After the lighting ceremony we headed back to White River Jct. Most of us stayed in the Econolodge there. And it was great! It was probably the nicest Econolodge I've stayed in. It had a pool and everything (much to Max's delight).
After the kids were in bed the grownups all played canasta in the lobby. It was really fun, but we had to quit just about when we got the game figured out which was too bad.
In the morning we got up and we all had breakfast together (accidentally) and then headed out to do different things and head back home.
I had heard about a cool gorge not too far from where we were staying, so I had looked up directions and stuff. We tried to follow them and ended up totally lost. So we looked up the town on the GPS and found it, but it wasn't anywhere near where we were really supposed to be. When we finally found the gorge it seemed that maybe it was just a bridge to drive across. There was noplace we could see to get out and check out the scene on foot. But then we found a little trailhead of the side of the road. So we decided to brave it. We headed out to see what we could find.
We didn't find the gorge. Of course.
We found a lot of other stuff though.
We found a dam. It wasn't a particularly cool dam, but the river was cool looking. It was scenic enough for us to feel the need to take some pictures. Pictures of ourselves in front of it that is.
(why is Max making that face? I'm not sure. He was pretending to be surprised about something. What I don't know.)
(could it have been the same thing that surprised me in this photo? could anything really be that surprising? Bigfoot sighting? And Max is way beyond being surprised by whatever it is at this point)
The rest of the walk/hike Max spent finding and picking up pinecones. There were some pretty impressive pinecones on the ground, that's for sure. We thought it was cute to watch him running around picking ones to stick in his pockets.
Cute little boy gathering pinecones.
He ended up with so many they were spilling out of his arms and he couldn't keep ahold of them at all.
So I helped him. I was carrying some in my hands, so I had Kris hold the camera for me.
With which he proceeded to take a picture. And yes, I'm only wearing one earring. Wardrobe malfunction?
Little pinecone boy was just adorable until we got down to the car and realized that each and every pinecone was covered in sap. And not just covered, crusted and dolloped with sap. Max's arms and hands were full of them, his coat pockets were full of them. We were in so much trouble.
We went in to the little giftshop where we'd parked, hoping to scrub our hands. They only had freezing cold water. I got most of the sap off of my hands, but Max was still as sticky as could be. We got in the car and he had to hold his hands straight up in the air and not touch anything--no easy feat for a 5 yr old. It didn't go so hot.
We finally found a little hardware store, bought some industrial strength handcleaner and scrubbed him down in their bathroom. He was clean. But his coat was useless for the rest of the trip!
After that little adventure we went to a nearby town and did some shopping at cute funky way too expensive stores. WE didn't buy anything but it was a really fun place.
After that we headed home--with only one puking scare on the way we made it in time to pick up Sultan from the kennel and watch the BYU vs UT game. Which I have to say ended up very satisfactorily (before the press conference, of course).
What a great weekend!
