It’s my Dad’s birthday today. He’s still doing great.
He worked long and hard during his tenure in the US Forest Service while being a great husband for over fifty years and raising three kids.
He deserves to sit back and tell a few stories
Happy Birthday Gramps!
It’s my mother’s birthday. She has been gone for while but I think about her every day. Above is Mom with my brother Bob and me at the Ranger Station in Coyote, New Mexico. Once a month or so we would dress up and load up and head out of the mountains and into Santa Fe for church. Notice my brother Bob rocking the high waisted jeans and my bald head whiting out the whole pic.
I think that is my sister, Ellen in this picture. Mom loved children. Notice the mountain in the background. She always said she would never live anywhere where she couldn’t see the mountains. She was a true Forest Ranger’s wife.
Here she is with Logan in Idaho. They both seem pretty happy with each other.
Mom, the smallest, was part of a huge family. When Dad retired they moved back to Mom’s native Idaho where many of her brothers and sisters lived. She loved getting together with them, and their many kids and grand-kids.
My brother Bob left this morning to head back to Corpus Christi. We had a great time while he was here. We Thanksgiving together, ran in a race, went hiking and geocaching, watched a couple of football games, and had a few beers.
He’s a patient guy. Maybe too patient. I was telling him that he needs to check my blog from time to time just to see what I say about him. He says he isn’t worried about it. So as he was leaving I said, “Hey Bob, since you are wearing yellow get under the tree.” He did so I decided to see what I could do with it.
So I ran it through Topaz Impressions and decided on this. I don’t know I think he’ll have to come back next year with the yellow shirt.
Linking with Monday Mellow Yellows
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Thanksgiving morning my brother Bob, up from Corpus Christi, and I ran in a food run on the Arkansas River Trails. Bob has been running pretty steadily since the big running boom of the 80’s. Me, I’m a poser.
It was the Von Franken Family Food Run. There is no entry fee. They just ask you to bring a sack of non-perishable food items. No tee shirt, no medals, and of course no timing and no closed course but it sure is popular and fun.
I think they filled the truck before the event was over.
There were some dogs out there ready to be rescued. We are full up with our three mutts. I tried to get brother Bob to get a dog but he didn’t want one.
There was lots of selfie action going on. I love to take pictures of people taking pictures. Don’t ask my why.
Here is some more selfie action going on.
I mentioned that this was a low budget, low pressure, run. Well, I didn’t hear a gun to signal the start but Bob said, “Look they are running.” So off we went. It took a while for the starting group to unpack. There were all sorts of runners, walkers, waddlers, dogs, baby strollers on the course but we just ran around them and others ran around me.
Bob gradually pulled away and I was going on at an easy pace. My legs were a little sore so I just loped along enjoying the view. We still have lots of fall color up in the trees. I just love it.
And then I got to wondering just how long was this race. I told Bob that it was about three miles but we just ran and ran and the turnaround wasn’t until 2.7 miles. I caught up with him there. And then he took off again while I stopped and got a drink at the water fountain cuz in this low budget wonderful race there are no water stops with no huge mess of water cups left over by the runner. I was surprised the water fountains were still running this late in the year.
There was a family playing football on the rugby field What a way to spend Thanksgiving morning right? I mean if you don’t feel like running. And anyway I caught up with Bob just before the finish line. We grabbed a cup of coffee and went home to get cleaned up.
We had Thanksgiving over at Nana’s house. I had smoked a couple of turkey’s on Wednesday plus we had all the usual trimmings. It was wonderful. Afterwards Bob and I watched the Dallas Cowboys lose to the Philadelphia Eagles. You can tell that Bob made friends with Nana’s Fiona. Bob should have got one of those rescue dogs is what I think.
I suck at inside Turkey Day photographs. Here is Heather and her mother Nana working in the kitchen.
And here is Heather and Nana working over my son Logan in a cutthroat game of Farkel during the game. They are way past the old let the kid win phase. He can hold his own in Farkel even against his cutthroat Mom and Grandmother.
So, I had a great Thanksgiving. How was yours?
A couple weeks ago me, son Logan, sister Ellen, her husband Irv, and their grandson Mr. Beans all met up in Idaho Falls to see dad and just kind of get together. We all except for dad decided to go for a walk on Idaho Fall’s greenbelt adjacent to the Snake River. Above, left to right is Logan, Irv, and Mr. Beans.
There’s Ellen sandwiched between Irv and Mr. Beans. The greenbelt has lots of places to sit and rest. We took advantage of most of them.
The Snake River is rather pretty as it goes through the greenbelt.
In addition to the benches there are lots of places for photo ops. We liked this two tone vegetative Elk.
Me and the kid. Do you like my high spf hat? I had a dermatologist take a divot out of my forehead earlier this year. I’m trying to prevent any more of those.
And here are the Falls. They are very pretty and make a pleasing noise as the water goes over them. A fun fact is that not all of the water goes over the the falls. The City of Idaho Falls has had low head electric generators on the river since 1900 and presently the city gets about 30% of its electrical requirements from these generators.
At the top middle of the photograph you can see the Idaho Falls LDS (Mormon) Temple.
I am not Mormon but I think it is a beautiful building well situated.
So, have you taken any family walks along a river lately?
Logan and I spent a long weekend in Idaho Falls, Idaho visiting my Dad. My sister Ellen, and her husband Irv, and their grandson Mr. Beans also showed up. Ellen is quite the runner these days and she convinced us to sign up for a race, the MAD. Marathon, Half Marathon, and 5K. So we rolled out of bed early Saturday morning and made our way over to the starting line.
Mr. Bean’s first experience with a running gel. I’m not sure he liked it.
The race started and took off through the neighborhoods of south Idaho Falls. I had been wondering if the race was a beer run or not but I got my answer when I saw these guys doing the traffic control. They are Mormon missionaries. So no beer I thought, but that is alright, these guys above and the other guys and gals on the route did a great job keeping the runners from getting run over. Notice Logan to the right, keeping his head in the run and not getting distracted like his old man.
We made our way over and irrigation canal.
And by a patriotic Christmas tree, or something. I am not sure what it was.
Here is another missionary and that is Irv waving bye. We were not that close to him. He was headed out of the park to the left and we had to head in.
And then this is where we cheated by a half a klick. I could have sworn that the course markings sent us down this route. See the blue shirts ahead of us? They were fellow runners so we were not cheating. See Logan to the right? He still has half a step on the old man.
We made it out of the park and started running a busy street. Time for a shadow selfie. See who’s shadow is longer than mine?
Here comes Irv. He finished the race and came running back to take my camera to get the finishing pic.
And look who finished ahead of his old man.
And the little (not so little) was gloating about it. Wait till the next race kid! By the way, do you have a ride home?
So, have you run a 4.5K race lately?