And just like that, he's nine!

Happy Birthday Skyler!!!

This year is a birthday unlike none other I'm afraid.  Mommy had a party all planned and shopped for.  Maybe it will happen later in the year.

Hiking final.

Gate to the Anaconda mine.  Cameras everywhere, don't even think of trying to explore any further.

Slag pile.

Former road on the slag pile.

Bottom of the slag pile.  People are terrible.  There's a car down there!

Wildflowers were starting to bloom.

Hiking, continued.

Turkeys!  There must have been 25-30 of them!

Trekking along.

Photo opportunity.  Great Salt Lake was much fuller than last year.

Another view of the lake.

What?!?  The drain tunnel for the now abandoned Anaconda mine.  No more water coming out.  Note the velocity blocks to slow the water.

Deep and dark.

This was disturbing.  Skyler wanted Mommy to shine her light on her phone into the tunnel.  She did and saw the reflections of the eyes of a mountain lion inside!!  We quickly left the tunnel!

Another tunnel drain.

Look how old the concrete is!

Info at the trailhead about the former smelter.

The last few pics tomorrow...

Hiking in the Oquirh Mountains.

We headed around to the Tooele side of the Oquirh mountains to hike yesterday.  No one else around!

Starting out.  The grass is greening up nicely.

Looking for bugs.

A lone conifer among the scrub oak.

Remnants of a head hoist and mine shaft.

Looking across the Tooele valley.

Looking east.  Great clouds yesterday.

More tomorrow...

"I want to build my own house".

Since that isn't going to happen for a while, he settled on an empty compost bin.

Happy.

Lots of this!

Celebrity status?

Skyler made the school's Instagram page yesterday!

From 2 years ago.  Sigh.  I can't believe how much I miss the normal school routine.

"Hello?"

The cat has been enjoying the Spring weather by sitting in the open window of Skyler's room.  Skyler thought it would be fun to go outside and say hi to the cat.

Poor old 17 year old cat!  Skyler absolutely adores him.

Virtual take your child to work week.

Mommy's work has put together some really great live online Zoom meetings for kids this week.  Monday was all about the James Webb telescope, yesterday was talk to an astronaut!

In the dog house.

We dropped by the the girls' house Sunday since it was Whitney's birthday.  Skyler got to play with Dakota,  their new puppy.  He got IN her dog house!

Silly!

 

Our one day a week escape.

We headed back out to Butterfield Canyon Saturday to hike.  Lots of people on the road, hardly any where we were.  It was much needed.  This is almost like (what I assume) being in jail feels like.

View looking east from a bluff.


Survey marker on the bluff.


Looking west from the bluff.


The dog and the boy.


Cooling in the stream!


My Bob Ross moment.


Hard to see, but there were TONS of people walking the road below.  We were on a high pressure natural gas pipeline right of way.  No one else around us.


Ominous clouds were rolling in. Time to head back.


In the woods on a different trail on the way back.

Junior Ranger Day!

It's National Park week!  Yesterday was Junior Ranger Day and Skyler participated with a Facebook live ranger talk from Dinosaur National Monument.

Ranger Tiff talking about "what is a dinosaur".

Happy dog!

Especially now that the weather is better.

She still gets too hot in the sun.  Has to rest in the shade with her toy.

Some color for your Friday.

Washington has numerous tulip farms and tulip festivals.  The festivals are all cancelled due to the damn virus.  Enjoy these pics I lifted from AgTalk.

Radio control!

In an attempt to entice him to do his schoolwork,  I got out my Tamiya R/C monster truck Sunday afternoon and got it going again.  Skyler was SO good Monday and so excited to run it.  Too bad it's been going all downhill since!

He picked up how to run it quickly!

Time marches on somehow.

Today would have been my Mom's 72nd birthday.  I think of her every day.

I cut some tulips from our yard (that Mom gave us when we first moved in) to place next to the flowers Dad had placed.

Get out of the house!

After he got to see Grandpa Saturday, we headed out to Butterfield Canyon to hike.  Much needed exercise and fresh air.

Lower canyon.  Juniper trees and sagebrush.


Looking north to the mine.


East view of the valley below.


The now unused BLM wild burrow center.


Natural gas pipeline right of way.  We're headed back to walk it next.

704 feet of elevation climbed.  It felt great!


Overburden piles from over 100 years of mining.


At the top!  Ironically, Kennecott has an air quality monitoring station here.  From the company that burns 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel an hour 24 hours a day!