Flashback Friday: Stewart Hill Drive

I played outside a lot as a kid. I was one of those kids that was out the door after breakfast and only came in for Ramen noodles and popsicles and bandaids. We had a great yard and neighborhood. Why would I be inside?  Here are a few pictures of me outside our home in River Heights. I'll try to provide dates if I can guess.

Check out this gem of a car. I don't remember riding in it. I remember that beauty of a van parked in front of it though. Can you see the curtains in the windows? It also had tables and the back seat folded down into a bed. It was a pseudo camper, for sure. We climbed on the ladder all the time. The roof of the van was the best hiding spot during night games but I was never that brave.

circa 1986. Belly shirts were big that year.

I wish I had that wooden chair. Too cute.

I realized a couple of years ago I love chain link fences. They are sturdy, great for climbing over, don't obstruct your view, keep dogs in or out. Sure they're not pretty but they're not that noticeable either. 

Anyway, if you look closely and compare my bangs in the picture below with the picture above you'll see I cut them. I remember that day. My mom had a bunch of women over and they were all sitting around the kitchen table. I think it was some sort of presidency meeting for church. I asked her if she could cut my bangs but she said no because she was busy (duh). I went back into her bathroom and got her hair scissors. I opened them up, held them to my forehead and thought "this feels like about where she cuts my bangs." No. No it was not where she cut my bangs. I put the scissors down and went on my merry way not thinking for one second I had done anything but a great job. One of my older sisters enlightened me and then I cried.

1987. I betcha I'm not even swinging, just hanging.

I loved this swimming suit because the day I picked it out I learned what a koala was. The suit also came with these sunglasses. I'm thinking the suit was purchased long before this photo was taken because it doesn't fit me anymore. This was also the time of life that I wore my swimming suit all day and sometimes all night and then all day again. You never knew when sprinklers were turning on at any of the houses in the neighborhood. It's best to be prepared.

Let's say 1989

We had the best front yard or at least an exciting one with these evergreen bushes bordering the walkway to the house. They were poky. The dead, fallen branches would give you slivers if you walked down it barefoot. I learned to steer my tricycle straight to avoid running into them. You knew you were one of the big kids if you could run and jump over them.

1990. Look at my cute baby brother behind me.

 Another picture in front of the fence. I love it. This is the west side of our yard. If I had a picture of the north side, I'd love to show you. Behind the chain link fence on the north side, the back of our yard, was a drop off, a cliff. We lived on the edge of the "gravel pit". (I think there are homes built down there now.) It's where we dumped our grass clippings and if you were really brave, you'd hop behind the fence and scale down the hill a bit and hide during kick-the-can.

1990

 This was the best front porch. It was a concrete porch that ran the entire front of the house. We played house, board games, rode our bikes, pretended it was a stage or school. It seems weird to me now that there was a flower bed between the porch and the house. My eyes are closed in the sunshine just like my kids do. That's funny.

1989 I think. I remember wearing these clothes in kindergarten so that's my best guess.

 If you were standing at the end of our walkway and took a picture of across the street, this is what you'd see. The butter yellow house was my best friend Melissa Bambrough's house. The house to the right of it, almost cut out of the picture, was where a boy named Riley lived. He had spiky hair.

1991. Not my bike. Probably Melissa's bike.

Melissa's basement was unfinished so her mom let us build forts with sheets tacked right into the 2x4s. Her mom once sent me home for hitting Melissa's little sister. "We don't hit at our house," she said as she pushed me out the door. I wanted to yell defiantly "Well I do!" but didn't. Her sister deserved it. I don't remember what she did but I was a well-behaved child so she must of done something really bad. 

Other memories:

We played night games all the time. In my mind our house was the gathering spot for the neighborhood kids (It didn't hurt that we made up 8 of the kids). We knew who's yard was best for what games: kick-the-can, steal-the-flag, sardines, colored eggs, etc. I think I was one of the younger kids but I played hard and didn't want to be treated as one. Sometimes we'd play poison on our basketball hoop mounted over the garage door and I was no good at that. 

