Road trip to the Brown Family Reunion 2017

Calvin and I drove to the Brown Family Reunion in July. We have driven across Nevada many times, but this time we had a new entertainment to help us pass the miles.  We bought the newest edition of Roadside Geology of Nevada and enjoyed geologic formations all the way to Utah.

Here is a little hillside that I have driven by countless times. It is right on the old road around the Carlin tunnels.  This is an angular unconformity.  The purplish vertical layers are the 320 million year old Tonka formation.  The gray/tan rock is the Strathearn formation aged 280 million years.  So there is a 50 million year gap in the geologic records here.

 After a night in Salt Lake and a quick trip to the Family History Library we headed toward Bear Lake.  This is a trip I have made many times, but not recently.  We stopped at Maddox Cafe, a traditional stopping point between Salt Lake and Logan.

Calvin and I ate here the summer of 1977.  The restaurant is huge now and doing a land office business.  Calvin estimated that they had served about a quarter of million meals there.

 We arrived safely in Liberty for the reunion and met cousins old and new. This is a reunion of the descendants of my great grandparents, Charles H. and Julia Ferguson Brown.  I think the last time I attended was in 1972.

We had a pancake breakfast and a short program and them adjourned to the cemetery for dancing.  This is a conga line through the family graves.  We also did the Virginia Reel, but I made Calvin dance that with me so I don't have any pictures.

The line made a turn at my Mom's headstone.

This is my grandparents home.  Julie and John have a done a remarkable job of lovingly restoring it and making it a welcome place for all comers.

The have included many historical items in their remodel.  I was surprised to see this plate.  The is part of the Melmac dinnerware that we used every day when I was growing up.  I remember looking at that scene many times and wondering where the road went.  I still wonder.

Across the lane is my great grandparent's house.  Actually we discovered that this house was built in 1910.  Most of their children were married and had homes of their own by then.  I wonder what the original house looked like.

After the formal reunion we spent the late afternoon at Bear Lake.  It was way more crowded than it used to be!  We ended up going around to the east shore because we couldn't find a place to park at the north shore where we always used to go.  I still think it is a beautiful place.

We got back to the ranch just in time to catch a beautiful sunset.

This valley is still one of my favorite places on the planet.

Pictures trapped in the phone

We have been busy the past few weeks doing a lot of little things, so this is a jumble of pictures from the last few weeks.

On the way home from our Yampa River trip Calvin took a detour into southern Oregon on his bike.  It was not a particularly short detour, 400+ miles, but I only have pictures from the beginning of the trip.  It was a grand adventure and he'll have to tell you about it some time.

 Ready

Set

Go

We start riding the big bikes early in this family

Shortly after Calvin got home I flew to Virginia to help Sarah fly cross country to Reno with the kids while Toby and his dad drove.  The last night in Virginia we walked to a pizza place for dinner and the kids posed for pictures.

The kids were really good on the trip, but wrangling 3 little kids is never easy. They have a lot of energy.

The Bordelons stayed with us for a few days while waiting for their furniture to arrive.  They were moved in by the 4th of July and came back to our house to celebrate the holiday.

It is fun to have them close enough to get together for an evening in the park.  What a joy it is to me.

The other event that has been looming large on our horizon is Calvin's hike on the John Muir Trail.  After months of preparation he has packed his food for the food drops...

packed his pack (more than once)

and taken off for his grand adventure.