Camp Helaman a Success

Vaughn was a helper at our Stake's "Camp Helaman" this year.

Craig and Rebecca's engagement

Vaughn & Bev "Sail" the Carribean

Last January Vaughn and Bev offically began their old codgerhood with a Caribbean Cruise. It seemed everyone on the planet has done several of these except us, so we had lots of advice from friends and family about what to expect. We purchased the cruise package from a local company called "Fun for Less," and this was a special "Book of Mormon" tour that featured Mayan ruins on one of our stops, and some lectures by a Book of Mormon expert by the name of Wayne Brickey.

We flew to Tampa, Florida with a large group, and stayed one night there with our group at a local hotel. Next morning, a bus took us to the cruise line terminal. After a check-in that was worse than what we experienced getting into Russia last year, we went on board ship, the Carnival Legend. Big. That was our impression. We wouldn't feel very confined on it, we decided.

One of the fun things about a cruise is that you get assigned a dining table with others in your group, and that is the same group you eat dinner with for the rest of the cruise. You get to know them and tell all your adventures while enjoying first class food. We grew to really enjoy the people at our table.

After dinner with our friends we enjoyed a stroll on the deck, and then turned in for the night in a comfortable bed. The gentle rolling of the ship seemed to help us sleep. We sailed from Tampa that night, and all the next day and night.

Next morning as we awoke we were docked at Grand Cayman. After a leisurly breakfast on the ship we joined our group to travel out to Sting Ray City, a sandbar in the North Sound of Grand Cayman. There we went into the water where our guide held and let us pet the underside of sting rays. There were hundreds of them in the crystal clear azure water. It gave Vaughn the creeps to touch a living sting ray, but Bev just snuggled right up to the slithery critters and might have tried to adopt one if Vaughn hadn't intervened.

Back on the ship, we set sail for Cozumel, an Island off the Mexican mainland. We were "tendered" to the city by local shuttle boats. There we traveled by taxi with our group to a Mayan ruin called San Gerbazio. Our Book of Mormon expert, Wayne Brickey, politely explained that these were not the ruins of Book of Mormon people, but from an apostate group that lived some time later, so he had nothing more to say about it. A Mayan guide from the Mexican Park Service then explained in barely intelligible English about the purpose of the various temple buildings. It was, he said, a place where ancient Mayan couples from the mainland came to be blessed to have a male child. He pointed out how the people who lived here dug deep holes in the earth to escape the midday heat, and to store food. Bev did some shopping for the grandbabies, then we returned to the ship.

The next day we visited Belize, a now soverign nation once known as British Honduras. They still have the Union Jack on their flag, and drive on the left side of the road as the British do. Again we were tendered to Belize City, where we then traveled by taxi deep inside the jungle to a place where we were equipped with inner tubes and head lamps. This was where we were going to go cave tubing. We had about a mile hike through the jungle before reaching our put-in point on the river. Our guide was knowledgeable about various plants in the jungle and pointed out a number of jungle fruit trees, which we occasionally sampled.

After getting used to the water, we floated as a group down the river and into a cave. This cave was long, perhaps a mile or so long, with occasional openings where the jungle came right up to the river side. Bev and I enjoyed visiting with the other tourists and relaxing on our float down the river. We were both slathered with SPF, so no sunburn that day. On the way back, we stopped for a meal at a local stopping point on the otherwise long, empty road. In the flatlands, the jungle consists of shrubs maybe ten or twelve feet high. But they grow so densely you couldn't poke an eight foot pole its whole width into the mass of growth. In the steeper country, the jungle consists more of trees, and the floor of the jungle has only sparse growth. Most of the animal life is in the canopy, a hundred or more feet high.

Our next stop was Roatan, an Island off the Mexican mainland. Very pretty, but narrow and steep. The beaches there are white, and the water is, well, Caribbean Azure. Only way to describe it. Along the shore there are many fine resorts and residences, obviously catering to the wealthy. The people of Roatan, like most Western Caribbean locals, are very poor. The towns are full of children begging and selling trinkets, and adults selling tourist merchandise. We drove to one of the posh resorts, and were transported via shuttle boat to the coral reefs on the south side of the Island. There we snorkeled, watching the ample marine life go about its business among the coral.

