Shriners Parade

Back in May of this year in Newcastle, I was witness to a very interesting parade. The Shriners organization is pretty strong in this part of Wyoming and they had a parade. I don't know if it was specifically to initate new members or what. One person watching the parade told me that it was an initiation. The initiates were dressed in various flavors of bathrobes as you can see in the picture. They were assigned the task of horse poop collection.

It was fasinating watching these old men, for the most part, play with different things. There were turtle cars, and small truck go carts, and model A go carts, and horses, and floats, and snowmobiles, and there was even a band that rode a float playing some tunes that I didn't recognize.

The Shriners have several hospitals around the country where they give free care to children. This, I think is a very noble cause to have fun and donate time and money for. As far as I understand this good orginazation. Have fun looking at the pictures.

Devils Tower

Well, I actually wrote this chapter a week ago but my internet connection was very poor and I couldn't save it so, here I go again and start catching up.

Devils Tower: many of you remember this from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This is where I first heard of it. What a dumb movie. A grown man playing in his potatoes just like the little brother in "A Christmas Story". After the movie, I became acquainted with the geologic feature through one or more geology classes. It is about 60 miles from Newcastle so, I decided on one of the days that the drill was down to go and see it for myself.

There is an Indian ledgend about this land form. It tells about several Indian maidens who were out gathering berries or doing whatever maidens do. While they were gathering berries, a giant grizzly bear began chasing them. They prayed to the Great Spirit and he rescued them by causing a portion of the earth to rise up and lift them above the great bear and out of his reach. Anyway it is a pretty good story except I am left to wonder how they got down. The cliff is very steep. I may not have the whole story right.

Now on to the geology of the tower. The rock making up the tower is volcanic. It is a trachyte: a volcanic rock composed chiefly of alkali feldspar containing little quartz and plagioclase. As you might see in the picture, there are columns of rock. These are formed as the magma cools and forms 4, 5, 6, and 7 sides columns just as when mud dries there are usually 5 sided columns. There are two theories as to what it really is: one suggest that it is the eroded remnant of a laccolith much like the Henry, La Sal, and Abajo mountains of southern Utah, the other theory is that it is a erosional remnant of a volcanic neck. I like the old volcanic neck. The columns comprising the tower appear to be coming from a vent. There are volcanic flow structures with solidified columns in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. I have seen other flow structures similar to this. It would be interesting to visit Ship Rock, New Mexico and see if the old volcanic neck remnant there is similar to Devil's Tower. Then again, each volcano is different and depending how deep the magma solidified would determine how quick it cooled and this may or may not have formed the column structure seen in the tower land form. Probably discussed it too much.

Changes Are Good - Right?

I've had a couple changes in the past week. First of all, I picked up a little side job a couple weekends a month. I have a little neighbor lady (Lecta) who is somewhere in her 80's and lives in her own little house right next to her daughter who takes care of her. Well, the daughter (Julie) announced in Relief Society that she needed someone to watch Lecta a couple weekends a month so I volunteered. The perk is that she pays me to do it. Lecta is not hard to take care of but is not remembering very well any more. We took her with us to see the fireworks on the 4th of July and she loved it. She even remembered that she had gone two days later. I took over the "Love Comes Softly" series as well and she watched 6 of them by Sunday. (She can't get much by herself). Anyway, I enjoy Lecta so I think it will work out well taking care of her since I live right next door. My second change is that Sunday I got released from my Primary job which was teaching 6 - 7 year olds in Primary and am now in the Nursery. I don't mind doing a round in the Nursery, other than I'll be reminded every week how much I miss my little Brooklyn and I really love my Primary kids. I'm so sad. I had Becca, Calvin, Cory & Jack. They are so cute. I guess I was inspired to have them over last Monday to make M&M cookies. I thought being released as Young Women's President or Relief Society President was hard. This is even worse. For some reason I became very attached to my kids. Jack has only been to Primary about 4 times this year and he was there two weeks in a row now. His mom came up to me Sunday and said he talked about coming to my house all week. In fact she said that Monday night he took charge of the whole dinner and told his brother that he couldn't have a cookie until he ate his brocolli (sp?). She said he didn't feel good Sunday but he wanted to go to Primary and he did. That was the first time all year that he was there two weeks in a row! I hope he keeps coming. Oh well. I'm sure I'll come to love the Nursery kids as well.

