I-15 and the Washes of Southern California

A year ago, Mike was making frequent trips to Southern California to assist my cousin Christi with a home repair project.  One week I went with him.

I've always noticed the funny names of the ditches and washes that the freeway crosses through the desert, so I took it upon myself to write them down and create some sort of funny story about the, maybe how they got their names, or something like that.

And then I lost my list.

Then I found it. But lost it again.   And ditto that a few more times. I wanted to keep it. Maybe...

Paper is the bain of my existence!  I have a love/hate relationship with it.  I love paper records and recording things on paper, but sometimes it just gets to be TOO MUCH PAPER, you know?

I found the paper once more and THIS time, I am recording it digitally so I can throw that stupid piece of paper away.

I don't really have time or desire to write a funny story about these names right now.  I'm trying to get ready to move the west side of my house over to the east side of my house in preparation for a major remodel job.  Did I mention we finally have a building permit?  Finally.   Work should proceed beginning Monday, June 29 with a concrete pour of the footings for our addition.

BUT--
Here are the names of the ditches. If you feel so inclined to share your version of how these names came to be, and perhaps compile a delightful piece of fiction or silliness, feel free. Share it in the comments section. ;-)

Turtle Ditch
Moby Ditch
Dock Ditch
Rocky Wash
Bird Ditch
Telephone Wash
Midway Ditch
Cady Wash
Wild Wash
Power Line Wash


That's all the names I found on one particular drive.  Maybe they are still there, maybe not.  But the names are now saved so I can throw away this silly piece of paper!

https://meganedwards.com/2017/05/22/ditches-san-berdoo-county/


Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this way!  See above blog. ha. I think I like Megan Edwards.  The comments are enlightening as well.   SHE found 17 and photographed the signs. And, to be fair, she was just counting "Ditches" in San Bernardino County.  I included "Washes" and "Ditches" anywhere I found them in the desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  If I add up hers with mine, there are 23 names we found. So here are the rest of them:

Calico Ditch
Yermo Ditch
Tono Ditch
Marl Ditch
Opah Ditch
Oat Ditch
Tork Ditch
Case Ditch
Shee Ditch
Dale Ditch
Valley Wells Ditch
Wells Ditch
Clark Mountain Ditch


Again, if you feel so inclined to share your version of how these names came to be, and perhaps compile a delightful piece of fiction or silliness, feel free. Share it in the comments section. ;-)

POST Vacation

It took a while to recuperate from our vacation.

But on June 26, I took the day off work and went with Tandy and Girls and we spend the entire day at Sand Hollow Reservoir!  What a treat. She rented a SeaDoo (Wave runner?) and a tube and they had a lot of fun in the water. I even went out for a spin.  I'm not brave enough to drive it, though.

Long day.

Fun times.

Love this fun family of mine.

<3 p="">
 

Lydia's Canyon, Saturday June 20, 2020

Happy Birthday, Hayden! 

He turned 12, we had birthday pancake breakfast for him that morning and we all fit inside the Lodge!  Well, except I forgot about Matt and Eric, so they missed the first part.  And Casey wasn't there yet, but he was busy packing up and never eats breakfast anyway.  But MOST of us showed up.  We had pancakes, but no bacon. Juice or milk.  We lit candles, sang "Happy Birthday," Hayden blew them out .  Three breaths? Really?  Do kids not know they are supposed to make a wish and blow them out in ONE breath in order for the wishes to come true?!!??

After breakfast, it was

PACKING TIME.

Pack up, move-em out. Breakfast was 9 am and we had to be out by 11 am. It was a rush, I'm telling you!  But we did it.  That's a lot of stuff.  Wowsers. And somehow, I feel like I came home with more food than I left with!  And I think that's true because I did take a lot of dinner leftovers.  Nick and Kaylee took their pork, but I ended up with "Patio Chicken" and Dutch oven potatoes, cooked hot dogs and hamburgers...Salad stuff..  Lots of food.  We won't go hungry, that's for sure.

And we didnt' while we were there in Lydia's Canyon.  Everyone was so generous with their  Costco -s ized portions of snacks and treats, people brought desserts to share, made generous dinners. It all worked out so well.  I'd love to do this again sometime!

Thanks for coming, kids!  It was a blast. 

And then we napped. ;-)

 Katie and her family didn't head right home. They went to St. George to spend more time with Casey's brothers (well, at Lake Powell for the rest of the weekend first!), then in Cedar with his Mom and brothers.

