August 1927 to Aug 2017

90 years ago on June 16 1927 a cute young couple entered into marriage and started on their honeymoon.
James Gillespie and Henrietta Hartman traveled the country seeing all of the sights and visiting with ministry classmates.

But that is a whole other blog,
justmarried1927.blogspot.com
Check it out when you have time.
This is about today Aug 19  2017:
Ginger and I took a trip to Colorado Springs to climb Pikes Peak, and while we were in Colorado Springs, met with Randy Rogers who manages the Pikes Peak website. He was very interested in Grandma, and Grandpa's trip and scrapbook, so we brought it along for him and his wife to see.




Henrietta Gillespie at the summit house

 

We were encouraged by Randy to follow grandma and grandpa's journey to Estes Park and over the rocky mountains, it was a longer trip than we had planned, but was well worth the time and distance.
The Old Fall River road is still there, unpaved one lane and one way. The same road that they traveled in 1927.
Warning lots of pictures:

 

Headed up along Fall River Rd.



Quick look at the road.



Neat water fall, from the melting snow

Chasm Falls



 

Mike and Ginger



Looking East from Fall River Summit 1927
 

Looking East 2017



Bridge to nowhere

Friday night we took the scouts to the West Clear Creek wilderness. Our plan was to hike down into the canyon to the creek. Mother nature had other plans for us, at 5 a.m. it started to rain on us with flashes of lightning. Around 5:30 we had a bright flash and an immediate crash of thunder, very loud.
7:30 we loaded up the boys, who were ready to go, and headed home.

We found a dinosaur.

After getting home, Ginger had a bridge that she has been wanting to check out that is off the hiway 60 in devils canyon on the way to Miami AZ. Julia was in Tucson and we had time, so we loaded the car and headed out. Great day for a drive and soon we were in the middle of the construction on hi way 60, we found a place to pull off and park, right near the devils canyon sign, and made the short hike to the bridge. There is a lightly travel trail on the old road to get to the bridge, an easy hike.
lots of lizards and rustling in the bushes, fortunately no snakes were sighted.

The old abandoned bridge. Ends at the base of the high way

The bridge is still intact and overgrown. The south end of the bridge ends at the base of the current hi way. There is a creek still under the bridge, it was dry when we were there. After hiking around for a bit, I was getting hungry, must be a Gillespie thing, went some where, now lets eat.

The creek still flows under the bridge.

We left the canyon and continued to Miami for dinner at the Burger House, mainly Mexican food. We were recommended to have the green chili plate, and it was good.

We then headed back home and soon had a low tire warning on the dash. Changed the tire, and not sure about the pressure in the spare headed back to Miami to air it up. by 5:30 on a Saturday all tire shops are closed and air pumps are scarce. We wound up all the way back into Globe and got a tire plug kit and O'reillys and headed next door to the Chevron/ Wendys and plugged the original tire and aired up the spare, changed the tires back and came home. I just didn't trust the donut tire to go that far.

Pioneer Day Celebration July 23 2016

 We had a weekend that wasn't filled with something that needed to be done. So we decided to head to Snowflake AZ for the Pioneer day celebration.
Pioneer day celebrates the arrival of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24 1847.
It is a state holiday in Utah. Several of the small towns in Arizona were settled and established by Mormon pioneers, and those towns celebrate as well.

Snowflake Arizona Temple.

 Suppose for a minute that you travel 150 miles to go see a parade in a small town and happen to take a picture of a float and on that float are 2 of your grand kids, who live only 2 miles from your house.
Well that happened. Gunner and Mason, along with a couple of their cousins were on the trash can band float.

Gunner White (in the black shirt)

 We had fun at the parade and then went to the car show. Lots of nice cars there on the golf course along with crafts and other vendors. Met one of our previous bishops there, Jim McCoid and his wife Diana.

 After the car show we went to the Temple to walk around and look at it. Beautiful building and a great view of the surrounding area.

The Angel Moroni

There were several other activities during the day. BBQ lunch, Navajo taco stands, lots of craft booths set up throughout the town, a quilt show, and used book sale, a quartet singing several broadway show tunes. A play, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. So much to do and not enough time.
The quilt display was amazing, the detail in some of the quilts would make you crazy trying to sew them.

At the end of the day there was a rodeo, all of the usual events were included, wild cow milking, ribbon catching, barrel racing, and they had a cash cow. All the kids 9-12 were invited into the arena and given some quick training, and then 3 calves with token attached to them were let out and the kids chased and the cows and collected the tokens that were on the cows, and turned in for cash.
The poor cows never had a chance.

In the middle of the crowd are Mason, Gunner and Rigdon

Rigdon in green and grey, center of picture. to the right and hiding

behind the boy in the blue shirt is Gunner

and next to him in the red and white stripes is Mason

And to end the night were the fire works.

Gordons Creek

Made a trip up the hill past Payson to spend the afternoon with Dusty and Rachael, and friends.
They were camped near Gordons creek.

Not a lot of water, but still sounded nice running over the rocks.

Julia on the zip line

Dusty set up a zip line over the creek, with some adjustment you could go a little faster, but made it harder to dodge the tree at the end.

Don't get your feet wet

 

A few wild, but friendly horses. Bring carrots.

Not a lot of water, and the hole is about 6 feet deep.

Dusty left with the dogs, and left me with the ladies! Don't forget Gracie in the back on the rock

Aunts on a log and Summer too

Going back the hard way
 

Somewhere in here is a flake of gold!

Don't tease the crawdads.

Synchronized dog running. Ruby (white) and Addie had a blast playing tag. 



It had to happen, shoes off, enough of that, going barefoot in the woods.

Mothers Day

May 10 2015.

We had our children come to dessert for Mothers Day, and as an added bonus we also had Lori Brenda and Gary, along with Marlon, Cassie, Sarah, Addy and Heidi it was a fun time to get together and visit.

Shawn Mason and Gunner chillin in the living room

Porter Addie and Grayson riding on the tractor.

Sienna with sidewalk chalk making art on the back fence

Sarah and Addie

 

Gary Brenda Lori and Mike
 

Summer and Chelsey