Dam Thing

Today was all about the dam. Returning to the hotel after yet another late breakfast at Denny's, Stephen and Ann said they wanted to go to see Hoover Dam. We also wanted to go and we all were joined by Cameron, Millie Kay, and Hank. Colette chose vitamin D by the pool. We climbed the hill to walk across the new bridge. I hugged the back side of the walkway to avoid the staggering drop off, but managed to get out far enough to look down at the dam. We drove down to and across the dam before returning to Henderson for lunch at In-N-Out Burger. Then this evening we drove back to Lake Mead for a dinner cruise. The food was surprisingly good! The company was great. We sailed right up to the dam for a slightly different perspective, but, sadly, it was too dark for a photo.

 The new bridge

 Hoover Dam from the Bridge

 Hank, Ann, Stephen, and Cam seem unruffled by
the staggering drop

 Excursion participants

 The dam is a great Art-Deco structure

 A remarkable bit of engineering

 Lunch!

The Hansen Cousins 2012

 The cousins boarding the boat

 Dinner on board

 The empty place is mine

 The old man and the sea ... er ... um ... reservoir perhaps

 The sunset was beautiful

 Yup, beautiful

This was another fun day. After breakfast tomorrow, the reunion will be finished and we will head for home. There may be a tiny bit more to record, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Monday in Henderson

Monday started with a lie-in, followed by breakfast at Denny's. I prevailed on Hank and Colette and they indulged me with a visit to  Ethel M's chocolate factory and cactus gardens. Ethel M is the wife of Frank Mars who made all the candy bars you grew up with: Snickers, etc. Anyway, after they retired they began making serious chocolates in Henderson and the factory and its adjoining cactus gardens are open to the public. If you are wondering where you might find several buses packed with Asian tourists, this is the place. Might have been a highlight if they had been making chocolates on Monday -- they were not.

The afternoon was spent with a bit of visiting at the hotel, eating leftovers, and visiting with cousins at HB's house. There was also a short excursion to some air-conditioned lockups to see some of HB's vintage car collection. The cars are quite fabulous, but collecting blue and white plates is more my speed.

Later in the evening we all met at the Sonrisa Grill at an Italian-like village at the other end of Lake Las Vegas for a Mexican nosh. It was another chance to get caught up with the cousins.

 The view of Lake Las Vegas from our room

 View of the hotel from our patio

 Kris and Hank returning to the hotel

 The hotel drive with Italian-style villas in the distance

 "My stars, how do Mars make such

wonderful candy bars?"

 Hank, Kris, and Colette in the cactus garden

 It's the season for cactus blooms

 Visiting in the loggia of the hotel

 Cameron, Millie, Ann, SKT, KBT and Chris

 HB, Norma, and Kris

 HDT Jr., SKT, and Cam

 If I were a car guy, I would have remembered

what kind of car this is

 Because I'm an Anglophile and watch lots of Masterpiece,

I know this is a Bentley 

 Hank, Colette, HB, Dorothy, Kreg, Eric, and Joan

(Norma's children)

Kris, Cam, Millie, SKT, Phil, waitress, 

Ann, Phyllis, and Chris

This has been great fun. The hotel, as you can see above, is very nice. The rate Norma arranged for us is very good, but in general, I think a Comfort-Inn-Hampton-Inn-type place is more my speed. I guess I'm too tight; I don't need a bell hop, I like the breakfast to be included, and the other amenities are not much use to me. I guess I spent too many years traveling on the cheap with study-abroad students. Oh well, that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Sunday with the Hansens

Sunday, we enjoyed a great breakfast at the Comfort Inn before heading to church. I randomly picked a building near to HB Calder's house. The Lake Mead Stake Center turned out to be a great building from the 50s or 60s. They just don't make them like that anymore. We spent the warm (over 100) afternoon at the new hotel/resort resting and visiting with Stephen and Ann who arrived with the doggies and couldn't get into their room until later. (The trip to the dam didn't materialize.) Late afternoon we went to HB's for visiting and a fabulous dinner: tenderloin, asparagus, salads, Gorgonzola sauce good enough to bathe in, homemade apricot ice cream, and raisin-filled cookies from Parson's Bakery just like the ones we ate as kids in Richfield. Story telling and reminiscing went on until late.

