July 21- August 21, 2008

Monday, July 21, 2008 We drove to Ellis Army Base to tour the Blackhorse OPFOR library. This is the elite Army group who act as the opposing force to train Army and other military units going to Iraq or any other war zone. These guys are the best of the best and train the other units on what to expect and how to combat it. They receive information from the men “in country” and use that information to revise their teaching. Tom Clancy wrote about this group in one of his books. He wrote the book with Tommy Franks, who lost his leg in Cambodia but stayed in the military and showed everyone up at PT even with his prosthesis. Mark has covered the story in his photos. We spent a lot of time in the back rooms of the museum seeing the artifacts not on display. The head of the museum, Neil Morrison, spent a couple of hours with us. When we mentioned that we wanted to tour Goldstone Deep Space Facility, he thought he could get us in even though the tours were full. However, the girl who handles the tours was on vacation so he couldn’t fit us in.

Tuesday, July 22 – Mail came in early this morning. In the afternoon we went into downtown Yermo to mail the mail. Then we took a ride out Ghost Town Road and ended up at Calico Ghost Town. This was started by the developer of Knott’s Berry Farm to authentically recreate all of the silver mines that were in this area in the 1880’s to 1910 or so. We walked through one of the mines. Let me tell you, tunneling through that mountain with hand drills and hand carts to remove the debris was hard work. The only advantage was that the mines were about 76 degrees and the outside temperature was about 110 degrees! We pretty much saw everything we wanted to in an hour…

Wednesday, July 23 – We left Yermo and headed up I15 toward Las Vegas. There is so much desert. So dry. So flat. So hot. We arrived at Las Vegas RV Resort, but there was a little confusion finding it since we THOUGHT we were headed to Holiday Resort. They just changed their sign out front today and there was no sign and no street number. That made it just a little difficult to find! We spent a lot of time watching Hurricane Dolly tear up Port Mansfield. Luckily, we didn’t have too much damage. We lost the T-head part of the pier at 529 North Shore. Home Port has some shingles flapping and we lost a piece of siding. All in all, we did OK for a Category 2 storm that stayed over Port Mansfield for about 8 hours!

Thursday, July 24 – We decided that I probably should go back to Port Aransas while Mark is at Oshkosh. John is tearing his hair out with all of the problems getting Blue Heron finished. Mark went to the Apple Store and had a great time! He upgraded to a new operating system and bought another meg of RAM. I worked on paperwork and called the engineers for Home Port and Blue Heron about 6 times. Still no satisfaction… Same thing on the insurance. How frustrating.

Friday, July 25 - I did paperwork.

Saturday, July 26 – Paperwork and getting ready to leave. We drove down the Strip to see where our next campground is and just to see the lights!

Sunday, July 27 - Left very early to try to catch non-rev flights. Mark to Chicago to go to Oshkosh. Me to fly to Corpus and home for the week.

Monday, July 28 to Sunday, August 3 – Mark in Oshkosh. Me in Port Aransas helping John get the condos finished so we could sell one on July 30. Mark flew back to Las Vegas on Sunday (non-rev) and picked up the car. I flew to Houston. Spent the night at Brian and Kathy’s because Emily was sick. Walkers came over to visit and left Sarah.

BE PREPARED: The following has 272 photos!

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Monday, August 4 – Sean and Ashlyn came to Creighton’s and picked us up to go to the airport. Tried to go swimming, but swimming pool was closed.

With Sarah and Ashlyn, this is what we did for the week:

Tuesday, August 5
We moved the motor home to Circus Circus KOA
We went swimming (to motor home is only a few feet from the pool and playground)
We went to Circus Circus and saw the rides and then watched a couple of circus shows

Wednesday, August 6
We worked on our Hoover Dam project
We went to the pool
We went to Circus Circus to the rides and rode the rides as many times as we wanted to!
We went to Treasure Island to see the pirate show, but it was cancelled due to rain.
We went to Paris! to see the Eiffel Tower and walk around

Thursday, August 7
We filled our Hoover Dam project with water and made a reservoir and saw how the turbines get the water to make electricity.
We went to the pool.
We went to the Venetian and had a gondola ride with Pia (a girl from near Siena, Italy) as our gondolier.
We went to New York! New York! For dinner and to walk around and see New York.
THEN, we went to the “World’s Largest Gift Store” and bought our souvenirs.

Friday, August 8
We went to Hoover Dam and saw a movie about how they made the dam, saw the diversion tunnels and the power plant with the big turbines. Then we went out to the viewing area and saw the dam. It was gigantic and made up of a lot of huge blocks of concrete.
We went to see the Treasure Island Pirate Show and this time we got to see it! Sarah and Ashlyn thought it was awesome!

