Social distancing 2020

I thought I would share a few thoughts at two weeks into our experience with the COVID 19 pandemic.

The panic shopping seems to have eased a bit, but I am still surprised at some of the items missing from grocery store shelves. Fresh produce is readily available, but the pasta shelves are bare. Milk seems to be in good supply but there are no eggs.  Sugar and flour are in short supply. Meat counters are full but chicken and ground beef are scarce. Most interesting to me is that the mayonaise shelf was bare.

At our house life goes on pretty much as usual. Since I don't have any committments on my time I started the ever looming project of organizing 40+ years of unfiled photographs.  My study looks like a hurricane has hit, but I'm actually making some progress on the project. 

 The message here is that we have had WHOLE LOT OF FUN in our family over the years.

Beyond the house walking is still open to us.  Calvin and I have taken several walks along the Truckee and in the Truckee River Canyon.

It looks pretty wintery here still, but we have hopes for warmer weather next week. Other days I take my usual walk around Virginia Lake.  This is what social distancing looks like there, but that is pretty much what it look like all the time.

The only diffrence now is that there is a sign stating that the playground is closed, which gets some compliance, but not total.

RootsTech 2020

In February I attended my 10th RootsTech Conference. As usual, it was a great experience and I learned so many new things.  It is always a bit of a mob...

and this year with the Corona Virus concerns it seemed like a perfect breeding ground, but I carefully followed instructions (posted everywhere)

 and managed to come home without any new germs. I attend classes from 8 am to 5pm, but managed to get outside a couple of times during the lunch hour.  I was interested to see what was happening on Temple Square. The temple looks just the same from the east (my favorite view)

but the entire southeast quadrant is a construction pit now. This is the view looking west

and this is the view looking east

There was scaffolding on the south side and missing windows.

The Tabernacle and Assembly Hall were still open but the rest is a major construction zone.

I got to go to the Church History Museums exhibit on Women's suffrage in Utah. 

Wyoming territory gave women the right to vote in December 1869, but Utah women were the first to actually cast a vote in a United States election on August 1, 1870. I looked at my family tree and it appears that only Lucy Nutting Ferguson and her daughter Julia Ferguson Brown would have been able to vote. I hope they did! My other grandmothers were born in foreign countries and so wouldn't have been citizens. Women lost the right to vote in Utah in 1887 when the Edmonds-Tucker Act disenfranchised all women.

And that is your history lesson for today

Grizzly Island and Suisun Slough

Last week we went looking for some warmer weather and found it near Fairfield, California. Looking for something to do in the warm weather we discovered that you can kayak in the Suisun Slough, so we loaded up the kayak and ventured off.

The slough runs into the Grizzly Island Wildlife area, so we started there.  It turned out that they don't allow boat launching in the wildlife area and it was too windy to paddle happily anyway, so we took a walk from parking lot 3 instead.

We took a delightful walk along a slough.

Calvin spotted a swimming raccoon.  I can't verify that it was a raccoon, but it definitely was swimming.

We also saw a heard of tule elk, but they were too far into the protected area to get a good photo.

After our walk Calvin decided if he couldn't paddle he would pedal.This is one of his favorite places to ride.

There was a full moon in the evening and I tried once again to take a picture. There is the moon, a streetlight and another odd light, perhaps a UFO

The next day the wind calmed a little and we had a nice two hour paddle on the slough.  I brought our water camera and took pictures for about an hour before I realized it was on some strange setting... so more unusual pictures.

and then a few on a normal setting.

There wasn't a lot to see along the slough, but it was a great way to spend a winter day.

A Superior weekend in February 2020

We got to spend a long weekend with Butch's family a few weeks ago.  We haven't seen them since last August and everyone has suddenly grown up! Fortunately they are all still the same happy fun people they have always been.

We arrived Friday afternoon and Lucy braved the wind to show her skill on a pedal bike. 

 Saturday the boys went skiing while the girls went to the park and had lunch at Chick-fil-A, Lucy's favorite lunch spot.

Sadly not a single photo was taken of the ski outing but it sounded like they had fun.

Sunday after church we had lunch out on their deck enjoying the warm sunshine.

Then we all went for a walk along South Boulder Creek.

It was Groundhog's Day and although the Groundhog may have seen his shadow the prairire dogs along the trail didn't seem concerned about shadows or people for that matter.

When we arrived at the creek the ice at the edges seemed just right for demolition.

 A few posed pictures were taken

 And we headed home for home made pizza and the Superbowl

The next day winter came back and it snowed all day. Fortunately the Denver airport is used to snow, so we made it home right on time.

Maui in January

We planned a trip to Maui in January to get away from the cold, but we didn't quite manage to get away from winter weather, but warm rain beats snow any day.

Calvin booked a snorkel trip with Bluewater Adventure rafting when we planned the trip and although it was a little stormy the rains held off.  In fact as we headed out there was even part of a rainbow visible.

The sea looked a little dark, but we ventured on past La Perouse Bay anyway.

and got up close to some really spectacular rock formations

then we headed for a little calmer water and some snorkeling

We spent some lovely hours just relaxing at our house and hanging out by the pool

These cute little birds are Java sparrows 

We did visit a few other beaches. This beach might have a name, but I don't know what it is.

We drove to Paia one day and while Calvin was riding his bike I hung out at the beach. 

and Makena beach

We got to the airport a little early so we had time to take in some great views of Haleakela. It doesn't really look all that impressive from this point of view

Maui is a great place to spend a week in winter