This is Vaughn's snorkeling story: "I watched a small group of fish that seemed to be very interested in something, but I couldn't figure out what, exactly. After a few minutes of watching, it appeared there were several small fish of a blotchy red color trying to swim near a similar kind of fish, but it was more colorless. I guessed the colorless one was a prime female, and the others were males trying to woo her. After a time, one of the males succeeded in running off the others and persuaded the female to swim with him away from the coral. Each time another fish approached, even larger species, the male would take a glaring defensive position between the intruder and the female. I followed the pair for some several hundred feet, keeping my distance. I wondered what would happen if I approached the female a bit closer. True to his character, the male squared off with me. As I began to backpedaled, my motions must have seemed too threatening, and the little lovers scurried off together to take cover under a large frond of coral, not to be seen again. My SPF didn't work well and I had a bright red reminder all over my back for the rest of the trip. But it wasn't that painful, just itchy. “

This was the last of our Caribbean exploits. That night we “sailed” for Tampa. That night and all the next day and night we watched the open sea go by. We saw many large sailboats plying their way among the islands, and it made Vaughn long for a good day of “real sailing.”

The next morning our group disembarked, recovered our luggage, and boarded the bus to the airport. But our flight didn’t leave until later that afternoon. The bus took us to the boardwalk in St. Petersburg, just outside of Tampa. There Bev and Vaughn rented a tandem bicycle and toured the beautiful harbor area of the town. St. Petersburg is no doubt a posh town, because the boats in the harbor are beautiful, large and picturesque, as are the large and immaculate houses and apartments that line the shore along Tampa Bay.

We planned for another cruise as we were travelling home. This was just too fun and pleasant not to do again. Next time, we’ll assemble our own travel package and hopefully, some of our children can come with us.

Vaughn & Blake Sail the High Seas

For ten days in May, Vaughn and Blake sailed the Sea of Cortez near the pretty Mexican town of San Carlos. We went with our friends from Vaughn's work, Tom House and his son Adam. The Houses had done this before (their boat and tow vehicle), so we were the designated novices.

We drove a thousand miles from Salt Lake to San Carlos, through Nogales, and along the the Mexican roads, switching off drivers along the way. We got there with just enough daylight to assemble and rig the boat. It was dark, about 9:30 pm by the time we finally got launched. We were some pretty tired travellers, and a night's horizontal sleep in Martini Cove was more than welcome.

The next day we went into San Carlos to fuel the boat (15 hp outboard, a very important back up item when sailing the Sea of Cortez) and to get a shower and some breakfast. San Carlos is a pretty place, but quite Americanized. Not the "real" Mexico. We spent the rest of the day trying out the boat and sailing close to San Carlos, then spent another night in Martini Cove.

Next morning at 4:00 am, we began motoring across to the Baja side. The winds normally don't start until about 10:00 am, but this morning the winds were very quiet. About half way across, our outboard motor began sputtering and finally died. With no wind, we were in a bit of a pickle. We were towing a small plastic dinghy that had a small outboard, so we used the dinghy to tow ourselves back to San Carlos. It's a small outboard, and needless to say, it was a slow trip. Late that night we tied up on the dock at San Carlos and slept until morning.

It turned out that our motor problem was a fouled spark plug, which was easily repaired in a local boat shop. Re-enthused, we set sail again, only this time the wind was perfect for a broad reach to Santa Rosalia on the Baja side. This was real upwind sailing, some of the best we had. Late in the afternoon we sailed right through a pod of 12-15 whales. They were spouting, breaching and rolling. And they were huge! Vaughn had fun trimming the sails, Blake had fun navigating with his GPS. As it got dark, the wind died.

We (this is a collective we, as Vaughn was sound asleep below) put out a sea anchor and decided to spend the night, then sail on at first light. But a freak windstorm arose. No clouds, just winds about 45 mph, and the temperature plummeted. Ripples accumulated into chop, which turned to waves, and before long we were bobbing in angry-looking 8-12 foot swells. It didn't take much of this before we were all seasick. As the sun rose, we decided that bobbing in that kind of motion was no fun, so we motored on. The wind began to abate slightly, so we raised our sails and headed on toward Santa Rosalia.

Sometime that afternoon we arrived in the small fishing and mining community of Santa Rosalia. We novices felt quite a sense of accomplishment. We had sailed 84 miles across open sea with some rough conditions!

And what a pleasant sight the harbor was. As soon as you pull up to a slip in one of these Mexican harbors, there are always a few Americans who come up and want to hear your stories and find out about you. Tom House calls them "harbor hippies." They're generally very warm, friendly and helpful people who have retired to live on the water in these places. They devoured our sailing stories the way we devoured the town's fish tacos, they couldn't seem to get enough of them. And once you tell them a few stories, they're eager to share a few of their own. Sharing stories in the harbor is all part of the full experience, we discovered.

