Last Saturday Larry and I had the most amazing adventure! It zapped me of so much energy, but it was worth it. Totally and completly. We flew out of Spanish Fork airport just before noon, and flew to this remote place in Nevada. Larry had investigated it a few weeks before, so he knew exactly where we were going. When we went into land, the cows decided they wanted to take over the road. So, we had to circle around and try again. It was hilarious.
We had a big walk/hike from where we parked the plane to where the cave trail began. It took us longer than we thought it would (about 90 minutes), mostly because of me and how out of shape I am. Larry was so patient with me. I told him a lot about the California wagon train in 2001 because it felt a lot like that experience. I also WAY overpacked my backpack - it was SO heavy.
Once we got to the trail it was a scrabble to get to the top. At first Larry had me go first, which was hard. It was much easier when he picked the trail and I followed. We stopped a few times on the way up to enjoy the beautiful scenery. It reminded me of the scriptures and how people would have to go out into the wilderness to survive. It was that remote.
Once we got to the cave it was all worth it. It was SO beautiful and amazing!
There were bats in the cave!
I had asked my neighbors son, Eric, about this particular cave before we went. I was able to do some research into some of the things that we saw. He explores caves ALL the time with a few buddies that survey and map caves. He told me to that Goshute has: Anthodites, Aragonite, Bacon, Bubbles, Cave Pearls, Chandeliers, Columns, Coralloids, Cupulas (hypogenic), Draperies, Flowstone, Folia, Frostwork, Helicities, mammilaries, Moonmilk, Popcorn, Rafts, and Raft Cones, Rimston, Rimstone Dams, Shelfstone, Shields, Sodastraws, Spar, Splattermies, Stalactices, and lots more.
He told me that many of these cave formations he had never seen in person, so it was an amazing cave to go into. The only other cave I've been into is the Timpanogos Cave in American Fork, and a rideable cave tour we took in Missouri. I hit the jackpot when I asked him about it. He had just visited one week before.
Before leaving I snapped this photo. I think it's incredibly beautiful, and I can't believe I did this super hard thing.
Larry and I were starving once we were finished. It was about 6pm by the time we got out of the cave. We walked down to the plane and then flew to Wendover. We've been there before and they have a great little Mexican restaurant there. I wanted to just fall asleep in the booth. I feel bad for anyone that had to see my dirty self. The flight home was incredible! It was completely dark. We flew over the Salt Flats and we could see bonfires and people having parties. We were both super wiped out when we flew into the airport just after 10:30pm. It had been a full and delightful day.
Every spring I have birds building nests all over the back porch. It drives me crazy because of all the poop that accumulates. This year they discovered my dryer vent, and one persistent bird started making a nest inside. I tried to discourage it by running the dryer whenever I could hear it scratching around in there. Out of desperation, I finally asked Larry if he would come over and help me fix it. He was so kind to help me out. He did all the hard work of pulling out the vent and then carefully chipping away at the stucco to get the entire frame of the vent out. He said the vent was put on the house before the stucco was installed. It was tedious, but he did a perfect job. It was fun being his assistant because I could take pictures like this:
He also brought me over some of my favorite candy. Before he left for the night, he and I shared the entire bag. I was so grateful that he was willing to help me, and that we had so much fun doing it. Hopefully I will have no more problems with birds.
I worked a little bit on some fair things this week. I went and got all the extra shirts they had from last year. I've been slowly handing out the extras to friends/family. I had to determine how many extra we had from last year, so they can order the ones for this year. I think it's going to be pretty fun. I'm a bit worried about how tired I might be. It seems like fair days are long. But, it will be a good experience for me to see such a large event happen.