Tommy Atwood and Kenny Fox. These two boys were best friends and sometimes my friends and sometimes were mean to me. I played with them a lot until Melissa moved in. Tommy always wore cowboys boots so he ran funny. Red hair and freckles. His mom was super nice and threw the best birthday parties.  Kenny was nicer when Tommy wasn't around. He was probably my first friend. He's the only boy not in my family I've seen pee.  We got in trouble for lighting matches against the bricks next to Tommy's front porch.

Kenny Fox carried around a blankie. I once teased him about it (maybe I wasn't as nice as I thought) and threw it down the neighbor's window well. He tackled me and chocked me for a second and ran off. I ran home and told my mom but I don't think she took it seriously enough. 

One night I was playing late at Kenny's house which was next door. By the time I went home it was dark. When I got to my front porch there was a ginormous snail right in front of the door. It's antennae were wiggling around. (I'm making a face typing this.) I freaked out and ran back inside the Fox's house, not even bothering to knock. I told Sister Fox about the snail and she told me to be brave and just go right on by. I don't remember how I got into my house that night, if I did walk on by or if I used another door. But I do know I skip the page with the photo of the snail in my kids' ABC nature book to this day.

Kenny had an older sister named Alison that was my sister Rachel's friend. I loved Alison. She was so nice and cool and I loved when she came to our house and Rachel would let me stick around. One day I knocked on their door and asked if Allison could play. I was like 5 and she was 11. She was so nice to play Barbies with me for a little while. *Fun fact: When I was at USU, we had a class together. For some weird reason Developing Societies could be taken as a graduate or upper level sociology class. She was in it as a grad student, I was in it for my sociology minor.

My world was so small then. Brother Fox was Dr. Fox our family doctor. Dr. Bingham was our dentist and lived down the street. There were teachers from our school that lived in our neighborhood. My whole life was riding bikes around the block, going to the cemetery a street over, riding down the hill to the school if we felt up to the ride back up. I had 6 kids my age in that neighborhood. If someone couldn't play, just ride to the next house. We knew which houses would let us jump on their trampolines, which had mean dogs, which houses didn't mind if we rode bikes in their driveway.

Basically it was perfect.

The Grand Canyon "is pretty big"

"Pretty big" was Henry's assessment of the park. We left after school on Valentine's day, spent a night in Hurricane and then headed south along with my parents. My dad had wanted to go this winter while they were in Hurricane so we kind of invited ourselves along.

First things first, a cinnamon roll from Muddy Bees bakery by the house. That was a good breakfast.

We drove through the FLDS towns of Hildale and Colorado City. I had only seen these places on Dateline so I was extra excited. I did not see any polygamists but I can go to the grocery store here in Spanish Fork to see them.

Definitely not a single-family home

We drove through a really cool mountain pass, the Kaibab Forest, and then came out the other side to this view.

Next on our stop, "Cave Dwellers." My dad figured out pretty quick my kids like to climb on rocks and thought it was a good place to stop. He was right.

 This one looked like an ice cream cone.

 They thought this one looked like a teeter-totter.

Next stop: Crossing the Colorado River on a bridge (not on a ferry) at Lees Ferry. Justin let us out so I could walk across the pedestrian bridge with the kids and he parked the car on the other side then ran back to meet us.

I don't care who you are, that's pretty.

This is the car bridge as seen from the pedestrian bridge.

I do okay with heights looking out but not so much looking down.

 It was so pretty. I wasn't too freaked out for my kids safety because the railing is pretty intense.

And on the other side they found more rocks to climb on.

Then we continued on! We finally arrived at the entrance of the park early afternoon. Our first stop was the Watchtower.  The tower isn't as old as it looks---it was designed to look old. I still don't know what they're watching out for.

Inside the tower was a gift shop and some artisans doing their art. We went up and up all the stairs to get to the top.

 Erica was not happy about group photos. I think someone bossed her so she was in a bad mood for awhile.

 I don't remember if this was the view from there or from one of the MANY outlook points along the drive to the main park area. My kids got really tired of stopping to get out to see another view of the canyon that looked, to them, just like the last view. But even if the view is similar, it gives you a good idea just how huge this place is. You drive for a couple of miles, get out, and yup, it's still going.

It was pretty cold but never miserably so. I brought two jackets thinking I'd wear one or the other but I ended up wearing both the entire time so it looks like I never changed my clothes but I promise I did.