 And they watched a ball game of one the cousins from Casey's family, too. Corbin seemed to "Go Missing" for a bit. Those silly kids sent the sillies texts back and forth. The photo above does NOT include Corbine at my house with the rest of his family because he went back to St. George with his uncle while the rest of the family came to pick up Caillou from our house. We dog - sat while they all went out to eat with Michelle (Casey's Mom).

And, Tandy's family is here. The girls, anyway. Damian flew home early Saturday to go back to work.  Scarey stuff. COVID-19 is still increasing in San Antonio...we do worry about him.
Braeden went o Wisconsin to visit a friend. And three other friends are there, too!  So there are 5 boys all staying with the host family who used to live in San Antonio and they are having a blast! Cute boys.

Lydia's Canyon, Friday June 19, 2020

Nick with Jane and Logan. They are early-birds!

We decided to take a day trip, all wearing our "Disney Family Vacation 2020" shirts that Kaylee designed for us, and go to Bryce. Or to Red Canyon. Or something. We saw both and parts of some, we did a hike, we lost Mike, there was no cell service, we waited around for this person or that person.

BUT

We did have a nice day together.  Mike drove to Cedar to return the water rentals equipment and "Rattle Some Cages" about our building permit that STILL has not been issued by that day. Grrrr.  Should have been done way earlier in the week. So he went. We told him to meet us in Red Canyon campground where we would have a picnic lunch. Only it took us a  very long time to leave our places, and even longer to meet up.  Eventually ALL the grandkids with their parents ended up at a trailhead just outside of Bryce Canyon, so we got one good photo of them. Then, without cell service, it was hard to keep together and find Mike.

But most of us ended up going where we wanted. Damian and Tandy wanted to show their kids a Bryce Canyon hike, they had a parks pass, so they went on to do the Queen's trail in Bryce Canyon. The rest of headed to Red Canyon for the picnic.  After a potty stop and a drink stop and  . . .  and . ..  it was a small miracle that we ended up together.  Mike eventually found us, Damian's family eventually returned, but not until after another group went on a supposedly small hike nearby our picnic area and took quite a while to return. 

We did have Tandy take a whole bunch of shots with her fancy-schmancy camera she can operate remotely from her phone.   We're all there!  We're in it! We're all in our matching Disney shirts!  Not everyone was happy or looking, but it's the best we can do.  And I'll have to wait for that one since it's not on my phone camera.  But I'll share what I have.

Kaylee's reading to  Rachel in the early morning sunshine. It's such a comfy place!

Ella mulling over her Rice Krispies.

Nick's family at Bryce

Katie's family at  Bryce

Gail's family at Bryce

Damian's family at Bryce

All TWELVE grandkids at Bryce!

Front row, left to right:
Corbin Rossman, Hailey  Rossman, Quintin Rossman, Rachel Liebhardt, Hayden Rossman, Jane Liebhardt, Logan Liebhardt.
Back Row, left to right:
Lexi Liebhardt, Caroline Owens, Jonathan Owens, Ella Liebhardt, Braeden Liebhardt.

We decided to take a day trip, all wearing our "Disney Family Vacation 2020" shirts that Kaylee designed for us, and go to Bryce. Or to Red Canyon. Or something. We saw both and parts of some, we did a hike, we lost Mike, there was no cell service, we waited around for this person or that person.

BUT

We did have a nice day together.  Mostly.  ;-) 

Mike drove to Cedar to return the water rentals equipment and "Rattle Some Cages" about our building permit that STILL has not been issued by that day. Grrrr.  Should have been done way earlier in the week. So he went. We told him to meet us in Red Canyon campground where we would have a picnic lunch. Only it took us a  very long time to leave our places, and even longer to meet up.  Eventually ALL the grandkids with their parents ended up at a trailhead just outside of Bryce Canyon, so we got one good photo of them. Then, without cell service, it was hard to keep together and find Mike. Poor guy spent a lot of time looking, waiting, attempting to contact us, but with very little and mostly delayed responses.

But most of us ended up going where we wanted. Damian and Tandy wanted to show their kids a Bryce Canyon hike, they had a parks pass, so they went on to do the Queen's trail in Bryce Canyon. The rest of headed to Red Canyon for the picnic.  After a potty stop and a drink stop and  . . .  and . ..  it was a small miracle that we ended up together.  Mike eventually found us, Damian's family eventually returned, but not until after another group went on a supposedly small hike nearby our picnic area and took quite a while to return. 

We did have Tandy take a whole bunch of shots with her fancy-schmancy camera she can operate remotely from her phone.   We're all there!  We're in it! We're all in our matching Disney shirts!  Not everyone was happy or looking, but it's the best we can do.  And I'll have to wait for that one since it's not on my phone camera.  But I'll share what I do have.

