Our First Days in Utah

Greetings from Utah!    You are just never very far from a Noll Packer party.   Doesn't even matter that the tv is only about 10 inches square or that at the end of the 3rd quarter Fox decided that the Chiefs vs Eagles was more important out here than the Packers.   Go figure.   It was just a good thing the Packers had it well in hand.  

We have settled in here for our short visit before we head further west.  Enjoying time with everyone and also enjoying being able to help with a few jobs here on the ranch.

In fact, at the right, you can see Bob and Scott putting the final cedar shake siding on the back of the house.   They also finished mounting the rest of the solar panels on the large tracker system which will provide the bulk of their electricity.    This project has been so huge and basically Scott's baby.   It is quite amazing.






The Noll family now includes four dogs.   Bo and Suzie are being trained as cow dogs.  Utah has been the family pet for 5 years.   Betty is the "problem child".   But they are all going to be happy soon.   As you can see below, Bob and Scott built them their own kennels inside a machine shed.   They are pretty nifty and it will be so nice to have a secure place to keep them.....if you can every catch them.  

More to follow tomorrow.   It will be our last day here on the ranch.   We will be helping celebrate her birthday a little early and hopefully be celebrating an occupancy permit for the new house as the inspector comes at 5 tomorrow night.   After a dinner of chicken goulash (A Noll family dish that Katie asked to have since she is studying her family history in school) we will be heading back to Salt Lake City to catch the Amtrak train bound for San Francisco.   California here we come!

Hugs to Everyone.

Bob and Deb 

Heading West to San Francisco

Hi,
It's time to pack our bags and head west.  Everyone who has traveled to San Francisco seems to say that it is one of their favorite cities.  We are anxious to discover it for ourselves.  We will be flying on Saturday Sept. 14 out of Madison and heading to Utah for a short visit to Scott and Sam's new home.  We are excited for them to be finally in their house.  It has been a long building process, but they must be feeling a great deal of pride now that it's nearly completed.  On Tuesday Sept. 17 we will depart from Salt Lake City on the train and arrive in Oakland at 4 pm on Wednesday.  Trains, planes and automobiles it is all part of this trip.  After several train trips it is still a fascination for us.  This time we will be going through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  After arriving in Oakland, we will spend 5 days touring the wine country north of San Francisco and then 5 days in San Francisco.  We hope you will follow along on our blog.

Goodbye for now.

Bob and Deb

Last Days

Greetings Family and Friends,

Well, here it is the last day of February and our St. George adventure is winding down.   In the picture at the right, you can see we just couldn't resist one last dip in the hot tub at the clubhouse in Sports Village.     It was a nice last night in our condo.   We did some last loads of wash and packed up the car this morning.   We sadly closed the door to our condo at about 11:00.



We decided to spend a couple hours strolling the streets of the historical center of St. George.
At the right is a picture of Bob in front of the old, one room jailhouse.   It still has the original bars on the windows!








The second picture is a statue of what they call the
"Watermaster".  In St. George, as in all of Utah, it's all about water.   This area is filled with neat statues of different sorts and that charming waterfall and stream meanders all through several square blocks.   Quite pretty and charming.








The third picture is taken in front of one of the best places to eat in St. George.   It is called the Painted Pony-hence the interesting horse sculpture!  Roger and Marsha-we have to investigate this place next year!    Looks very neat.










After we left the city of St. George we drove out to an area that we had explored a bit a week ago.   It is called the Red Cliffs Recreation Area.   It was such a gorgeous day!    We ate our picnic lunch, hiked to some Anasazi Indian ruins and even ran into some people from Richland Center!   They actually even knew
Deb's cousin Rod Perry very well!     And their daughter is an archaeologist and lives quite near Scott and Sam.   Small world.






This area is literally 10 miles outside the city limits of St. George.   We have been continually amazed at the wealth of places to go and things to do all within such a short drive from the city!    It certainly doesn't hurt that the weather has been wonderful to experience it all.


After we left the Red Cliffs area we headed into the small city of Hurricaine where we will stay tonight.   Checked into our hotel and immediately headed off to the nearby golf course for Bob to have his last round  on these beautiful courses.   At the left is a picture of him as he ends the round as the sun begins to set in red rock country.   Doesn't get much better than this.  

We are settled into our hotel room watching American Idol (which just happens to be at the Mirage in Las Vegas where we saw the Cirque du Soleil!).     Looking forward to tomorrow when Karen (Bob's sister) and her husband Kenn will drive up from Vegas.   We will spend a few hours with them going to Zion National Park.   Check out the blog tomorrow.   It is supposed to be a gorgeous day and Zion will be amazing.

Hugs to Everyone.

Bob and Debbie

Hitting the Trail

Well, when you are in Utah, guess you have the urge to become a cowboy!   Yesterday when we were hiking yesterday we saw a group of horseback riders and that's all it took for us to be hooked.    We came right back to the condo and started researching options.   Lo and behold, the best option was a trail ride through Snow Canyon.   We knew how beautiful it was out there, so it didn't take us much time to decide it was a yes.   We headed to out to the canyon at 11:00 and our ride started soon after that.   It was a peaceful and beautiful ride.  

