Western Legends (Kanab)

Busy week - but mainly with work. It's nice that I can work a little extra early on and get an early start to my weekends, but boyyyyy does it take a toll. The stress of fitting together 40 puzzle pieces that don't want to be part of the puzzle is a lot to take it and makes me frustrated. Like, the idea of home health is that you literally cannot leave your house, so why do you only have a 2 hour window on Thursday to see me?

Hidden orchard in the desert.

But I digress. Volleyball happened. The gym happened. Grudgingly, belatedly, but it did happened. Twas not an energy-filled week. But maybe I was saving up for the weekend.

Just a *free* bucket of apples. 

On the road by 1pm, I headed for Lonely Dell orchards on the way to Kanab so I could profit from the free produce on their fruit trees. You're only allowed one 5 gallon bucket per day, so I brought two so I could get more on the way back. (And boy was it a chore to get those buckets apart, but by some miracle + the internet + a hairdryer, it happened).

Lauren beat me to our hotel in Kanab, which was described as "sketchy" but turned out okay and in prime location for Western Legends this weekend - a yearly festival involving food trucks, a rodeo, battle of the bands, and a comedy gun show & bull whip expedition. The most exciting time Kanab has seen since last year. 

This is the best picture. By a large margin. 

We had dinner at the taco truck before the rodeo (good thing because food there was sparse). Too bad we didn't actually sign up for team roping because all you had to do was get it and you win, basically. We listened in on some French conversations and had some of the worst photographers known to man. It was incredible, really. 

Had to do it ourselves. 

We got some ice cream that tasted like Clorox (in a good way?) and I went to bed while Lauren learned about Hitler. 

The bakery we checked out for breakfast was subpar, but then we hung out with an elderly couple at the Western movie sets and looked at some cool rocks. We saw the parade (including my twin brother apparently) on our way to check out the vendor tents. It was the lamest parade Lauren's ever seen and my absolute favorite. 

Surprisingly a few wing sets around town. 

Brian was vicariously excited to meet Patrick Wayne (John Wayne's son) who inspired me to watch Sinbad, where he costars along with Jane Seymour. And a short brown man was jealous he could never date us. Sorry? 

Brian was crying. 

The pool water was frigid, but we enjoyed that and the sun and only got a little crispy before we got kicked out because the chlorine levels were too high. So Lauren took a nap and I played Solitaire before we went back to watch the gun show, eat burgers, chant ICE CREAM in the streets, and see how fat we could make our shadows. All things the many passersby enjoyed with us. 

She likes the Beatles and I like the Stones. 

We sat on the hardest grass ever grown and enjoyed some live music and corndogs and pretzel bites for second dinner and eventually made it back to our hotel without a nosebleed. We showered and I fell asleep exhausted and hopefully Lauren did too because she was up at 5am to go to a homecoming where she was the guest of honor. 

I chilled until church, picked some more apples, called my patients, and was home around 4pm. Just how I like it. It was a nice weekend hanging out with my BFF Lauren in the smallest town at the best time. 

The Farm & Market

Busy week and the good news is that I didn't need to take a nap every day. Still low on the energy afternoon/evening, but I did have another visit with my naturopath and got some updates on meds to take. 

One of my YW randomly showed up to play VB with us on Monday, which was nice because we were a little short. I also started a new gym routine, meaning that I was very sore this whole week (although not as bad as last time for sure). 

Bye forever. 

Becky & Brandt are officially moving to WY and have had 64 of their own farewell parties with various groups, but I guess they needed another so we met up at Carol's for some delicious burgers and I even convinced Becky to come to the gym with me the next day. 

Me & Sage.

We had a whole debaucle over YW activities on Wednesday - mostly because there was a stake activity for half of them and the other half have dance all the time and so timing is challenging. But we did a smaller activity for any YW who could make it and wasn't able to go to the stake thing, and we had 1. But it was a fun time and she's new to the ward so it was nice to chat. 

I had a crazy work week with a new boss and some other transitions and a deceivingly busy schedule. For 3/5 days, I only had 3 patients, but it took me wayyyy longer to finish up my work on those days. Also I spent many hours on the phone trying to reach doctors. 

Chilling at the farm. 

On Friday, I somehow convinced Roger to spend some time in Prescott. We drove down for the Mortimer Farms farm to table dinner & dance event. It was good vibes. We danced and ate (although not sure portions were right for us) and had a good time chilling. Then we drove to a motel downtown to spend the night. 

The Africans skunked us on these
but they were dang good.

We were up early to go to the Farmer's Market. This thing is legendary. It has its own website and tons of vendors. We bought a bunch of produce including fresh basil and green chiles. We got a baguette and banana bread. We have more honey and 4 new jams. And we tried a Mexican breakfast burrito and some African's version of empanadas with to die for mint chutney. 

Looking for cowboy style paintings like these.

Then we walked around downtown, which was setting up for a big event. We explored an art studio with paintings we loved by Quick Anderson, who unfortunately doesn't sell prints of her oil paintings (so if anyone has like $4K to toss around LMK). And Roger got the best shake of his life. 