My First Attempt at Blogging

Well, I've never done this before but decided I would try it even though Jack isn't here to hold my hand and guide me through it. Yesterday, the 5th of July was Jack's and my 24th anniversary. I realized last night as we were praying that I have now been married longer than I was single. That's a mildstone in life isn't it? Jack had to go meet with a hydrogeology client near Richfield in the morning and didn't get home until 5 pm but that gave us the evening to go and do something. I realized the girls (Nikki, Rachel, and Hailee) had plans when Nikki came up to me in the early afternoon and announced that she thought Dad and I should go and do something this evening for our anniversary . . . something that would get us out of the house. Hmmmm. Well, we went to a movie (Get Smart) and when we came home the girls were all dressed in black skirts, with black shirts and looked very much like waitresses in a very fine restaurant. We were directed downstairs where the lights were low and a table was set with a tablecloth and all the trimmings. Our menu for the evening was framed and sitting on the table and candlelight surrounded the room. It was extremely romantic and cozy. Dinner included: shimp cocktail for an appetizer, then salad followed by raspberry sorbet to clear the pallet. We then had the main dish which was marinated steak and a baked potato. Then it was finished off with fruit kabobs and an ice cream sundae. I'll never forget the evening. It was perfect. Aren't families wonderful!!

Southern Utah

I am home from Wyoming and visiting Lorie and the girls, at least that is the way it feels sometimes. I have been home since the 1st of June and will have to go back in a few days. To catch everyone up with what we are doing is the item to day. Lorie and the girls have been working very hard and the mudroom and the yard. By the way, it has been cooler this year than any other year I can remember. It has not gotten above 80 degrees yet, and usually we are well above 80 and into the 90s. Girls camp in Little Bear is usually very hot. This year the girls will be cold at Little Bear. It has also been very windy. The little apples on the trees appear to have been sandblasted: they are pitted as if it has hailed. It hasn't and hopefully we will get some fruit. The wind is blowing about 50 mph right now. It is pretty fierce. Nikki and the little girls are going to girls camp tomorrow and I hope the storm will blow through so they will have a nice day or two.

Lorie and I went to Ticaboo last Thursday to do a pumptest. I needed an assistant and so she came with me. James Dayley came down last Monday to help me but when we arrived at the Uranium mill, they told us to come back as they were not ready for us. So James and I went gold prospecting in the Henry Mountains instead. We only had a couple of hours and all we had time to do was to stop and look at some old placer diggings. I will find a good place to placer so gold someday.

Greybull Wyoming

I am now in Greybull, Wyoming working for the same company drilling for oil underground. Here the oil is in traps caused by faulting. Yes, it is time for a short geology lesson: the faults have trapped the oil and not allowed it to migrate away, so the oil is trapped and can be drilled.

I will probably go home via Yellowstone Park to Logan -- I am sad that none of my kids or wife will be with me to see the park -- where I can stop in and see Jackie. I will take some pictures and post them so we can plan our trip to Yellowstone next year. Brooklyn will come and visit and have so much fun.

Lorie and the girls are planting the garden, taking care of the yard, and working very hard. They even cleaned out the garage and Meagan knows what a task that is. They love me so much to take care of my tools and help me out. I will spray fruit trees when I get home this week.

Behind in all things

No posts of late, am I bad. We had our granddaughter down for about three weeks, two of my sons (in law) graduated, the bathroom flooded again (so we are going to fix that problem and now are remodeling the downstairs bathroom), the yards are behind due to the house remodeling, and summer is here. Hopefully we will get over it and eventually I will catch up and get to play. I have some pictures of Devils Tower that I need to blog about and also a little parade. Nikki took 7th and 8th in the 200m and the 100m at the state tournament last weekend. We all got burnt watch her. Life is great and full of joy.