 The good news is that we could all even walk quite well when we got of our horses!

Jeff and Ruth are quite excited right now as Ruth's son Nick and his wife, Brianna have surprised them with a visit.   Nick is a Marine and stationed in San Diego, so they decided to hop in their car and join us for a night.   Great for them to get together and we are happy to be a part of the mini reunion.

We will blog more tonight after we get back from our little tour of St George with Nick and Bri.

The Utah Troops

Hiking and Petroglyphs

Greetings to Everyone.

Jeff and Ruth (Deb's brother and sister-in-law) arrived on Thursday night.   They had a long day of travel from Wisconsin to get to Las Vegas and then drive north to St. George.   This morning we headed out to explore two areas very close to the city.  At the right you can see some ancient Anasazi petroglyphs.   We had a long hike to get to
the area where the drawings were located, but it was worth the hike.
We were told that these drawings were created about 1100 AD.   They are etched into the rock and the black surface on the rock is called dessert varnish.   It takes centuries to cover the surface of the rock.

The picture above is Jeff and Ruth deep in what is called a slot canyon.   It is in Snow Canyon State Park which is literally on the edge of the city.   We hiked here and also on another trail where climbed up on some pure white rocks.  You can see a picture of this below.  

Needless to say our legs are tired tonight, but it was a good day here is St. George.   We look forward to more adventures tomorrow.

Toodles,

Bob, Deb, Jeff and Ruth

Hiking Snow Canyon

Hi All,

Scott and Sam joined us today and tomorrow to get a taste of St. George area.  We spent the afternoon hiking some of the trails at Snow Canyon State Park.  The first trail we explored was Lava Flow.  The picture at the right shows Ben and Hunter in a Lava Flow.

 The next trail (shown above) was called Pioneer Names.  As you reach the sandstone cliff we saw hikers and rock climbers.  As you look up you can see the names of three early pioneers that have put their name on the wall using axle grease.  One of the names of the Morman settlers was dated 1894.  The picture at the right is the last trail we hiked.  It was called Jenny's Canyon.  After a short hike we reached a slot canyon and another branch of the trail took us to the overlook.  Hunter discovered a lizard hiding in the rocks and spent time trying to catch it, but the lizard won out. Scott and Sam and family leave tomorrow.  We have enjoyed the grandkids' visit and had lots of adventures.  Many memories for them and us.  That's part of our reason in being in St. George.  We are over the halfway point of our stay and it still feels new and fun.  We look forward to Jeff and Ruth arrival on the weekend.

Goodbye for now, love to all.

Bob and Deb

Lazy Days in St George

 Greetings Everyone.

Well, we have "kidnapped" 3 of our grandchildren from their parents and are enjoying some fun times here in sunny St. George.   On Wednesday this week, we went to a local wildlife museum and saw hundreds of full-sized mounted animals from all over the world.  It was quite amazing.    After lunch at the condo, we enjoyed exploring the clubhouse here at the Sports Village complex. Mini golf, fooseball, ping pong, air hockey, basketball, baseball, etc etc.   The pool is under some winter maintenance, so we are eagerly awaiting Friday when it is supposed to be ready    for us.                                                                      
 The picture at the top shows the kids enjoying the warm sunshine on the sidewalk in front of our condo later that afternoon.  

On Thursday we experienced a really unique place.   The picture at the right shows the kids at the Dinosaur Track Discovery Center here is St. George.   It has a few dinosaur bones, but is mostly the site of hundreds of preserved dinosaur tracks-in fact the largest concentration of such things in the entire world.   The site was discovered years ago during some excavation and the decision was made to preserve the entire area for research and study.   They just built the museum around it!   The kids enjoyed the museum, but they were all "inspired" to become young archaeologists.   They used some of the souvenir $ they had gotten from Mom and Dad and each bought a mini dino dig kit.   They literally spent hours carefully digging and brushing  through small slabs of plaster for "dinosaur parts" and "fossils".   As you can see from Hunter's picture below, they were truly enthralled by the process.                              

                                                                              After we finally pried the kids away from their digging, Bob and Hunter headed off for the nearby golf course for a round of play.   Kate, Ben and Grandma enjoyed some time out in the warm sunshine at the playground and then came home to make home made egg rolls and heart shaped brownies for our Valentine's Day dinner.   The sun set beautifully once more over St. George and we enjoyed some Skypeing with the Metcalfs and the kids finished watching The Lion King .   Bedtime and tea for the old folks.  


We hope all is well with friends and family.   We are certainly enjoying our days here in this beautiful corner of Utah.   So far we couldn't have asked for better weather.   Warm days, cool nights and no precipitation.   From what we hear, certainly not the same back in Wisconsin!  

Hugs to all,

Bob, Debbie, Kate, Hunter and Ben