Saturday, August 9
We made sleeping bags for the monkeys. We put each monkey’s name on her sleeping bag.
We went to the pool.
We tried to take a nap.
We went to see “O” Cirque de Soleil at the Bellagio.
After the show we watched the beautiful fountains TWO times.

Sunday, August 10
We slept really late.
We went to the pool.
We went to Madame Tussaud’s to see the wax figures. We took lots of pictures. Ashlyn says it was cool!

Monday, August 11
We expect to:
Go to Circus Circus again for the rides
Swim at the Mirage with the Clarks
Go to the Mirage Buffet for dinner
Walk through Caesar’s Palace to see the talking statures

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Tuesday, August 12
Sarah and Ashlyn and I flew to Houston. Sean picked both girls up and drove Sarah to meet Heather. I just got back on a plane and flew back to Las Vegas.

Wednesday, August 13 – We got organized again and made plans for the coming weeks. Talked to Bob Clark who left to drive back to Port Aransas with Harrison.

Thursday, August 14 – We took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon. It was an EcoStar 320 and sitting inside it was like sitting in a glass room! The pilot sat in the left front seat and there were 2 paying passengers along side of him in the front. In the back were 4 people in a row. Everyone had a good view. We took off from the general aviation airport in Las Vegas and flew part of the way down the strip. Then we headed off toward the Hoover Dam. Flew over it and the new bridge they are building so that they can stop vehicle traffic from going over the Dam itself. We entered the Grand Canyon and flew down the river to the right side of the middle. The Hualapai Indians own from the middle of the river to the south. The National Park Service has jurisdiction from the middle of the river north. The Hualapai Indians charge an entrance fee for each person and then allow the helicopters to fly in and land about 300’ above the Colorado River and 6000’ below the canyon rim! The helicopter company has a picnic area set up with camouflage netting over top for shade. They have picnic tables set and each copter carries in a try of veggies and dressing, croissant sandwiches, sodas, water, champagne and plastic glasses and plates. It was a really nice little picnic. Then we all walked around and took our photos. We flew out via a different route and flew back over Meadview. The town of Meadview was laid out with streets and lots for houses in the 1940’s. The war was over and people were looking for a place to build their dream house. Transportation was still inconvenient for most people and the lots were sold sight unseen to people who thought they were buying a lot right on Lake Mead. The town is definitely in the middle of nowhere. There are NO stores, NO services. They do have electric and water and some kind of sewer service. There is no way to get down to Lake Mead. However, it is becoming a retirement area for people from the north who like the milder winter weather in Arizona. When we came back to Las Vegas we flew over the strip and took lots of good pictures. Landed and went back to our motor home.

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Friday, August 15 – We left Las Vegas and the 112 degree weather behind and just headed north. We stopped when we got to Fillmore, Utah. We knew we were far enough north when the air conditioners actually shut off for a while!

Saturday, August 16 – We drove on to Provo, Utah. I got the mail so that took care of the rest of the day!

Sunday, August 17 – We went to Church at a Latter Day Saints (Mormon) church. Interesting service… The four hymns were very slow and sleepy. There is not a sermon by a pastor but instead members of the congregation talk for about 15 minutes each about their life and their thoughts and how their religion has affected their life. We drove up one of the canyons past a nice waterfall with a nice park. Then we drove on to Heber City. Nice drive.

Monday, August 18 – We stayed again in Provo and drove to nearby Orem to see the Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibit. A company in Italy has taken Da Vinci’s drawings and made working models from them. There was one drawing that a model could NOT be made of – it simply would not work. It was all VERY interesting. especially since we are currently listening to “Leonardo Da Vinci – The First Scientist”!

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Tuesday, August 19 – HEATHER’S BIRTHDAY Today we drove all the way up to Salt Lake City. (About another 60 miles!) After we parked the motor home we drove west out toward Magna and Copperton to see the world’s largest open pit copper mine. In the 1850’s the Bingham family was farming in the area and found copper, gold and silver. They told Brigham Young (no relation to them) about it and he told them to ignore the minerals and instead concentrate on growing food for the huge number of people coming into the Salt Lake area. They did as they were told. Then about 10 years later someone else came on to the land and “discovered” the minerals. They mined them and as word got out LOTS more miners came. About 1900 a mining engineer came to the site and thought that he had a way to get the scattered minerals out of the ground in an economical way. (The minerals got into the rocks when veins of copper, silver, gold and a few other things forced their way through the rock. Then the steam and water filtering through the rocks took small particles of the minerals and scattered them throughout the rock. The concentration of copper in this rock is about 1%. In order to recover it economically there had to be a process where they could take out ALL of the rock, crush it, recover the copper and dispose of the left over rock. They decided that the only way to do that was not with underground mines but by making an open pit. There are veins of copper, etc. that the engineers have located by taking core samples. The non-mineral bearing overburden is removed, loaded into trucks and trucked away. The rock that contains at least 1% copper is loaded into trucks and taken to the ore crusher inside of the pit itself. This rock is crushed to soccer ball size and transported by a series of 3 conveyor belts 5 miles through the mountain (in a tunnel) to a stockpile on the other side of the mountain. This rock is crushed again and again until it is as fine as face powder. It goes to the smelter and is mixed with water and chemicals and sloshed around. The copper binds with the air bubbles on the surface. The surface bubbles are removed and are dried. The dried granules are 85% pure copper. They are further refined until there is a slab of copper that is 99.5% pure. (The slosh from the first process is sent back to the “slosher” to be processed again to get any copper that may have been hiding.) This slab then goes to the refinery where the slab is “hung” on a rack in water with a stainless steel plate on either side. The water is electrolyzed to send the copper particles from the slab onto the stainless steel plates. The copper removed from the stainless steel plates is 99.9% pure and ready to be shipped to the end users. The copper mine is now owned by Rio Tinto Corp which is the same Corp that owned the Boron Mine we went to in Boron, California, on the way to Barstow. The Visitor’s Center was first class with lots of very good information and displays.

