Just Another Day In Paradise: August 2015

I have 2 round tables in our back yard that we got a few years ago. Last winter, the basketball standard got blown over and completely broke the top of one. The other one got iced and crack and looked terrible. I threw away the tops and kept the frames and wondered what to do. Then I thought of an idea! I would make a mosaic table top! I didn't think of doing a little mosaic project first. No, I start with a huge project that took hours and hours.... but was lots of fun and turned out super cool.

I began by cutting new round table tops to fit the frames out of tile backerboard. It has to be very strong to hold the weight of the tiles and not bend and crack.

Then I drew the pattern. The kids suggested the theme and I went from there.

If you are not familiar with "Avatar: The Last Airbender" then this probably doesn't mean much to you, but it is symbolic of the elements.

Once I got this done, we laid out all the tiles on the pattern on a table in the basement. I kept having to get more tiles as I came to realize just how big this actually is.

This is where Rachel stepped in. She helped me lay out all the tiles on the pattern and fix a few of the parts that didn't quite work.

Then I decided that we had spent so much time on this that we needed to do a practice table before we did the actual Avatar table. So I drew a random pattern on the other table top and we just went to work gluing on tiles. I used Omni grip mastic as the glue/mortar. It is water proof/weather proof and supposed to be good for outside... at least as good as it gets. It dried very quickly so we had to do small areas at a time.

Rachel and I had a lot of fun working on it and figuring out the colors and design. Once we finished gluing, we grouted. We used Fusion Grout since it is weather proof and would be good outside. It dried very quickly though and was irritating to my skin so I had to wear gloves. Of course, we ran out of grout before we finished the edge so we had to buy more. It turned out really nice though and we were excited to do our main project.

Since I needed the paper pattern that all the tiles were laid out to redraw the pattern onto the table, we had to put all the tiles into tubs according to the area of the table they belonged in. We transferred the pattern onto the table using transfer paper (carbon paper). Then we started gluing tiles. It went quickly and the results were good. Then we grouted used a "platinum" grey color. Both tables turned out great and I'm thinking I might have to keep them in the house so the weather won't ruin them... Just Kidding.

Finished and ready to use:

To finish out the summer we went CAMPING.

WHERE? Great Basin National Park. It is on highway 50 just west of the Utah/Nevada border. It took us about 4 hours to drive there. We camped in the highest campground called Wheeler Peak. It was at 9,800 ft. which meant it had lots of trees and cool weather. It was about 15 degrees cooler than the gate of the Park. We were in campground #15 (that's for my own reference) and it was a great camp. The nice thing was that everyone was very spread out. We weren't packed in like some campgrounds I've been to. We had a great view of the stars (we even left our fly off the tent and just looked at them whenever we were awake at night). It is a "first come, first served" campground so we got there before noon on Friday in order to get a good place. Our campground was full by mid-afternoon but I think the very lowest one didn't ever fill up completely while we were there.

This is the view from our Campground:

Some wild turkeys wandered through our camp the first day we were there.

WHY? You may be wondering why we decided to head out into the middle of the Nevada desert for vacation. First of all, it's a National Park and I plan to go to all of them eventually. But mostly it was because this is one of the best places in the WORLD (yes, world) to see the stars.

WHEN? I think any time of the year is a nice time to visit places just to see what they are like in different seasons. We went during the summer since the kids were out of school. This park is a less visited park so it wasn't crowded at all and apparently never really is. On summer weekends the campgrounds fill up by the afternoon but there is still room for most everyone. The most important thing about timing though is the MOON CYCLE. I found a weekend with no moon. It also happened to be right in the middle of the Perseids Meteor Shower which made for lots of SHOOTING STAR sightings.

The stars were absolutely AMAZING. I have only seen stars like that one other time, high in the back country of Yosemite National Park. We went to a star lecture by the park ranger and he used a cool laser pointer to show us different constellations and stars. I finally found some of the more obscure constellations with the help of his laser pointing. We also saw the Space Station pass by which was pretty cool. We've learned that you can look that up on the internet and find out when it will be passing by our house. In fact, it will be passing by tonight at 9:05 pm and we plan to go out and see if we can find it.

They also had 2 telescopes through which we saw Saturn, Alberio which is a double star in the constellation Cygnus (you can only see the 2 stars through a telescope, otherwise it just looks like one star), and we also saw a star that has exploded and is nearing the end of it's life cycle. It looked like a gray cheerio.

I took lots of pictures and I will put one in the blog, but believe me, the picture is nothing like it is in person. I've even looked for professional images to post but none of them look as awesome as the real thing.

You can even see a shooting star in this one......

WHAT TO DO? The star gazing was great but that left a lot of time during daylight to do other stuff. We went on a great hike that looped around by 2 Alpine Lakes named Stella Lake and Teresa Lake right below Wheeler Peak.

Skipping rocks was the favorite activity at the lakes and I think Adam holds the record for the most skips. We also saw some deer along the way which was kind of fun.

Throwing rocks was fun too!

Rachel claimed she could walk across Lake Teresa and I said it was too deep. It turns out it's not too deep but way too cold. :-)

Close to the end of that loop, we forked off to go to the Bristlecone Forest. The oldest living organisms on earth are the Bristlecone trees in this little area.

This is me in front of one that is 3200 years old and it is still alive.