MommaLinda with Damian, Gail, (me) Eric, Nick, Katie

Here was the Day Use area at Red Canyon. Tall Ponderosa Pines, picnic tables and we had the whole place to ourselves.

The large fallen log was a major attraction for the 5 and under set.

Seth grilled us some more hot dogs and hamburgers.

Walking on the log. Hailey in front with the big hat, Quintin and Logan.

Hayden and Corbin playing with San, Matt and Eric's puppy.

I went for a little walk up the back of the campground, up the hill, seeking cell service to see if I could find Mike. I found this cool ampitheater.

These are our Pine Cone Piker-upper Champions. They were bored. I gave them a task. Ella, Hayden, Jonny.

I didn't zoom in on this, but Logan learned how to pee outside. He neglected to find a tree, however. He'll get it eventually.

Rachel!  She loves outdoors, dirt, mud, pinecones and sand.

Mikey. Just enjoying the down time when he finally found us.

Everyone is heading to the trees!  Why? What is up there in that tree?

Um, its Braeden. About 35 to 40 feet up in the Ponderosa. He's quite the climber.

And these two have very matching blue BLUE eyes. (and a little dirt on the side)

We were trying to help tandy get her camera's lighting set. For when and if the others every came back from their hike.

 The hikers were Nick (carrying Jane in a back pack), Katie, Hailey, Corbin, Matt,  Eric and San.

And see? Aren't the hikers the most tired? Jane just sat there on Nick's lap on the porch for such a long time.

Logan pushing the porch swing. Even with no riders, it's still fun.

Mike, Tandy, Braeden

Jane, Kaylee, me with bobble head band.

A very worn-out Mike.

Matt and Eric had a great Chinese dish for us for our (late) dinner. Firecracker Chicken and fried rice. It was worth waiting for.  And Eric had a great thought to share with us before we headed off to bed. It was about social justice in these trying times of racial INjustice all across America. Riots. Bad news. But he shared happy, uplifting thoughts about loving our neighbors and all people of color, trying to be part of the solution.

We didn't even have time for very many games, but SOME games were played!  Very noisily, I might add.  It was rather comical. And we had fun, and that was the whole point, right?

Gather, Celebrate, Love, Enjoy.  We did.  And we were all so tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, us old ones sure were.

Lydia's Canyon, June 18, 2020

This was our "Lake Powell Day." 
Log day in the sun!  So fun.  I'd rented paddle boards (picked them up in Cedar City on Wednesday afternoon, and Corbin was kind enough to come along for the ride with me. We got 3 stand up paddle boards and three inflatable Kayaks.
We went to Lone Rock Beach. Nick's family and Gail's family both brought shade. We all packed our lunches that morning before heading out (sandwiches, chips and drinks).
The adventures began as we attempted to get down close to the water. The sand was so deep!
Nick's car (mini van) got stuck!
We had to all try to push him out and Seth ended up towing him.  Same thing on the way back out. Deep sand is hard to drive in.  We took no photos of all the drama of getting un-stuck from the sand, as we were all busy trying to decide just how to do it.
But we did.  Or, THEY did.  Then Mike and Seth wanted to go about and pull out others who were stuck, too.  But we asked that they please bring us and our stuff to the beach and we found a spot, surprisingly enough.  The vehicles and shade and trailers were about three deep from the shore.
So many people!   And so many kids. It's hard to keep track of the littles!  But we all ended up having fun, not getting too many sunburns (Casey's face was red), had rides on kayaks and boards and had fun, safe time.  We were grateful for the safe time.  Katie's family was supposed to do dinner back at Lydia's canyon that night, but we still had so much leftovers from the other three dinners that we just ate those instead.  It was like a buffet. Katie's family didn't provide an activity for that evening, but we were all so tired that by the time everyone was bathed and fed, it was definitely time for bed!

Here are some photos for your enjoyment. I will add more when others share them with me from their cameras.

Kaylee with Rachel

Casey with Hayden

Jonathan and Corbin

Quintin

Just a nice overall shot of "The Gang". Eric and Matt joined us on Wednesday night during the movie. The brought San.

Jane, Kaylee, Logan

Casey on one of the kayaks.

Caroline, Seth, Alexa

Eric, Hailey and Quintin with San the Puppy

Mike enjoying the shade.

C & L with Matt and Casey playing "Ladder Ball"

Pretty red rock mountains.  But usually you can see a long way. There was a BIG forest fire at the Grand Canyon and the smoke was really awful. It seemed to be overcast at the lake because of it.

But eventually the air did clear and the skies were blue and the mountains and mesas were gorgeous.