The Dark side Chapter 2

It is Sunday December 19, 2010 and we just got home from our second sacrament meeting of the day. We first went to Karen’s (Colleen’s older sister) Roy 11th ward meeting to hear Karen in the ward choir. What a wonderful treat that was, they have an awesome ward choir. We made it home just in time to get Colleen’s medicine and needs done and head for our meeting. We made it to the final song, and then had to leave quickly to get Colleen home to her cough assist machine. That along with the suction machine and we were ready to finally give her morning feeding. It is hard to get everything done when you have time lines to meet, and try as we might, no one will hold up a meeting for us to get there. Yesterday we had our family over for a Christmas party. We did it this weekend as Danny had his girls for the weekend and that way all could be there. It went well, and when it was over Danny and Scott and some friends went up to the base and bowled in Casino night. We used to go and bowl with them occasionally but not for a while now. Well back to our story, where did I leave off?
I believe that I stated that Colleen could hit the softball a country mile, which was no exaggeration. We played a lot of Co-ed softball over the years, and back in those days, they did not have the 150 foot line that outfielders could not come in front of when a lady is at bat. This played well into Colleen’s game, as the outfielders would move in to just behind the infielders when she came up, and she would promptly ask them to show her their backsides as they chased the ball out to the fence when she hit it over their heads. She said that she learned how to hit the ball so hard by hitting a tire with a bat in her backyard. Glad that tire could bounce back because if she hit me, I don’t think I would bounce, except maybe off the cement as I hit it. We played ball together for many years and I well remember one game where our team was down by 20 runs and came back to win the game and fielders turning tail and running to get to a ball that Colleen hit to the fence during our wild rally to catch up and go on to win.
Colleen also loves the outdoors and our most favorite place to go is to Flaming Gorge. We visited our favorite place as often as we could, and our kids have grown up knowing how to run a river. We have owned rafts since we were married 2 years. Prior to that time, I used my dad’s raft. The Green river below the dam, is not a major river for rapids, but if the water is up high, it can give you some really good rides. Unfortunately it is not that high very often, but we have found that if you venture over there in early June that it normally is as high as it will be for the summer. I have been going to Flaming Gorge since I was about 8 years old. I fell in love with the place then and have maintained that love affair ever since. Thank goodness I found someone who loved it as much as I did. Back in the days when I went to the gorge with my family (before I married), I remember that Greendale was dad’s favorite campground, but we would camp in any campground that was available, and the memories I have of Greendale are fond, but foul. (Referring to the outhouse) Dad used to call it the duck house, because it was so fowl. The only reason for bringing that campground up is that Colleen’s family had bought a membership to Camperworld, which had a private campground at the gorge, right behind Greendale, and we have been camping there ever since. We have added our own family membership so that we can get additional camping spots as we always seem to take a crowd over there with us. From rafting, boating, fishing hiking, geo-caching and just relaxing, that is one of my favorite spots to be in the outdoors. If you are not familiar with the phrase geo-caching, and wonder what in the world that is all about, you can go to geocaching.com and learn all about it. My son Scott introduced it to me in 2005, and I have been a fan ever since. Not that I am breaking any world records in caching, but when the opportunity presents itself, I definitely make the most of the chance, and log a few caches. As of this writing, I am sitting at 503 caches, but have also hidden 14. I like to place the larger caches out for younger kids to have the opportunity to learn and enjoy geo-caching. Our user name is BrandCo (can you figure out where that came from?) and in our family we have the following cachers, Scottypiper, Frog Lover, The Dancin K’s, The Snooper, The Quiz's, Guatamelon, and Kelsyboowho. We started our oldest granddaughters (The dancing K’s) geo-caching on New years day 2006 at about 12:15 AM. We decided that we wanted to quickly get out first cache of the year, and it happened that it was a cache that had plenty of items for the granddaughters to trade so we had them hooked immediately. We have done some crazy things in geo-caching, but had some great times. Scott and I did a 24 hour cache where we wnet down around Payson to Orem area to see how many caches we could find in one day. We logged 86 (I think) but that was in about 22 hours minus time for eating and other necessities. There is a reflector cache over at the gorge that you have to do at night, you hunt for reflectors in the night. We have been to that cache about 4 times over the years as we always wind up with someone new who has not been there before. This is by East Park lake, and it it so far removed from the main areas that the peace and silence you hear when out there is unbelievable. And stars, you can see so many stars out there it is hard to imagine. One time after going to that cache, we decided to do another one that was ab out a mile away, and while retrieving that one thought we were in the middle of a den of coyotes. There were so many coyote pups howling you could not hear yourself think. We also have placed some caches, including a reflector cache , at the gorge, our second home. We were actually looking for a possible place to buy over there, but the right opportunity has never came up. The last two years that we have been there, Colleen has been in her wheelchair, so our plans have been adapted to the times. Where we used to river run, swim, fish and hike, we have added going out on the lake on a pontoon boat that we can get Colleen on in her wheelchair. Of course we have done some geo-caching of caches that are only available by boat while we were out, what kind of cachers do you take us for??? More to come in my next installment.