Memorial Day

Family: Saturday Morning in San Diego

Chicken Corner

Jax and I took a side by side out to Chicken Corner to get some up high views of the Colorado River which is probably at the highest we'll see it again for quite awhile. Some decorative chickens are showed up at the sign again after somebody took a couple years worth of them down.

Jax doesn't like the heat much so frequently opts for the shade of the side by side.

Walking around Chicken Corner.

Then there is this.

The Stats:

I think we made it. The Rockies snowpack has gone from 25 feet to six feet.

The river has gone from 21.5 feet deep to 20.75 deep and has been holding there for a couple days with about a foot of snowpack melting every day. Hopefully we'll get out beach back early this year. The question is if we have one and where will it show up at?

Lake Powell is 23 feet above it's high last year this time.

The River

At the 21 feet deep mark the river flooded the banks of the north side of the property. Even crossed the road.

The south side of the property up the hill and below the mud huts flooded completly.

May

Good Morning Base Camp

The Boat House Stairs

In San Diego: The Yellow Truck Runs

The Last Dome

The Geodesic Domes across the river, called the Domes of Moab, have been an issue for myself and quite a few guests. They're ugly, there was no effort made to have them blend in. They were put up next to the river. The river is not static. It goes up and down. Even if you survive the floods the day the river goes down the mosquitoes show up and that's a blood transfusion every day. As the river has been going up they have made all kinds of effort to try and keep the Domes from flooding. Sand bags everywhere, front end loaders moving the bank up and they've probably added five feet to the bank of the river but apparently unknown to them the river is going up ten feet. Yesterday morning at 6am all kinds of equipment showed up. I thought they would start taking them down but instead they just destroyed them one after the other and put them in trash dumpsters. Out of ten, there were two left and it seemed like it was going to pause at that, but after a short break the equipment came in to finish it. Now, they are gone.

Gut Punch

I'm 70, soon to be 71. Been out here since I was 53 or so. I'm starting to lose friends and the pace is quickening. Mike who with family stayed here for years passed last year. Family will be out later this year to leave ashes at one of his favorite places.

Bill, who was the first person I hired to work here passed late last year in Hawaii. I took the 2am phone call.

Ivan the Terrible as he was called around here taught me how to track and he moved on at the end of last year.

Cliff had just stayed here last month, checked out, next day went fishing in Colorado and passed while telling the fishing guide how much he enjoyed staying here. His wife called to say he was gone and we had just said goodbye's less that 24 hours earlier.

Then last night I checked my phone and saw that both Linda and Heather had called within five minutes of each other. I returned Linda's call and she said my brother, three years younger than I had a heart attack and passed in Montana. Gut punch.

I don't know why but of all the memories I could have of my brother I remember at eight or nine years old he fell off the swing set and had to get stitches. I and friends snuck out of our houses that night and hiked the couple miles to the hospital. Pat was on the ground floor. We found his room and made faces at him through the window. He busted up laughing and they had to redo the stiches in his mouth and stomach.

I had just gotten my driver's license and Pat called the house to ask if I would pick him up at the movie theatre in Kearns. When I got there I didn't see him. Three large guys had him and a friend backed up to the wall of the theatre. I walked up and the biggest guy said "Is this your brother, the kid that's gonna beat the shit out of all of us?" Pat said "Yes." Pat and a friend had been shooting peope with squirt guns during the movie and not picking their targets too wisely. I said "If you don't mind I'd prefer to beat the shit out of him first and save you the trouble." That worked for them and we got out of it. We use to call each other on birthdays and then one year somebody forgot and neither of us called anymore. I wish I could call him now.