Category Archives: Mondays are for Memories

Mondays are for Memories, Pictures of the Adventure, The Adventure

Mondays are for Memories

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Last week my “Monday Memory” post was about a National Park that totally surprised me. Today I wanted to share a memory from 16 years ago when we almost missed going to one of the true jewels of our National Park system – Yellowstone National Park.

From Glaciers to Geysers – 8/28/2009

Old Faithful being faithful Last week we were checking out glaciers and this week we were watching boiling water bubble (or shoot!) out of the earth. Isn’t it amazing what a couple hundred miles can do?

We almost didn’t go to Yellowstone. Since the opportunity came at the end of our 5-week trip from Alaska, we were really just content to sit and be cozy at our quiet (well, except for the train nearby) resting spot outside of Sarah and Brandon’s house. In all honesty, we were a little National Parked-out. Sort of Spectacular Scenery Overload. But S&B really encouraged us to go, assuring us that Yellowstone was really “different”, and that it wouldn’t be just more beautiful landscape. They were so very right! We were given a perfect day for our excursion – blue skies, puffy white clouds – and while the park was busy, the roads weren’t too very crowded. The only really big crowd we saw was at Old Faithful, but then again, who doesn’t stop for Old Faithful?! We drove part of the Grand Loop – and were impressed with not only all of the thermal areas, but also with the great diversity in the park. We saw elk both resting and drinking along the Madison River and then later in the day a herd of them was busy sunning themselves in front of the visitor center at Mommoth Springs. Massive bison walked right by us on the road, an interesting cause for a traffic jam, and herds of them could be found in the lush valleys along Yellowstone River. On the thermal side, we saw steaming hillsides, bubbling mudpots, boiling ponds, and (of course) shooting geysers. All of it was fascinating – all of it beautiful – all of it a reminder of our Creator’s kindness it giving us such marvels to view!
Elk along the Madison River
Lower Geyser Basin landscape
Pool at Lower Geyser Basin Area
Boiling Mudpot
Firehole Lake
Grand Prismatic Spring
Opal Pool
Thermal pools along Yellowstone Lake
Upper Falls crashing into the "Grand Canyon"
Road hanging over edge
Mammoth Hot Springs - Upper Terrace
The Ride Home

So, Yellowstone? SO glad we went. (Guess what, there are more Yellowstone photos HERE!)

And today? We’re SO glad we’re nice and comfy here at Camp Utmost, about 30 miles NE of Missoula, MT. The rest of our Sower team will be arriving today and we’ll start work on Monday. Not only are the slides out and the utilities hooked up, but we even have the outside rug down and the awnings out. I’m sure I’ll have more reflections (and maybe even a couple more pictures (gasp)) about our Alaskan Adventure, but for now it’s back to “regular” life. And what a wonderful life it is! Thank-you, Lord!

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Mondays are for Memories, Pictures of the Adventure, The Adventure

Mondays are for Memories – Revisiting the Bucket List

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Yesterday when I was searching for a header photo for the Sabbath Rest post, I came across this photo (above) from our visit to Death Valley National Park in late March of 2010. Seemed like a good chance to take a stroll down memory lane!

Revisiting the Bucket List – 3/31/2010

Death Valley National Park
It wasn’t even on my “bucket list” of things I needed to do while on the West Coast. So when Gary said we were going there before we headed to Arizona, I wondered what there was to do there. I mean, with a name like Death Valley – sure didn’t seem like a very interesting place to me. Well, four jam packed days (and 700+ pictures) later, let me tell you, there is LOTS to see and do in Death Valley.
Did you know

  • The highest temperature recorded in the USA was in Death Valley (134 degrees)
  • The same year the highest temperature was recorded (1913), the lowest temperature (for Death Valley) was also recorded – 15 degrees above zero.
  • Death Valley National Park is the largest National Park in the lower 48 – 3 million acres of wilderness.
  • The lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere (282 ft. below sea level) is found at Badwater in Death Valley.
  • The highest point in the lower 48 (Mt. Whitney at 14,491 ft) is just 100 miles from that lowest point.