I agreed last minute to help out a team play in a basketball tournament. It was a bunch of random people - a few play with me on Monday mornings though. There were only 3 teams in the women's bracket and all of the other teams were 20 year olds. Meanwhile, I've got a few 40y olds and one who is late 50s I think. We didn't do too bad although the other teams had a killer zone defense and great 3-point shots. Still lost in the end and I walked to the car and spent the rest of the day making sure I could walk on Sunday. 

It wasn't a pretty walk, but it happened. We cooked a bit of our fresh produce and watched the Black Cauldron, so Rog could meet Gurgie. Which is probably where my love of ugly little things comes from. Next on the list: Hoodwinked. 

August 13 and counting.

 We had another Sandall family reunion at Grandma's house. I hated it, and worse because we had to take a group photo. Next time, crop me in instead. Honestly, it's really nice to hang out with family in smaller groups because then I remember that I actually like them. 

Eve made some great chicken fried steak and Karen brought some corn for a family dinner. The baptism apparently was fun and I had a good time playing sand volleyball with the crew instead and our reservation is back on as planned. 

Photographer or just a guy in a pretty place?

Roger had a fun time at Lee's Ferry all week catching fish and almost getting shot because one of the guards didn't get the memo that they could be close to the dam. 

What did I do while Roger was gone? I took a nap. It's time for me to reevaluate my hormones again and they are not doing great tbh. BUT still better than they were. I'm just ready for bed at 1pm. And honestly, I could probably sleep that whole time. 

Templing. 

Saturday Roger hung out with his friend Colin on a hiking adventure while I made tiramisu. This was after a dream I had where I made tiramisu. Call me a prophet. 

Then we went to the temple and sat apart for the entire endowment session. This was after a dream I had where there was a middle, non-segregated section so you could chill with your spouses if you wanted. Can we incorporate this better into new builds? No reason to split us up anymore really. I have a few other notes if anyone cares. 

Just 3 little deers chilling in the grass. 

Rog and I went on a drive Sunday after church (after a ministering visit to us) so we could check out where the wildflowers are blooming now for a YW activity. We're a bit early but we found a usable spot. Also we had Joy's green chili pork for dinner and 10/10 still. 

Aug 6th flashback

 The drama. So this is where I got my calling switched in the car, had multiple attempts for the RS pres (new) to visit me, everything at work went to crap, and now Roger's cousin was asking me to play the piano at the exact time and place I play volleyball every week. It all was a big mess, plus, we had to buy all the brake fluid we could find and bring it back up the mountain for Stu before we made our way back. 

We got a shake from Jacob's lake on the way back and made it by 8pm to our house and mostly unpacked before showering and prepping for the next day. I like taking days off in the beginning of the week much better than the end. Much less stressful. 

The biggest things that happened this week other than returning and unpacking were first - FAMILY WORK DAY. AKA deep cleaning and repacking all our boxes and reorganizing and buying a few more camping supplies we needed to put in there. Then I felt good about living in our house again. 

Rog got a flat tire in his new truck and figured out that his jack was broken so we added that to the list to get and it had an irreparable gash, so we ended up buying new tires. Which were on the list for kind of soonish. 

Sandall Hole: Duck Fork ed.

Things are moving. I had super bad allergies, so I've slacked a little on the workouts, but not too bad. And there's a new YW presidency (in which I've moved from secretary to advisor). I'm leery, but I always am. Especially because it sounds like the Pres only wants to attend ward council and expects the councilors to do everything else. We'll see how this goes. 

Most of our spare time was shopping and prepping for our camping adventure at Sandall Hole: Duck Fork edition. (Who knew living in the woods was so freaking expensive.) I got off work Wednesday at noon and we were on the road by 1 - truck packed and pulling a trailer with a quad on it. That didn't work out too well since the attachment didn't match up to the truck and so we ended up riding our breaks pretty hard to the point of smoking them out by the time we reached Page. 

The crew. 
Who definitely didn't get a fine, despite
being checked for licenses.

We ditched the trailer and had a much smoother ride, despite the check engine light, and in much better moods. Still, with several stops and careful driving, we wouldn't make it to the mountain until late, so we decided to spend our first night in a hotel in Richfield. Good decision. (And decent breakfast selection).

The fear is real.

Finally we met Stu at Duck Fork around 8 and convinced an old couple to give up their campsite for us. (Jokes, he was leaving anyways). And we spent a while unpacking until Hannah/Aurora arrived and we helped Aurora conquer her fears of touching fish as we followed Rog down the stream and checked out the dead sheep at the next camp over. 

Decent catch, but it's no tiger trout.

Rog's sisters arrived in time to make us Frito pie and the parentals arrived during our unsuccessful, bug-ridden night fishing excursion at the lake. Over the next few days, we ate good food (including tinfoil dinners by us and cobbler by Hannah - who outdid herself this year), we caught some decent fish out of the spillway and stream, Aurora got all the bug bites and learned the difference between itchy and painful, and I finished a couple books. We had good chats, games were played, and we made it home on Monday night without too much trouble on our end and (after a break fluid delivery) not too much trouble for Stu either. 

Rog's view of Duck Fork resevoir.

It was nice to relax and chat and enjoy the stream. My photo excursions ended up being subpar with the clouds, which was unfortunate. And the kayak day ended up being too windy. But all in all, we had a good vacation. 

And I was not ready for the 70+ messages and phone calls awaiting on the ride home. But more on that later.