Wednesday, August 20 – FAITH’S BIRTHDAY We drove east to drive up the Little Cottonwood Canyon and then the Big Cottonwood Canyon. The Little Cottonwood Canyon goes past two HUGE ski resorts and ends at the second one, Alta. The ride was really beautiful. We could see so many ski runs and ski lifts. In the town of Alta the road ends, but there is a tourist information booth at the end of the paved road where a representative asks you “if you know where you are going” and gives you information about the unpaved 3 mile road ahead. There are lots of hiking trails and beautiful flowers and pretty mountains. We THINK that the unpaved road itself is the ski slope in the winter time. We drove back down the same road to the Snowbird ski resort for lunch and marveled at the way the ski resorts have turned themselves into summer destinations for people to come out in the summer, take a tram ride, climb the rock climbing wall, jump on the jumpolenes, shop in the shops, etc.

Then we drove up to the Big Cottonwood Canyon to where it ended at another ski resort. This one is not as sophisticated as the other two but they are working on it. We decided to try a side road over to Park City where some of the Olympics were held. It turned out to be unpaved for quite a while, but it wasn’t too bad. From the dirt road we came to a huge construction site with TWO huge tower cranes. They have built a 4-lane road from the resort up to the top of the mountain where there are ski slopes. They are building a 20 story condo time share for the ski resort. We thought we were in the middle of nowhere, but we were actually on the far end of the beginning of somewhere. As we traveled further we came to other apartments, houses, condos that must be the living quarters for those who want to use the ski slopes. We never saw any ski slopes or lifts, but they HAVE to be there for that many people! We drove through Park City and then back to Salt Lake on I-80.

We drove around downtown Salt Lake for a while looking at the city again. We spent some time here in 2002 and saw everything downtown then.

Thursday, August 21 – Left Salt Lake City and headed to Montpellier, ID. However, we decided to stop and leave the motor home at a Pilot Truck Stop and just take the car and go to Promontory Point to see where the Transcontinental Railroad lines were joined. It is really 20 miles from anywhere! The site is the Golden Spike National Historic Site run by the National Park Service. The visitor center and the movie were so-so. But, some of the displays were quite informative. Outside of the visitor center are the railroad tracks with a recreation of the special railroad tie and the commemorative spikes. Also, there are faithful recreations of the two locomotives that were actually at the ceremony linking the two railroad lines on May 10, 1869. In 1900-1904 the railroad began a major improvement campaign to remove 12,000 degrees of curves, 45 miles of track and the uphill climb through the Promontory Pass. These improvements detoured around Promontory Summit and that line was used only for local traffic. In the early 1940’s the unused track was taken up and reused for the war effort. SO, the track we are looking at here with the recreated railroad tie and the recreated spikes and the recreated plaque and recreated locomotives is hopefully in the correct place. It is so interesting that the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific had already passed each other building their track. They ran parallel tracks for 250 miles! However, finally, in April, 1869, the government forced the two railroads to negotiate a place for the rails to meet. They chose Promontory Point and set up the joining date as May 8, 1869. However, Durant’s train on the Union Pacific line was held up for two days, so the actual ceremony was held on May 10, 1869. The museum in Sacramento, CA, was the best museum we have been in to tell the Intercontinental Railroad story. This was still a great place to visit. We got to see the original rail beds and the parallel rail beds of the two lines. “The Big Fill” was visible. It was where the Union Pacific decided to fill in the space between two hills while the Central Pacific decided to build a trestle bridge across the same area. The Big Fill took 500 men two months using hand carts to fill in the space. Incredible.

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Since we didn’t get as far as we intended, we just went to a different KOA in Bingham City instead of continuing on to Montpellier, Idaho! We don’t want to travel too many miles in any one day!