We toured the town of Santa Rosalia and found it to be a relatively untouched oasis of Mexican charm and culture. We stopped at a local restaurant and enjoyed a full meal of delicious Mexican food. Then we checked in at a local hotel to get a shower and a well-earned night's rest in a bed that wasn't moving and creaking.

The next morning, Blake and I explored the town and entertained the local merchants with our massacred attempt at Spanish, sign language and some tortured Pigeon English. Blake was looking for a sarong to take back to Sally. Since we didn't know the Spanish word for sarong, Vaughn demonstrated to the shopkeepers how it wraps and tucks, along with a few words like "por senorita," and "playa." This got the most chuckles from our Mexican hosts. I think they may have wanted us to stay in their shops, just for the entertainment.

But Blake persisted and did eventually find Sally's sarong ("pareo" in Spanish). We enjoyed fish tacos for breakfast and lunch. Then we all went back to the marina to refit the boat. With all the hammering from the storm, a few things had come loose, so we had to refit.

Eventually we put to sea again that afternoon, well rested, well fed and ready for more adventure. Unfortunately there was no wind at all. The sea was like glass. We motored until a slight breeze came up. When it became strong enough, we put up our main sail and Genoa while still motoring. Eventually, though, we had enough wind behind us to put up Tom's asymmetrical spinnaker and we were able to have a gentle downwind sail without the motor. It took some work to keep the sails full, but it was fun for a while. Eventually, we went back to motoring when the wind died again.

That night, the sky was the brightest Blake and I had ever seen it. Jupiter, bright in the southern sky, reflected off the surface of the water the way a full moon does. The milky way looked like a streak of white clouds across the sky. Santa Rosalia was a faint glow at a spot on the horizon to the west, Guymas and San Carlos were a barely visible glow at a spot on the horizon to the east. The north star was to us a more convenient navigating point, and more accurate, than looking down at our GPS. Helming and watching the sky at sea on a clear night was an awe-inspiring and novel experience for us. It seems organic and primal in a way that you can only experience. But it's impossible to explain these feelings to someone who hasn't done it.

As great as that night sky was, it wasn't the most amazing thing we saw. Plankton in the Sea of Cortez phosphoresce when they are disturbed. That night, bottlenose dolphins swam, played and performed along our bow. The plankton illuminated the dolphin's bodies as if they were aglow from within. A bright, greenish trail followed wherever the the dolphins swam.

The dolphins synchronized their play, so it was like a choreographed light show, only spontaneous and natural, unlike anything Industrial Light and Magic could ever produce. They reminded Vaughn of adolescents enjoying their bodies' athletic capabilities, demonstrating their skills as if they were showing us how it was done, or inviting us to come out and play. Wow, what an experience! We wanted to be dolphins for a day.

As we approached San Carlos, the wind picked up nicely, as if the Sea of Cortez was saying goodbye to us by giving us a brisk, broad reach to end our journey. And it was fun, the hottest upwind sailing of the whole trip.

It was a bit sad to bring the boat into the harbor, but the thought of fresh food and a hot shower was beckoning us, too. Our six-hour ordeal of trailering and de-rigging the boat ended in time for us to get one last fish taco before we began our drive home.

But it turned out that the adventure of our trip wasn't confined to sailing. We arrived at the US Border in Nogales about 1:00 am, but our ever-vigilant US Border Patrol wouldn't let us through because we were towing a trailer. We were force to turn around, but an enterprising local offered in barely intelligible Spanglish to show us a way to get through at Mexicali first thing next morning. For only thirteen dollars, he said, he would guide us through to Mexicali. OK, we said, and we got a nighttime tour through the rougher side of Nogales, parallel to George Bush's thirty-foot border fence.

Once we were headed through narrow, unlit streets, with nowhere to turn around, we were sure we were going to be pounced on by a group of thugs. But our "guide" was true to his word, and we ended up in Mexicali on the Mexican side, headed the wrong way at the incoming lane of traffic and no way to get to the outbound lanes. That was when Ibrahim, our guide, told us that his price was "thirty," not thirteen dollars. After a lengthy argument we gave him his thirty dollars, turned around and headed out of Nogales to find a truck stop where we felt safer. After sleeping for five hours, we made it through the US border with little delay.

But our adventure wasn't over. Our car engine began to fail just outside of Mesquite, Nevada. We pulled up to an Auto Zone in Mesquite where they gave us a complementary computer engine scan and reported that our number six cylinder was misfiring. That was a simple enough fix. We changed the plug, wire, distributor cap and rotor, and the engine was purring like a kitten.

