Earl's trip to Utah

Here is Levi, all tricked out with his borrowed bicycle.
For a movie clip showing the uninvited guest - wind! - see the end of this post.







Dad and Jim converse while the dance starts out slowly.


















Charlie accompanied the dance music on his keyboard.








Joe's dog. It is black, white, and tan - making him a calico dog.












Dad recently received a medal for his WWII combat efforts. It was awarded by the governments of the islands of the Pacific.





My camera ran out of battery juice just in time for the parade, but a good time was had by one and all.



Afterward, we had lunch in the Capital park.















I managed to catch Angela and Mark being a couple in the dungeons of the Fillmore Statehouse.















Elizabeth and family live out at the farm and they used farmer's assets to make the World's best water slide! There was a carpeted walkway to the top, where an irrigation pump provided huge amounts of water to assist sliders going down the plastic slide.








We sure have a bunch of cousins! I couldn't get them all into one photo.















Mark wanted to see the lava tubes, which Logan had seen with me and Sam Allred a couple of years ago. This photo shows the kids about to climb down into the biggest tube, which is about 30' high.












In one of the smaller tubes, Logan is looking out at the camera. He was on his hands and knees at the time.












Jesse is crawling into the small tube.












And believe it or not, that is Logan's finger sticking out of solid lava rock from that small tube.











This is the kids going inside the tube.


















I tried to take photos of us in a large intact-ceiling lava tube, but the dust kicked up by our footfalls reflected the flash so badly that it was hard to see what was going on. This one was about 15' high. As is often the case, the floor slowly rises as you go deeper into the tube. They rarely drain out completely, so some lava cools and solidifies at the end of the tube, making the floor 'rise'.

























Mark helping Jesse over jumbled, broken lava rock on the way into the tube.




Logan wanted to sit in the cubby he is reaching for. In the end, he gave up on the idea. We did see two great-horned owls fly out of a hole very near there when we first approached the sink hole.















Here I am clawing my way out of the hole.















The kids wanted a photo of them standing on unsupported rock. A few minutes later, we drove the van over it.














We got to the fairgrounds just in time for the fireworks, which are spectacular for a little town like Fillmore.















And here is the promised video of the wind during the kid's parade.