New Mexico again

Sorry this took so long to get posted. I seem to have had an incentive problem lately. Probably comes from getting back to work after vacation. Anyway, I just wanted to post a few more pictures of our New Mexico trip for you. On Thursday the 5th, I borrowed Popper's Jeep Wrangler and went across the valley and into the mountains to the west to see what the "Who told you about the Falls?" Falls looked like after all the rain they've been getting. It was a fun, but bumpy, trip and I finally found my way up to the falls. They were running pretty strong, and I'm not sure if anyone would have wanted to climb up them this time or not. I know I didn't try. After spending some time and about getting my fill of taking pictures, I heard one big crack of thunder and decided it was time to get myself off the mountain and head for home. I really didn't get into any rain to speak of until I got down to the higway in Cleveland, and about that time, Mom called me and told me not to try and drive up the road into Trumbell Canyon, because they were getting flooded out.

I drove up to the turnoff, and it was sure enough flooding! The wash just to the south of the turnoff had overflowed and overwhelmed the culvert and was flooding across the road. I had to dodge a basketball sized rock that was rolling across the pavement in front of me. Shortly after I crossed the water, the traffic stopped and there were a few brave (or foolhardy) souls who went on through.

This guy in the pickup (below) was trying to pass the FedEx truck in the middle of the water until he saw the car stopped in the oncoming lane. And maybe he spotted the big rock in the road just behing the FedEx truck. Can you see it? What was he thinking? I was afraid the asphalt road was going to wash out, but it ended up OK.

Anyway, a lot of the dirt road coming down from Mommer and Poppers was washing out and getting worse all the time. Below is a picture of a little section just above the gate with the bulldozer parked and waiting for us to put it to work. You can see the water had washed up against the dozer treads at one point. All this happened Thursday afternoon. We had a stake temple trip to Albuquerque scheduled for Friday that couldn't be changed, so it was Saturday before Popper and Iwere able to do anything about the road, and we spent all day on the dozer and backhoe trying to get it smooth enough for me to drive my little, low clearance, Subaru down the road and head for home on Sunday. The high clearance vehicles like their Forester and pickup got up and down with some bumping, but we didn't think our Impreza would make it. We finally ended up driving it down on Saturday night after all the road work and leaving it at the farm. There were a few bumps and a bit of mud on the front bumper, but it went ok - it really IS a Subaru! Then on Sunday morning, after goodbyes, Mommer and Popper drove their Forester to church and we loaded up in the pickup, drove down to the farm, transferred our stuff to our car and hit the road. All in all, an exciting end to our vacation.

And finally a picture of Mom at her birthday dinner at Hatcha's. It was a great vacation and we had a wonderful time. I tried to post a couple of videos of the flooding, but for some reason, the videos wouldn't upload very well, so you'll have to come to our house to see them (hint, hint). The summer is about over. Jennifer leaves for school in 4 days, Kimberly gets home from St. Louis in 11 days and leaves for Rexburg 12 days after that. Time seems to be compressing in an alarming fashion. Which means I should wish Bryce a happy birthday before it whizzes by me. And maybe Sarah as well. You guys quit being lazy like your Dad and put up some posts so we can hear from you. Keith's trip to Montana looked awesome. Bye for now. Dad