Enough of statistics! I was expecting to see desert and desert-y things. What I wasn’t expecting were mountains of unbelievable colors, volcanic craters, a castle, moving rocks, and lakes of salt. I’ve pared down my pictures and tried to be at least a little organized, so here we go – the highlights of Death Valley National Park, Conrad-style!

Titus Canyon
Now there are two ways to see Titus Canyon. One is to drive to the canyon head (about 1/2 mile) and then hike up the extraordinary canyon. OR, you can drive all the way out of the park and approach it from the other side, driving along a “high clearance, 4×4 vehicle recommended” road for about 25 miles. Can you guess which one we chose?
Titus Canyon Drive-1
The road was one way (which I LOVED) and never really got too “technical”, but we did encounter something that we had rarely come across before –
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TRAFFIC!
And while we tried to stay back (mostly so we wouldn’t be choking on their dust),
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We did finally end up in a traffic JAM!
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Looking back while we waited for folks to start moving again….
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We eventually got around the crowd (they all stopped at various POI’s along the way), and made our way into the canyon –
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and after an amazing drive through the canyon,
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we made it out the other side! It was a great drive – and if you’d like to see a couple more pictures of the drive and canyon, Here you go! –
Since the drive took a little longer than we expected (you know, the traffic!), we decided to take in some of the areas that were close to our campsite.
Like the Harmony Borax Works –
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20 Mule Team Borax-2
And the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail –
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The Salt Creek is home to the Devil’s Hole pupfish – an endangered species found only (so I’m told) here in the Death Valley region.
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Our final stop for the day was Mosaic Canyon – Amazing!
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A couple more Mosaic Canyon pictures are HERE

And that was Day One. I think I’ll split this up into a couple of posts, so you don’t get into picture overload (like that would ever happen on one of MY posts!) 🙂
Take a break – I’m going to make us some dinner!

 

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane – I know I did!

Steph

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Family and Friends, Mondays are for Memories, Sewing/Quilting Projects, SOWER Projects, SOWER Projects 2020, SOWER Projects 2022

Mondays are for memories – Finding an old hard drive

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One thing about transitioning from full-time RVing into a house is you get the opportunity to sort through all of those drawers and baskets that you’ve been stashing random things in for the last 20 years. One of the items that turned up is my original back-up portable hard drive. And I found some treasures there!
This first set must’ve been the Thanksgiving of 2003. We (Gary, Josiah & I) drove the Lizzie (our new RV) to Ohio, Lara flew in from California (I think that’s where she was!) and we celebrated the holiday with Toby, Tammy and little Ellie (all of 9 months old). Some of the pictures were taken in T&T’s apartment and some in our new RV,  The one of the seven of us standing in front of the blank wall was in their still-being-built home!

This set is from our last Christmas at our home in Jamison, PA – not too many pictures, and none are very good – but they are oh so sweet to me!


Oh my – the memories!

And this final picture is our family in March of 2004.
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It might be the last time we were all together before we “ran away from home” August 1st of that year. I honestly can’t remember why we were all together. But I do know our family has grown in so many beautiful ways between then and now –

(And we’re missing DIL Abigail in this picture! Oh, and that’s Ellie on the end holding her little sister Everly!)

In the middle of sorting and deciding what to keep (and where to put it!) and what to donate, it was a very sweet walk down memory lane for which I am very grateful!

Have a great week, friends! Stay safe – I hear there’s lots of snow going on around the country!

Steph

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Mondays are for Memories, The Adventure

Mondays are for Memories – The Grand Canyon!

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The header picture from yesterday’s Sabbath Rest post was from our time at the Grand Canyon back in late April, 2010. And it reminded me of that great “Rock Tour” we did way back then! So here is one of the posts from our time at The Grand Canyon –
4/24/2010 – I Better Get This Posted
WOW – what a great day we had at the Grand Canyon! And tomorrow promises to be just as lovely – and just as exhausting, I’m sure!
So, let me say that yesterday’s (Friday) snow
Road to Grand Canyon-8
and threatening skys
Grand Canyon Day One-5
gave way this morning to bright blue skys and warming (well, up to the mid-50’s anyway) temperatures!
Grand Canyon-4
Grand Canyon-5
Grand Canyon-10
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Grand Canyon-16

