McCall, ID Trip

This August we took a trip to McCall, ID with Tara's family.  It was a great trip and a perfect place for a family vacation.  McCall is about two hours north of Boise and well worth the drive. It's a small little mountain town, but there's great food, nice places to stay, a couple of golf courses, the lake is amazing, and there are two ski resorts if you want to do this in the winter as well. Here are a few pics of our activities on the trip.  River rafting on the Salmon river was awesome.

Highlight of the trip was rafting on the lower Salmon River.

 





Touring the smoke jumper base in McCall.  Ashley is in full gear.

Paddle boarding and cliff jumping in McCall.  We went to the lake almost everyday.

There was a not so wild fox at our condos.  The girls liked feeding him by hand.

 



Lonnie and Spencer checking out the fish hatchery.

 



 

We golfed a couple of times on very beautiful courses.  Watch Ashley below hitting her own leg with the ball.

 



Our July Birthdays

July is a busy birthday month at the Davenport household.  On July 1st, we had Tara's birthday.  Dave was planning a surprise party for her this year, but those plans changed when Tara threw Dave a surprise party (can't have two surprise party in the same year for the same couple. Social faux pas).  We were in Reno for Tara's birthday.  Next we had Britney's birthday.  She turned 5 years old.  Her birthday was while we were in Yosemite National Park on July 6th.  A few weeks later we had Megan's 10th birthday on July 20th.  We were actually home for that one.  And on the same day, Kam, our husky, had his 3rd birthday (surprised this dude has survived this long, thought Tara would euthanize him earlier).  Happy birthday girls (and Kam)!!!

 

Tara celebrating her birthday by riding the saddle at Texas Roadhouse in Reno.

Britney turned 5 years old in Yosemite.  We decorated the hotel room for her.

Megan is now in double digits, she turned 10 at home this year.

 

Kam survived another year for his birthday and got some sweet doggie bones from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (no chocolate though, we don't want him dead yet).

Summer Roadtrip '13

Part One: Reno/Tahoe/Virginia City

The purpose of this family road trip was to see Grandma and Grandpa Davenport on their mission in Oakland area.  But, we decided to make a few stops before and after to see some sights near by.  We stopped in Reno first.  My geography that I work covers all of Nevada.  I worked (and played) there a few days while we toured around ( I hoard my vacation days).  I worked in Carson City the first day, then we headed up to Lake Tahoe to enjoy 90 degree weather.  The lake is amazing.  It is crystal clear.  A person can see 30 feet down to the bottom, just like in Carribean or Hawaii, or just unlike Utah Lake where a person can't see more than 3 inches below the surface.  We rented a paddleboard there and the girls loved it.  Ashley was a pro.  She now wants a $1,000 board for her birthday (unlikely request).

* * *

On the way home, we stopped by Virginia City.  Also a very interesting spot.  Virginia City looks very similar to how it looked in the 1800s.  Seriously, not much has changed, except for pavement.  It really was like going back in time.  We took a tour of Chollar mine which the girls enjoyed.  We saw lots of wild horse signs driving back and then we noticed a herd of wild horses.  No fences, just roaming, wild horses grazing on the mountain flats.  The girls thought that was awesome.

Britney working the phone lines deep in the mine.

   

 Standing on the boardwalk in Virginia City underneath the Delta Saloon sign.

 

Notice the wild horses in the background.  Cool!!!



Lake Tahoe with the girls.

Sitting in the bowling pin car at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno.



Part Two: San Francisco/Oakland/Alcatraz/USS Hornet

We made our way to Hayward, CA, just south of Oakland.  We made a brief stop in Sacramento and Ashley and I went to the temple there.  Ashley wants to attend the temple in all the areas that we visit.  It's not as always possible, but we try.  The Reno temple didn't accommodate us, but Sacramento did.  Danielle, Rosabelle, and Sunny were already at Grandma and Grandpa's apartment when we arrived.  They beat us by an hour to be their first visitors.  We went and visited the Oakland temple while we were there, but it was under renovation so we toured the visitor center.  It's a nice piece of property where the temple is located.  The next day we went into San Francisco to see Alcatraz prison.  Most of us hadn't seen it before.  The kids thought it was interesting, minus Rosabelle and Sunny.  Not enough action for them.  Shocking how cool San Francisco is in the summer.  Like Mark Twain said,  "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."  That day we also went to Ghirardelli Square and we rode the trolley.  They let Ashley and I hold onto the rail on the outside and stand as the trolley moved.  I can't believe they let people do that still.  We waited an hour to get on the trolley, but found a better way to get on once we started moving (contact me if you want the secret).  We had seafood at the wharf and we called it a day.

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 The next day was the Fourth of July.  We went to visit the USS Hornet.  That was the aircraft carrier that took Doolittle and his crew to bomb Tokyo after they raided Pearl Harbor.  The ship was also used to retrieve the astronauts on some of the Apollo missions to the moon.  We spent a lot of time touring the ship.  We went back in the early afternoon to swim and for Megan to nap.  Megan had a really bad ear infection while we were there, though we didn't know how bad at the time.  We saw Monsters University movie after dinner.  Then we headed back to the USS Hornet to watch the fireworks across the San Francisco bay (kind of a let down because we were so far away).