Is there a word for a picture of a selfie being taken? An "otherie"?

 After the 4th or 5th stop it started to get dark and my kids were done so we drove through Canyon Village and then found a pizza place in the town of Tusayan to eat dinner. Justin took the kids swimming and then went to bed.

Sunday morning we went to the visitors center and the famous Mather Point outlook.

Where there's a rock, there's a Dye kid climbing on it.

 This was the most crowded area of the park and the most impressive view.

 The canyon looks the biggest from here than all the other overlooks.

James asked me to take his picture and posed for this but didn't even try to open his eyes in the bright sun. Goofy kid.

 This is me trying out some new poses that I saw among the other tourists.

 I betcha we seem so boring just standing and smiling for pictures.

We intended to walk along the rim trail but James whined and wanted to be carried and I didn't want to do that so that put a quick end to our "hike."

Then we changed clothes in a parking lot and went to church. It was my first time attending church NOT in a LDS chapel and defintely the first time inside a national park. There is a branch that meets here weekly, I think for the members that work and live in the park.

Our kids were so good during the sacrament meeting. I don't know what was going on. It helped they weren't sitting together and my mom had fruit snacks but they weren't even wiggly. It was so weird.

 And then we changed back out of our church clothes and continued on the rim drive. This is at the Powell Memorial.

 Listening to my mom tell my kids to get down and away from the edge showed me where I get it. I don't think either of us are overly paranoid--moms just take their jobs of keeping their kids alive very seriously. One person dies every year in the Grand Canyon from falling. It was not going to be anyone in my family!

Atop the Powell Memorial.

The outlook behind the memorial. It looks like they are on a precipice and I had to walk away and not even watch them stand out there. My mom took this picture.

But there was actually another level of rock to stand on. 

After having our eyeful of the Grand Canyon, we said goodbye and drove to Page, AZ. We spent the night there and then in the morning we took a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam. I had been to Lake Powell before but never this end of it so the dam was cool to see and learn about. My mom told me my Grandpa Baadsgaard worked on the dam.

First we stopped at the dam overlook.

 One has to hike down a little bit and my kids took the opportunity to again scare me by jumping from boulder to boulder. Erica was wearing her church sandals so I was extra mad at her.

 Carrying James safely along the railing like a responsible mother.

 Here's the dam view.

 I could have stayed there longer but we had to be on time for our dam tour.

This is the view from inside the visitors center.

Here we are on the dam! They take groups of 20 a few times a day. Justin did some good work on the phone to get our group of 8 scheduled. We had to go through security scanners so you know we were going to see something good!

 Erica is mad about something again.

  Me taking a picture.

 Here is that picture.

These crane thingies pull the filters up. They find all sorts of crazy things in the filters like beach towels and oars. I suggested they make a display in the visitors center, sort of like a wall of shame.

It is big. They poured concrete continuously, day and night, for 4 years.

 Then we took an elevator ride down to the bottom. I can't remember how many stories it was. 40?

From the visitors center you can see this green patch. This green stuff is grass. We got to go all the way down there and outside but not on the grass. It is watered by overflow or something. It keeps the air cool down there.

And here we are actually down there.

 These are the 7 turbines that create electricity. They always have 4 running but rarely all 7 unless California is sucking all the juice.

Back inside the visitors center my kids played on this boat for a really long time. Things got a little dramatic with a storm and large sharks.

And then after a stop back at the hotel for the shoes and jacket Erica left in the closet, we headed home! We drove on 89 for a good part of the way which was fun because I had never been that way.

Here are a few non-pictured thoughts.

1. Henry did not want to go before we went and asked to go home like 10 times (whenever he didn't get his way). You'd never know by his smiling face in all the pictures.

2. I don't know if I believe the Grand Canyon was made they say it was. I just don't like how confident scientists can be about what went on millions of years ago. You don't know. Stop talking like you know, visitors center video narrator.

3. James sleeps like a champ on the road. That's good to know for future plans.

4. I overpacked on car snacks. We didn't even open the dried mangos.

5. Justin wants to go back and hike down and across and up and around and through the canyon. I'm good.

6. At first sight my kids said the canyon looked nothing like that episode of the Brady Brunch. Were they thinking of this?

Because they'd be right.