Henderson Nevada Lake Mead Stake Center

Hank and Millie Kay Calder Francis

Cameron Calder and Kris

Phyllis Hansen Gainsborough and Phil

Kris cooling her heels at sunset

View of Las Vegas from HB's house

 Sharing memories of the ancestors (sounds Asian!?)

We will see what today holds, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Moapa Valley

Yesterday, we, with Hank and Colette, were off to the Hansen cousins' reunion in Henderson, Nevada. We left a day early so we could take the cut off just after Mesquite and travel through the Moapa Valley. We stopped at the Lost City Museum in Overton where ancient Native Americans once had a community. In the 19th century, Mormons, under the direction of Brigham Young, tried unsuccessfully to establish a settlement there. Their homes and building are now all beneath Lake Mead, although the most recent history of Overton is also still primarily LDS.

From Overton we traveled south to the spectacular Valley of Fire. I had no idea Nevada had such dramatic geological formations. They feel like they belong in Utah (they almost are in Utah I suppose). It was a great surprise and well worth the extra trip. The photos, as you know, simply don't do justice to the real thing.

Colette, Hank, and Kris at the Lost City Museum, an adobe

structure built by the CCC boys during the FDR years

Hank exploring a kiva

Valley of Fire

Ditto

Ditto

Ditto

The White Domes

 This is where I biffed it and smashed my knee because my 

sunglasses are bifocals and I missed a step 

... ice packs and Ibuprofen did the trick

We are off to church, thence to Hoover Dam, and then later this afternoon the actual reunion will begin. There will likely be more to report, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Shy and Retiring

This morning at 7:00, I gave my last final of the semester and afterwards, turned in the last set of grades. After summer term, I will have completed my BYU career of 34 years. From one perspective, that seems like a lot of years, but from another it seems like less than half of a lifetime. The time, as with all else in life, has gone very quickly and it is surprising in some ways to be at this point. Teaching, with only one or two small hiccups (read: unpleasant students), has been overwhelmingly enjoyable, and BYU has been great. It has provided me and the family with some of our richest experiences (read: study abroad).

The university hosted a very nice dinner for retirees last week. Kris and I attended with Vicki and Rod, who is also retiring. Yesterday the School of Family Life, my current department, hosted an informal lunch to honor me and Catherine Burnham. Catherine is clothing (sewing) faculty and this is her last semester, too.

My official retirement photo, taken last week
by the university photographer

Program, etc. from the university dinner

That's me, fifth from the top

Catherine and me with good food from Cafe Rio

We are looking forward to traveling, starting this weekend with a Hansen cousins' reunion at Lake Las Vegas. After summer term we are excited to join all our progeny at Disneyland in September, followed by a trip to England with Grandmother Boynton in the fall.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Not the Best Lemon Cake...

Last Saturday, with all the family here, we celebrated Katy's birthday. She recently went through her wardrobe and got rid of tons of stuff, which she shared with her sisters.

By special request, I made green pasta and a lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. Kris made the syrup and candied lemons for the cake. When we served the cake, Kris said, "This isn't the best lemon cake I've ever had." Most were unaware of her part in making the cake and assumed she was slamming the cake in general, and I suppose, by extension, me. The resultant laughter carried on for quite some time. The cake was actually very good (Martha Stewart's recipe), but if you were expecting something more like the flavor of lemon squares, it was bland by comparison. Anyway, it was one of those phrases that will go down in family history.

Katy sharing discarded clothing

The infamous lemon cake

She got them all

The birthday girl

That's all for now.

OXO

D.