Alcatraz



Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, waiting for the cable car trolley.

Rosabelle was worried that Ash and I would be hit by oncoming cars while hanging out of the moving trolley.  Seriously, I can't believe they still let people hang out of the cars.

The USS Hornet aircraft carrier.  

Riding the torpedo. 

Part Three: Yosemite National Park

None of us had ever visited Yosemite National Park.  It wasn't exactly close to Oakland, but it was close enough.  We drove a little over three hours to get there.  It was worth the trip.  We saw El Capitan, Half Dome, took a few little hikes, caught the mist from a few waterfalls, and we even had a rare black bear sighting near Glacier Point.  Yosemite is a great park!!! It was unfortunate that we only had a few days to see.  Not enough indeed.  Megan also had a raging earache while we were there.  We got her on some antibiotics and drops, but she was miserable.  Dropping and rising between 4500 to 9000 feet didn't help either.  The next day was Britney's birthday.  We spent that day visiting the Sequoia forest in the south park area near Wawona.  Those trees are massive and not to be confused with the redwoods.  Redwood trees are tall, sequoias are big and thick.  This is where the famous tree is where you could once drive a car through a tunnel in the truck, though that tree fell years ago (shocker, they cut a tunnel in it).  There was a smaller version of a tree that was similar to that one and we walked through it.  We had Britney's birthday party on the grass in front of the famous Wawona lodge.  After that we said our goodbyes to Grandma and Grandpa Davenport.  We headed north through the park to get back home and they headed west.  It was a nice drive through the northern part of the park.  We saw Half Dome from the back as well as Tuolumne Meadows and some cool lakes.  The East exit of the park is almost at 10,000 feet.  That was interesting.  Definitely worth a trip here.  We had a great time and glad to be out of the car.  We put a lot of miles on the Suburban.   

Family pic in front of Half Dome (Megan is hiding her pain, she felt awful).

El Capitan above Grandma and Grandpa.

A few of the big sequoias.  Britney loved the huge pinecones (actually from a sugar pine, sequoia cones are small, just larger than a walnut).

 Britney turned 5 years old.  Sitting in front of Wawona lodge.



Valley Forge/Gettysburg

Last month I had a convention I attended in Philadelphia for work.  I had a day off from the convention though, and decided to use my time wisely and go see Valley Forge and Gettysburg (not really next to each other).  I'd seen the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia along with Independence Hall (where the Constitution was written) on a previous visit.  Valley Forge is about 35 minutes from Philly.  Gettysburg is more like 2.5 hours.  Both were well worth the visit and it would make for a fun history trip to see more stuff in the area.  

Valley Forge

The General Washington's continental army stayed here through the winter of 1777-78.  A lot of rolling hills with open fields and some wooded areas.  There were replicas of huts where the troops lived.  Also, I toured Washington's Quarters.  One of the few places where there were original hand railings that Washington would've used to climb the staircase.  Hopefully some of his DNA rubbed off on mine.  I didn't spend a lot of time here because I only had one day and wanted to spend most of it at Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle America has every had, 51,000 casualties (that's dead and wounded).  Valley Forge was just a camp, no battle there,  but it is somewhere near the area depicted by the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware.

The huts for the troops (above), and Washington's quarters (below).

One of the many fields at Valley Forge with cannon bunkers (above).

Memorial of those revolutionary troops that fought for our freedom at Valley Forge (above).

Gettysburg National Military Park

The battle of Gettysburg was a big one with both of the largest army of the Union forces and the largest of the Confederates joined in battle virtually by chance.  It really was a turning point for the war.  If the Confederates would've won the battle, it may have cost us the war and the country may have been divided still today.  As it happened, this was as far north as the confederate army ever came.  This battle didn't end the war, but the Confederates raced south from this point on.  It was a three day battle starting on July 1, 1863 to July 3, 1863.  It was an interesting feeling standing where men fought, killed others, and died.

Here's Gettysburg visitor center, totally remodeled in 2010.

The Wheat Field where some of the battle took place.  You can imagine hiding behind the rock wall for cover as the Confederates charged.

Here I am atop Little Round Top.  The Union soldiers had the high ground and were outnumbered, but the Confederates still charged to their deaths.

Another shot of Little Round Top.

I saw these soldiers touring Gettysburg as well.  Thought I'd put them in the picture too.  This is the "High Water Mark" as they say for the Confederates, they never came further north than this.  This is also the site of Pickett's Charge.  You can see the rock wall here.  This is where the Union soldiers took cover.  Across the field, which is about a mile, are the woods where the Confederate soldiers emerged and charged the Union lines.  No cover, just a brave and hopeless charge into a fortified Union position.  The Union army was outnumbered by the Confederates and afraid as the Grays ran towards them with their "rebel yell."  Some men actually broke through the line but were quickly taken down.  This was a site of a lot of death.

Here is the monument at the National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg.  This is where President Lincoln stood and gave his famous Gettysburg Address.

* * *

Below is the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  I still had time to see those again a few days later.  The National Park service says that this is the one park that every American should come to visit.  I agree.

Our Last PreSchool Graduation!!!

Well, we had our final Preschool graduation in our family last week.  No tears!!!  Now on to kindergarten.  Congratulations Britney, you are getting so big!!!