Thanksgiving 2019

In a slight change from tradition we were actually at our own home for Thanksgiving this year. The Reno families joined us for a cooperative feast. (Mostly everyone else cooked and I enjoyed) 

The cooks 

The carvers

Almost ready

The Feast

Our weather was stormy all weekend, but there was a short break in the storms Friday afternoon so we gathered the gang and went Christmas tree chopping.

Once the trees were safely gathered we had some sledding time.

Traditions observed

Baja Sur

We decided to try a new location for our Mexico vacation this year and chose Cabo San Lucas because it has easy air connections from Reno. 
 We rented a lovely home that wasn't really within walking distance of anywhere, so we didn't enjoy evening strolls to dinner. This is the view from the bedroom window

Our first outing was to Todos Santos about an hour up the Pacific side of Baja. This is becoming something of an artist colony and it was fun to wander around the town. We peaked in at the Iglesia Mission Todoa Santos  

Wandered in to the Hotel Califonia, which was NOT the inspiration for the Eagles song but enjoys the fame.

It had an interesting lobby

We had lunch in a lovely garden restaurant.

I ordered a Shrimp Caesar which had an interesting presentaion, but was quite tasty.

On the way back we spent a little time at Cerritos beach which was large, not crowded and quite lovely.

Another day we visited the sister city of San Jose del Cabo. There was some kind of traffic blockade to the main road, but we managed to wander around on a few dirt roads with Google maps assistance and ended up right where we wanted to be on the town square.

The weather was a little rainy during the week so we planned a tour on our last day, which was a nice sunny day.  We thought we were taking a kayak/snorkel cruise, but it turned out it was just a typical "booze cruise." Partying seems to be the major draw here. 

We sailed past the famous arch and documented it well. Then motored to a mediocre snorkel spot and motored back

 It was an interesting place to visit once, but I don't see a return trip in our future.

Halloween 2019 Reno

I love having grandkids around to share the holdiays.  We had a couple of gatherings for Halloween this year.  The ward Trunk or Treat was October 24th.  We combined two wards this year and it was a pretty big event.  In the excitement only a few pictures were taken and I never managed to get Peter's family all in the same place at the same time.

A couple of days later we had a pumkin carving party at our house with our home grown pumkins.

Fun!

Around St. George

St. George is a great jumping off spot for visiting National Parks, but there are some fun things to do around town.  We went to Sand Hollow State Park thinking we might kayak in the reservoir, but when we got there there was a warning that "swimmer's itch" was active.  I'm not sure what that is, but I didn't really want to find out, so we rented a canoe instead of a kayak.  The canoe paddled more like a bath tub that a canoe, but it was a nice day and the surroundings were pretty in a barren kind of way.

We went to Tuacan theater one evening for a show. We saw "Little Mermaid" which was done well, but the best part was sitting in the spectacular outdoor amphitheater. 

We took a walking tour around historic St George and toured Brigham Young's Winter Home.

On our walk we saw an advertisement for the St. George Musical theater and went to their performance of "The Spitfire Grill"

We saw lots and lots of petroglyphs, but that is a topic for another post.

North Rim of Grand Canyon and Snow Canyon

Our first day in St. George was kind of stormy so we decided it was a good day to make a car trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We had been there before, but I'm not really sure when.  I remember it being cold and snowy the day we visited.  This year it was windy.  We stopped a scenic viewpoint for the Grand Staircase on the way and the view was just spectacular, but it was so windy I couldn't hold the phone still enough to take a clear picture.

The explanation of the view was equally pretty

We took lots of pictures and the Grand Canyon, but photos just don't do it justice...

and it was very windy.

The next day we stayed closer to home and explored Snow Canyon State Park. There are a dozen hiking trails in the park but we just explored three of them. We started with the Hidden Pinyon nature walk. Wandering along a trail until we found the "hidden pinyon" behind Calvin.

Then we took a very short walk to Jenny's Canyon, a slot canyon.

 Another day Calvin rode his mountain bike and I hiked Johnson's Canyon to a very impressive red wall that ended the hike.

I was so intent on watching the trail that I almost missed this very impressive 200 foot arch. Sadly you could only view it from the trail, not hike up to it.