David, Adam and Rebecca turned back and headed to camp while Rachel and I continued on to the glacier. We were a little disappointed because it was very tiny and up on the side of the cliff so we couldn't even get to it. We were picturing a large glacier that we could play on like we've done in other places. Oh well. It was interesting from a Geology point of view.

I figure the whole hike was about 6-7 miles. I loved it!!

Another thing about this Park is that it has some really cool caves called Lehman Caves. They have lots of neat formations including some that are very rare and hard to find in the whole world. That was about a 90 minute tour and very fascinating. I would recommend reserving your tour before you arrive though. I didn't know you could do that so when we got there, that was the first thing we did and they were already full for the first two days of our visit. We were lucky to get some of the last spots available before we had to head home.

FOOD? I love cooking out over a fire or on a camp stove. If you do it right, it's easy and there isn't much to clean up. I get a little better at it each time we go camping. Two new things we tried were foil packet dinners and orange peel muffins. I actually did the packet dinners years ago but the kids don't remember.

PACKET DINNER: Spray a big piece of heavy duty aluminum foil with Pam. Put a layer of cut up steak (or chicken), layer cut up potatoes, carrots, onions, and peppers on top of that. Put a few tomatoes too if you like tomatoes. That helps keep the meat moist. Add some salt and pepper and then fold the aluminum foil up and seal all the edges. Spread out your fire wood to make a nice bed of hot coals and place the packets on top of the coals with the meat on the bottom. I cut up the meat at home and brought it in a zip lock back. I had everyone cut up their own carrot and potato at the camp site.

Things we learned: Everything I read said to leave it on the coals for at least 45 minutes. TOO LONG. Most of ours burned. Rachel's turned out pretty good because hers was on the edge of the coals. Next time I will probably turn them over half way through and I will check them much earlier (like 20-25 minutes). I might also not cut the meat in such small pieces... that might help it not to burn. I also thought it might be good with some chili sauce (homemade) poured over the meat.

The vegetables were all really good and any meat that wasn't too burnt was really good too. We are going to do this again ASAP.

ORANGE PEEL MUFFINS: Cut the orange at about the 1/4 mark and then completely clean out the inside without breaking the peel. We ate the orange out of the inside. Mix an "Add water only" blueberry muffin mix. I just poured the water right into the bag so I didn't have any dirty dishes and used a fork to mix it up. Fill each orange shell about 1/2 full, set the lid on top and then wrap it up in heavy duty aluminum foil. Spread out the coals and put the oranges on the coals. Wait for about 10 minutes then check. A couple were done at about 13 minutes. A few needed just a couple of more minutes. They turned out perfect and were DELICIOUS!!

OTHER FOOD: Pancakes for breakfast with sausage roasted over the fire. DELICIOUS!! Melted Starbursts were fun to experiment with and pretty good to eat too. I always bring a tupperware container of cut-up cantalope or watermelon which we eat with dinners and sometimes breakfast. Hot chocolate and oatmeal is another favorite. We had that on the same morning we made the muffins.
The picture above is a starburst that has been melted with a hot metal stick.

Tips: I love paper plates, forks, cups, etc. Anything that can just be thrown away. I always bring 4 or 5 large garbage bags. I try to only use pots for boiling water, therefore they don't need to be washed. We use camp cups for hot chocolate but those are easy to rinse out if you do it right away.

STUFF: I wish I would have taken a large quilt to lay on outside as we were looking at the stars. We had a big tarp but a quilt over that would have been more comfortable.

I also wish I would have brought my down vest. I was pretty comfortable most of the time but that just adds enough more to make me really happy. I didn't take it because it was so hot in Draper and I just didn't think it would be cool enough for it in the Nevada desert... even though we would be really high up.

We needed a multi-purpose tool several times. I may be getting David a Leatherman for Christmas. :-) It's a good thing we had a hatchet, pliers, a couple of pocket knives and some scissors so we were able to make do.

Super glad we brought the hammocks. We have 2 lightweight camping ones and everyone enjoyed those at some point or another.

In the bottom middle picture (in the above collage) you can just see Adam sleeping in his sleeping bag in the hammock. He had a little altitude sickness when we first got to camp so he quickly went to sleep. After about an hour of sleeping he felt much better.

WOOD: You cannot get wood anywhere in the park. I read that before we departed Draper so we took A LOT of wood. Thank goodness we did because we spent a lot of time around the campfire talking, playing, cooking, eating and getting warm.

This is a significant picture because Adam got up early and built this fire all by himself before any of the rest of us got up. (Don't worry, he got permission from me. After all, he is a trained Cub Scout!!)

We had a great time!! I definitely recommend GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK!!

Miscellaneous Pictures:

We played a lot of card games and even a little poker with Starbursts. We have all learned that the house always wins so there will be no gambling!

David and Rachel

I wonder what she could possible want with this giant stick? I'm sure she will think of something. (It ended up being sawed in half using her pocket knife saw and then using it as a fire poker and log turner)

Look at these pictures below closely. Rebecca took up knife throwing. It's what being in the outdoors is all about, right? The white circle is around the knife stuck in the wood.

And this is what I spend a lot of time doing as I try to capture all the memories.

And this one is for Grandma Ginia. Yep, we are still using the Red Home Alone hats you gave us 19 years ago. We only have 2 since we can't find the other one, but it is everyone's favorite and we all took turns wearing them. Even I wore it some of the time before someone took it from me.