But then we discovered the axle on the trailer had failed. That was a bigger kind of problem, so we holed up for the night in a Mesquite casino hotel. Actually, that was a refreshing change from trying to sleep in the car on the way back. It may have been a good idea anyway, because we were all tired and sleep deprived. We may have avoided something worse than a bad axle by resting. Next morning, Tom made arrangements through AAA to have the boat and trailer towed to St. George, where his brother allowed us to park the trailer next to his home. After removing the axle and strapping it to the the roof of Tom's car, we were headed home to Salt Lake.

Blake and Vaughn got dropped off in Draper, where Vaughn's truck was parked. On the way to Sugarhouse to drop off Blake we noticed the Houses were pulling off on the Bangerter Highway exit. We just figured they were looking for a fish taco and kept going. But as it turned out, Tom's transmission had failed. He had to get his wife to come and get him the rest of the way to his home in Bountiful. It was a kind of fitting end to our adventure though. After our struggle to get back by mother's day eve, for Tom to be rescued and brought home the last few miles by his sweetheart.

Adventure in the High Uintas

Blake went with Scout and his brothers John, Scott and Paul to the Uintas last week. They left from Salt Lake City around 9:00 am on February 2. Around 11:00 am, they reached the trailhead located about 30 min south of Evanston, WY. It took them a while to get changed into their snow gear and cross-country skis, but they managed to start just before noon. Whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow on this Groundhod Day, the boys enjoyed warm sunshine for almost 4 and half miles of the groomed gradual-uphill trail and wouldn't have minded these winter-time conditions for 6 more MONTHS. They maintained a brisk pace not considering that they stopped periodically to shed layers and tank up on water and food while Scout pranced around in the powder while he waited for somebody to offer up some leftovers. They traveled almost five miles in less than two hours and it looked like they would reach their destination faster than they thought.

The storm from the previous night brought about a foot of snow at the trailhead elevation of 8,500' but the groomed trail and warm conditions lessened the burden of having to blaze fresh tracks. As the boys went farther from the trailhead and higher in elevation, however, the clouds seemed to drown out the sun and the trail became less traveled. Cold gusts of wind covered the tracks with drifts of snow and the once-gradual sloping trail shot up a ridge side. The adventurers found that they needed to stop for lunch to regain energy, yet the once-warm temperatures turned frigid and bit at their hands while they grappled at their packs and food. Scout tried burying himself in a small hole to seek refuge while his companions ate, but the blowing wind breeched Scout's fortress and chilled the dog to his bones. While the food may have provided energy, the cold robbed the travelers of relaxation and warmth; the only comfort and heat they would find on this ridge is that created themselves by trudging on up the steep ridge.

Lunch took place at 2:00 pm and an altitude of 9,500' but the ridge-top that stood in their way rose to an altitude of 10,500' and wore a fresh and untracked coat of deep snow. The mile-and-a-half trek from the lunch area to the yurt took as much time as the previous five miles, but cost the group much more in energy and mental strength. Fortunately, the group reached the yurt before the sun went down, and had time to make a fire in the pot-bellied stove before conditions deteriorated much worse. They prepared well and brought gourmet rolls and kabobs that lifted their spirits and appeased their appetites.

The yurt contained beds and lanterns, so the company (except Scout-- who didn't trust the the sides of the yurt that flapped in the pounding wind) slept well through the night and recovered from their journey. The adventurers planned their breakfast with as much foresight as dinner; they enjoyed grilled brats, cinnamon rolls, left-overs from dinner and canned fruit. Their night stay and great meals, not to mention the downhill slope, enlivened the trekkers making the journey back delightful. They even enjoyed the view from the ridge that overlooked the East Fork of the Bear River valley.

Yeah for the Weekend!

Well, I wanted to send a few pictures of VCH your way. Today we went to this place called The Springs Reserve here in Las Vegas with some friends from the ward. It is this huge garden and nature area, and they have a kids play area and a museum inside. It was lots of fun. We heard about it from an older man who works there and taught a class last night in enrichment. It was on how to grow a garden. I guess a lot of vegtables will grow here, but you have to grow them the right time of year. In Vegas that is this month, so we are going to try growing a vegtable garden. I'm very excited. We'll see how it goes.

I hope the boys have fun this weekend at the Yurt, and that Mom and Dad are having lots of fun on their cruise!

Amanda's family pictures on the web

If anyone wants, Amanda has a ton of family pictures up on Flickr. You guys can access the pictures by going to www.flickr.com and log in as clarkemett password: amanda

We'll try to organize them a little better, but right now there is a set titled Emett family pictures which I think is all the pictures from emett family events and outings.