Another delay?

Yesterday, Jeff came to Salt Lake City.  Actually, it was night time when he finally got here.  His whole trip was kind of an interesting day long saga, I'm glad that God was watching over him. 

He started his journey early enough catching the bus from Bakersfield to Long Beach, and was taxied to LAX by Katie's sister and bro-in-law, Karen & Bill in plenty of time for his flight to Las Vegas where he would change planes.  However, I'm guessing that there was a problem with the weather somewhere along the line in the southern part of the country, which caused his flight from LAX to be delayed about an hour.  That flight finally got in the air about an hour late, but he did get to Las Vegas.   However, his flight to Salt Lake City was delayed also.  Then delayed again.  And again.  And again.  

So after checking Southwest's website numerous times to find out when his plane was to arrive in Salt Lake City, Katie and I left Amanda's house at about 8:30 to go to the airport to wait, wanting to be there in case he showed up magically due to some website inaccuracy. That took us about 1/2 an hour to get there, and we waited in the "Park and Wait" area of the parking area which has electronic signboards showing the status of the incoming flights.  Ironically, we never saw the Southwest flight Jeff was on listed.  However, at about 9:40 PM, we got a call from him saying he'd arrived at the airport, like he got there somehow without Southwest's help.  Hoping his return to SoCal for Teen Challenge Ministry Institute doesn't have as many delays as his getting here did when he leaves after Christmas!


The Travelogue 5/12/2012

Before we hit the road, we got a tandem inflatable kayak made by Hobie, the i14T.  As an inflatable kayak, we're able to keep it in the back end of the car.  It takes up the entire back end of the car (a Chevrolet HHR) and that doesn't take into account the oars, seats, mirage drives (peddle power), or life vests, which we put into the basement storage areas of the moho, but go in the back seat when we put the kayak in the water.  We don't use it often enough, but we did manage to use it on the Colorado River below Hoover Dam, at Willow Beach.  The pictures below aren't the best as they were taken through a clear plastic bag that we thought would be good to use to keep the camera dry.  While it did it's job, the bag just didn't do a very good job of keeping the pictures clear.

See what I mean?  I assure you that Katie does indeed still have a face, ok?  At this point, we've put it in to the water and are getting ready to head upstream.  The black blob in the lower part of the picture is the back of the front seat that Katie sits in (she faces away from me as I sit in the rear of the kayak), and if ya look closely above the seat, you'll see some black and white stuff, which is really Tasca with his life jacket on in the front of the kayak.  We both have long sleeved white shirts to protect us from the sun although you can't see me in mine as I'm on the other side of  the camera.

This picture kinda looks like Katie is holding the handle of a pink blob with a face on it that looks like Winnie, which is, indeed, what it is.  I don't think that she was putting Winnie in the water, but I could be wrong.  This picture doesn't do justice to where the water starts and ends, I'm thinking the plastic bag would be to blame for that again.  So after awhile, I just took the camera out of the bag and started living life dangerously.  Gratefully, the pictures were much better!
 

As you can see, the terrain is rugged and barren.  Add to that that the temperature was rather warm as well.  But I'm glad that we had the white shirts on, saved us from a bad sunburn. 

We did get to see several bighorn sheep, which is the Nevada state animal.  Although we'd lived in Las Vegas for about 18 years, this was the first time that we'd ever seen them, so it was kinda special for us.  Altogether, I think that we saw about 20 of them in different places along the river.

There was also a pair of trained ducks that came out to greet us on the way upstream.  I'm guessing that they had got trained from the many boaters that had gone upstream throwing them pieces of food as they would go by.  They learned well didn't they, but they didn't learn anything from us. 

What'd I just say?  They learned well, didn't they?  Here they are again on our trip downstream.  Pesky ducks!

We ended up the trip at the same place we started out at.  Imagine the first photo above (but clearer, ok?) with us getting out of the kayak.  Ok, maybe it'd be kinda hard to do so.  But since I use the mirage drive (kinda like pedaling a pedal car) while Katie uses oars (more like paddles), my legs are really beat by the time we get back.  Yeah, it'd probably be easier if I were to ride a bike daily for a couple of miles, but I don't.  At this particular time of getting out of the water, my legs were so tired that when I attempted to get out of the kayak, I couldn't stand up and fell back into the water.  There were a few young adults that rushed over to help me out of the water, for which I was grateful for, but didn't make me feel like I was that athletic like I was supposed to be if I had some sort of kayak.  This was also a learning experience for me though, as now when I try to get out of the kayak, I make sure that I'm in water that's deep enough for me to stand up in, meaning mid thigh deep rather than very shallow.  Makes for some cold water shocks, but I don't have to worry about bunches of young folks rushing into the water to keep me from floating down the river also!

Have a blessed day!