoke coming off the top? Why in the world do we have a witch's brew for a barbecue? This is the homemade root beer, and the dry ice is making the neat visual effect.

Over on the side the guys are grilling the roasts over a bed of charcoals. The barbecued meat flavor ensures that people are constantly circling around the grill to check out the progress.

Here's some of the circle. In the background of this photo you should see some mountains, but a huge rainstorm came in about half an hour before we were due to start. The wind started blowing, and we could see rain showers on the mountain. We tried to figure out what we would do if it started pouring rain or even hailing. We ended up deciding that the storm would blow through, and sure enough, it did.

The scary weather did scare some people away, but we still had many come. Here's the line forming at the front of the cookhouse to get the delectable food.

People whizzed through the serving line thanks to the attentive servers. Ready for the mouth-watering menu? Here it is: tri-tip roast (or hot dogs for the kids), baked potato, corn on the cob, beans, salad, roll, watermelon, cake, root beer, and lemonade.

I was trying to help sell tickets, so I parked Desert Boy with one of the oldest inhabitants of the valley. He quickly tried to steal her watermelon.

Some of the kids thought stirring the cauldron was really fun. The aroma of root beer filled the air.

After we had eaten as much as we could hold, it was time for the games. I guess I'm still a kid at heart because I volunteered to organize them. Here we are getting ready for the watermelon seed spitting contest. It's not so easy with seedless watermelons. (Thanks to K. Rountree for this and the next photo.)

The water balloon toss was a huge hit despite the little sprinkle of rain we had right before the dinner. In fact the kids clamored to do the water balloon toss again. So we did it again. And again, until we ran out of balloons.

Finally it was time to clean up. Leftover meat was bagged and sold, chairs and tables taken back to the school, garbage taken to the dumpster, and the floor mopped. It was a good, but tiring day. But we saved enough energy to head out to the dance and dance the night away.

Adventures at Whipple Cave

Over the weekend I went to Whipple Cave in the Egan Mountains of Nevada to teach a cave rescue class. Earlier in the summer I went to Indiana to teach cave rescue as part of a National Cave Rescue Commission class. This class was on a much smaller scale, with members of the Southern Nevada Grotto and local firefighters attending.

We reached the cave via a short trail and started practicing various techniques right at the entrance, where a 60-foot drop leads into the cave (you need at least 80 feet of rope, though, in order to reach the anchors). 

We were having record high temperatures this weekend, so about in the middle of the day we decided it was too hot to stay outside. So we rappelled into the cave with enough gear to do our practice sessions inside the cave.

Here's the entrance of Whipple Cave looking up from the bottom of the pit. There are actually two holes, separated by a natural arch. The rappel is mainly against the rock wall, except for the last fifteen feet, which is free. 

I didn't take all that many photos during the weekend because I was concentrating on what we were doing, but I did manage a few.

The outstanding feature in Whipple Cave is this enormous column near the back of the cave. To get there you have to cross a boulder field and go through the keyhole, which involves squeezing through a hole and then jumping across a deep crack onto a boulder.

We found several good pits right in that area to do some vertical practice.

Here's Ben ready to haul our patient out of the pit.

Bill and Tom are doing a safety check on the system.

Micah sees that Ben is pulling plenty hard so he can just tend rope.

And up comes our patient, enjoying the smooth ride. After we did a few practices, we took out the litter and backboard.

Our cooperative patient even stood up and moved right where we wanted him with the Oregon Spine Splint attached.

Then he got buckled into the Sked litter before taking a ride through the keyhole. Now we know we can do it--although it would be better to have a lot more people to help. One thing that became apparent during all the practice was that if someone got hurt at the back of the cave, it would take a lot of people--15 to 20 would be nice--to get a patient out in a reasonable amount of time (8-10 hours). 

I always recommend that people who go caving take at least a basic rescue class. It certainly makes you cave a little safer if you realize what it will take to get you out of a cave if you get hurt.

Back at the entrance we climbed out of the cave, packed up gear, and headed home or to a campsite for the night.

The next morning we got back together and reviewed what we had done the day before. I challenged the class to set up a haul/lower system, belay, and attendant line in 20 minutes at the cave entrance. They managed to do it in about 30 minutes. Then we went on to practice counterbalances and some basic rope climbing skills down in the cave. 

Another group was visiting the cave, so we had to use some different anchors than we had the day before. We found that one worked better for doing a haul, so it was good to be forced to think outside the box.

The other group had started climbing out before we did, but they were using some primitive climbing gear, so it didn't take long for our group to pass them. We had nearly all the gear put away and were getting ready to go back to the trucks when we heard a call for help from down in the pit.

One of the guys had climbed a few feet off the ground, but he couldn't go up or down and was exhausted. At first we thought it was a joke, but when we took a better look at him, we realized he was seriously stuck. He was drenched in sweat and so tired he couldn't help himself at all. He had a buddy down below him, and their wives and kids were up near the top. They wanted the wives and kids to start pulling on the rope to help him get up. 

We said we would be happy to assist, and quickly rigged up a haul system, and created a belay and edge attendant lines. Earlier in the day it had taken 30 minutes to do this. Now, after a little more practice and in a for real situation, it only took about 10 minutes. Ten minutes later we had the man out of the pit.

I'm glad it all turned out well. I don't think the man will be rappelling into another cave anytime soon--or anytime again for that matter. He was quite spooked by the incident, and he realized that if we weren't there he could have been in serious trouble. It's very dangerous to dangle in a harness because you start losing circulation to your legs, and that can lead to life-threatening injuries.

We all learned a lot during the weekend, too. This was a sharp class, and they learned fast. Now we need to keep practicing those skills so we stay fresh and ready for the next incident.