October 19

I thought I would give a quick update on a couple of places we went to in the last week. First of all, on Wednesday night, we went to Wicked. I've already seen it twice, but it's always fun to go again. Our tickets were on the sixth row, just off-center, so we had awesome seats. The only drawback was that we were also really close to the very large speaker, so the sound was pretty intense!

Saturday we borrowed a van and went with some friends to Wiseman's Ferry. We'd been there before, but it's always good to have a repeat experience with different friends! We stopped and took some extra time to walk up the old highway. This road was built by convicts, so it's very old, started in the 1800s. They closed it to traffic many years ago because it's so old. The whole area is solid rock, I can't imagine how horrible it must have been for the convicts to have to blast through all the rock and then build a roadbed. The water drainage system was pretty impressive. It's all built from solid stone. The signs said most of the convicts worked in chains. It had to have been a pretty miserable existence, especially in the summer.

View from the overlook.

Our buddies!  From the left: Feils, us, Allens, and Barrs (he's the temple president)

How'd you like to be in charge of building a road along this mountainside in this solid rock?

The top of one of the drainage pylons. 

The bottom of the pylon. This is where the water drains out from the roadbed above.

The inn where we had lunch.  It's very old and has really great food!! I had shepherd's pie made with lamb:-)

The oldest church in the area.  It's actually been restored and can be used for events such as weddings, etc.

It's springtime here.  This part of the road reminds me of Anne of Green Gables.

Grandkids:

Grandpa and I went on an adventure with our friends.  You can see some of the places we went from the pictures above. I saved the most interesting pictures for you!!

This spider is as big as my whole open hand with my fingers spread out!  He was huge.  When we got in the car he dropped down onto the window from somewhere above us, maybe the tree. I'm glad he dropped on the window and not on one of us! When we started driving he kind of blew off the window, but it turned out he wasn't gone, he'd just moved from the window down to the wheel well.  This kind of spider is called a Huntsman spider. It will leave a big welt if it bites you, but you won't die. If this spider was on you, you wouldn't have to wait for it to bite you though, you'd probably die of fright first!  He's big and furry.

I posted a picture of this camel a long time ago when we drove out to Wiseman's Ferry the first time. Today the camel wasn't in his field though, his owner was taking him for a walk around town. If you look closely, you can see his leash!  

How would you like to take this thing for a walk??!!  He's a pretty big boy.

Can you see these two lizards sunning themselves on the rock?  They live inside the rocks of this big pylon.

This picture was taken at the top of the pylon.  You can see the place for the water to drain out from the roadbed and down the rockway.  Look how far it goes into the bush.  I think it would make a fun water slide when it's draining all the rainwater off the road!

Can you see the straight line going up the middle of the rock?  This is the mark left by the tool the convicts used to blast the rock apart to built the road.  They would drill down (by hand) into the rock and then put some dynamite in the hole and blast the rock apart. They used the pieces of blasted out rock to build the roadbed and the pylons. Drilling that hole by hand would take a really long time and would be very difficult to do.

You can see how the road was blasted out of this rock face.  How would you like the job of building a road here?

Look carefully above Grandpa's and my head; can you see the hole in the rock?  This place in the roadside is called Hangman's Rock. Nature made the hole and the open area we are standing in, but the people who were the bosses of the convicts were the ones who came up with the idea of using the hole to hang the bad guys if they needed to. There used to be a big tree growing above the hole so they would tie a rope to a high branch in the tree and then put the other end of the rope around the bad guys neck while they made him stand next to the hole, then they would push him and he would fall into the hole in the rock and die.

These are the most interesting cattle I've ever seen, I don't know what their real name is, but people around here call them Oreo cows. They naturally are black on the front and the back of their bodies and white in the middle. They do look like an Oreo!

A field of Oreos!!!

Have a great week!  Do you have your Halloween costume yet??  How about a pumpkin?