So – of the almost 200 pictures I took, I whittled them down to about 50. And that was HARD! So, if you’d like to see the rest from today (with a couple from yesterday thrown in), you can check them out here.
I haven’t even downloaded the ones from the sunset tonight – and we’re planning on getting up for the sunrise tomorrow.
Yikes!
And that’s why I’m leaving this short and sweet tonight. Bed is certainly calling!
Sunrise – 5:45 (and we have to figure out the whole shuttle bus schedule!).
G’night!
******
If you’d like to check out the original post (or maybe have a look at some of the neighboring posts that are all about our fabulous time in the many National Parks we enjoyed during our Rock Tour, you can check it out HERE!

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Mondays are for memories- A Family Vacation

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My goal for this week is to finally get caught up on all the family fun that happened in July. But first I want to share a post from 2011 about one of our early attempts at a Conrad Family Vacation-

4/3/2011 – A Family Vacation

It was a long time coming. Although we’ve gotten together at holidays over the years, we haven’t really been able to pull off an official “Family Vacation” since Ellie was 2. And that was 6 years ago. Two more babies and a new DIL later, we were all gathered at a big old log cabin in Gatlinburg, TN for a long overdue gathering. Even though the weather was quite uncooperative (it rained 4 out of the six days we were there) and by the end of the week a couple of us were struggling with bad colds, I still think it was a great success and filled us up with memories!
Here a just a couple of the highlights –
On the first sunny day, we trekked over to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park where we enjoyed the drive out to Cades Cove. The girls had never been to a National Park and really thought we were going to a big playground (sorry, kids!), but I think they enjoyed the day!
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Gatlinburg 2011-22
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One of the highlights of the day was the special “guest appearance” of my niece Christiana –
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What a treat that she could join us (from Chattanooga) for the day! And how fortunate that it was a sunny day!
More Great Smoky Mountain National Park pictures here if you’re interested.

Between showers one day we checked out a local pottery
Gatlinbg-1
and Toby and Ellie tried their hand at some mountain music!
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There is a ton of “touristy” stuff to do in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area, and we chose Wonderworks as our big splurge of the week.
Gatlinburg 2011-38
There were lots of activities to do, but I think the most fun was watching Hayley (age 6) climb the rock wall. It was a first for her, and she never hesitated for a moment.
Gatlinburg 42011
She also went on the High Ropes Adventure with her Mom, Lara and Josiah.
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That Hayley is certainly one brave 6 year old!
Everyone had a good time –
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Ellie practicing her motorcross skills
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Maddie taking on (and winning mostly) the air hockey challenge!
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The big boys playing “Mind Ball” – to see who could think less the longest. It was a long match (really, about 5 minutes!) but Josiah finally won. Is that a good thing?
And Noah was a champ the whole time – just watching all of the activities!
Gatlinburg 2011-40
(You can see more Wonderworks photos HERE if you’d like to!)
But let’s face it – most of our time was spent at “Mountain Dreams” – our home away from home for the week.
Denali Gatlinburg
That’s Denali, our “guard” Great Pyrenees. She’s Lara’s dog, and she was wonderful with the kids and all of our inside time. Like when we celebrated Josiah’s 30th birthday –
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the girls made sure she was part of the excitement!
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Yes, it was great having Denali a part of the family vacation!
Then there was the day of the Jacuzzi and the bubble explosion –

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Yep, Dad was in charge of that bubble extravaganza! (Just one more squirt, Dad, please?)
🙂
And even though it was cold and rainy most days, that didn’t stop us from using the hot tub on the deck!
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You can find some more random shots of our “Fun at the Cabin” time here, and if you’d like to see the whole “Family Vacation” set, you can check it out here.

Ok, so I guess this was a little more than the “highlights”, but I tried to keep it short(ish), honest. The week had it’s ups and downs, but then with 11 people living in one house (with zero soundproofing!), I guess that’s to be expected. But all in all, it was a grand week, full of hugs and kisses, new adventures, and deepening relationships. I sure do love these guys –
Conrad Family April 2011
Love. These. Guys.
Conrads Silly 4_2011

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