Their home is so lovely, blending in with the scenery of the desert and the red rock mountains in the background. Colleen decorates the inside so lovely that it feels like we're at a posh resort.
The men golfed both days we were there (sorry no photos of that). It was Glen's first golfing experience since his surgery and he held up quite well. He's happy to know he can golf once again.
The girls hiked both mornings. Our first hike took us by a fenced off area where there were some ancient Indian ruins.
Up on the cliffs were many Indian petroglyphs.
We happened upon a tour guide who was imparting all his wisdom upon a couple who had hired him for the job. The guide invited us to join in and we felt very guilty that the couple had paid and we had not.
But it was a lot more interesting to hear his interpretation of the writings on the rocks.
On our walk back to the car, I remembered that Glen has a stash of cash in a compartment of the car and so I grabbed a handful of money and ran it over to the tour guide to thank him for his services. We didn't feel like such schmucks after we became paying (I guess it was probably just tipping) customers.
We discovered that many places are not open in the mid afternoon for lunch. We tried several restaurants until we found Marv's. Let' just say we were all very happy to finally get some food.
There was some game playing and pool lounging and napping during the days, and I didn't capture any of those activities with the camera.
But, we did get a good shot of six of the eight of us piled into Kossin's vehicle driving to Anasazi Steakhouse for dinner.
This restaurant features hot rock cooking. Our slabs of raw meat were brought to us on a hot rock and it was our job to cut and cook each piece of meat to our own individual preference. It was a fun, new and delicious way to eat our meal.
Grant and Diane Stewart.
LaVona and Lane Lewis.
G and K (or K and G--however you want to look at it).
Bruno and Collen Kossin.
It was Grant's birthday, so the restaurant brought him a beautiful birthday treat. We sang to him and then he shared his cheesecake with all of us.
Don't think the birthday celebration stopped there. We had gotten him a birthday cake and so we sang to him again when we got back home and he again shared his birthday dessert with us.
My favorite thing of the whole trip (besides spending time with my husband and our friends) was going to the very impressive Tuacahn outdoor theater and watching "The Little Mermaid."
It was so well done and the costumes were very creative. Such an enjoyable production that both young and old and all of us in between really loved.
We hiked in Red Rock Canyon on our second day. The red rock scenery is very beautiful.
We tried to follow the marked paths, but sometimes after we'd walked along a big petrified rock formation, we just had to guess which way was the path.
I admit that I had moments--okay maybe a whole hour--where I thought we were totally lost and I was starting to get nervous.
It brought back memories of my nightmare experience when I was young and went to girls' camp in the Uinta Mountains.
When we were backpacking out to our cars at the end of girls' camp, my friend and I walked ahead of the group and overshot where to turn off the trail to go to the parking lot and pretty soon figured out we hadn't seen a lot of the trees and streams and other parts of nature and realized we were lost.
Panic set in for me as I envisioned two city girls lost in the big, massive, majestic Uintas. So scary!!
Of course we prayed, and then tried to retrace our steps and hoped all the while that our leaders would come and rescue us. Sure enough, they realized what we'd done and came to find us.
I thought we were in dire straits and felt such relief to finally be rescued that I had a total and complete meltdown and cried all the way home.
I have had such a great fear of getting lost since then, so whenever I'm feeling disoriented and don't know my way home (or back to the car), it scares me to death.
Fortunately for me, my friends were not worried at all and were very reassuring and directed us back to civilization--or at least back to the paved trail which was much better than the red sandy, not-so-well-marked trails that we had been taking.
WHEW!! Was I ever so happy to see pavement, humans and cars once again.
I'm not so sure I'm all that appreciative of nature when I'm in that state of mind.
We stopped at a farmer's market at Tuacahn to see what the people were selling.
When we got back to Kossin's home, we saw the men all huddled over a hole they had dug to see if they could help fix Bruno's broken sprinkler. It had been haunting him the whole time we were there. He'd tried and tried to fix it, but he couldn't get it figured out.
When four heads got together to figure it out, and when they all worked together to make the repair, then...SUCCESS!!
Bruno was ecstatic to know it was fixed and he could relax the rest of the trip. It's the least we could do (or at least the least the men could do) to repay him for his kindness of inviting us to their home.
As we were bidding our farewell to our friends, we had to laugh when Bruno detained us long enough for us to tell the group our high of the trip. Glen introduced him to that concept and now Bruno has made it a tradition whenever we get together.
My high, as mentioned previously, was seeing "The Little Mermaid." Glen's high was being able to get away from all the pressures of work and just relax for a few days. Everyone deserves that once in a while!
