Manassa

At 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mt. is where you can find the San Luis Valley, and there lies a little town called Manassa. 

Every year on the 3rd weekend of July you can find the population of my Mom's little home town of Manassa grow from 1,000 to 3,000(+/-). Family from all over return home for what is called the The Manassa Pioneer Days Celebration. Yes, they celebrate the pilgramage of the Mormon pioneer more then just one day. They Celebrate two, one for the Utah pioneers and one for the Colorado pioneers. Plus celebrating two days is always better then one. Growing up we would make it back to the valley almost every year. Playing with cousins, doing crafts with Nana, riding horses, carnival rides, and the three wheeler, jumping or spending the night on the tram, kick the can, swimming in the hot spring or the canal by Nana's house, misquote bites, M Mountain Video, running the Pioneer Day 5k, going to the cabin, living off of otter pops, candy we caught at the parade and hamburger stand hamburgers (not just any old hamburger). I have not been able to make it out to the Celebration for a few years now, so I was really excited to go back to see family and show Blake my Mom's home town.

Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Part I

Pioneer Day Parade and Celebration.

8:00am Pioneer Day 5k at the Dempsey Park

Fun fact: Manassa's clam to fame is Jack Dempsey was born there.

Yes, that is a little middle school age boy beating me... lets just say we were a little tired coming from Florida and running at 8,000 feet. But I did pass him right before the finish line and had a headache for most of the day to prove it. 

Before the parade we stopped by the amish bake sale for some fresh amish donuts. 

10:00am Parade on Main Street

Homemade apple and rhubarb pie.
Thanks Sami!!!

6:00pm Demolition Derby at the Fairgrounds

10:00pm Carnival, Fireworks, and our last chance to stop by the Hamburger stand.

The Hamburger Stand:

Maybe this needs a little more explanation. My whole life when we got to Manassa during the Celebration my mom would be so excited to get "hamburger stand hamburgers". We would wait in line for what seemed like hours to a little kid, all along the way my mom would be introducing me to people that I was some how related to and old friends she went to High School with. She would always say, "If you want to see everyone in town just work at the hamburger stand". You see it used to be that all the farmers would donate a cow to the hamburger stand and that would be how they made the hamburgers patties. Lets just say it was top quality stuff. Things have changed a little now because of the FDA. But they still have a yummy familiar taste you can only get in the valley. 

Part II

The Cabin

There are a few things I love most about the cabin some of which are, sitting on the old wooden fence talking, humming birds, the beautiful old red piano, paint ball, murderer in the dark, hikes, exploring, laying out on the back porch looking for falling stars and being away from everything... everything except family.

I really want to have a piano like this in my house.

Blake and Robert (my 7 year old cousin) had the idea of catching a chipmunk. So after rigging up this little trap, and waiting...

they caught one.

After catching the chipmunk Robert took Blake out to shot some water bottles. 

Then we drove up the mountain with Mom, Aunt Char and Uncle Nathan for a tour of the Platoro Dam. After we got a bite to eat at this cute high mountain restaurant.

Later that night we had smores by the fire place and made our oreo's extra double stuffed. 

Nothing can compare to sleeping out on the front porch with the cool clean air and almost a defining silence.

We only got to spend the weekend with our wonderful family in Manassa Colorado but we hope to go back soon. Maybe in the winter to see some snow, or for another Manassa Pioneer Day Celebration. 

Our First and Last Space Shuttle launch... Atlantis

This little whim really was unplanned. July 7th, the day before the Space Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to leave earth we sat around going back and forth on if we should go or not. If we do go should we spend the night or take a chance and go early the next morning. We were finally convinced to go by George, Blake's dad. George has been around since the space program started, he has been apart of the excitement since July 20th, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon. NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981. How could we not go and experience the end of this 30 year program?

There was up to a million people expected to attend. So we decied to pack up our tent, take a chance and drive to the Space Coast. Neither of us had even gone to a shuttle launch. We had seen them in various locations, school, driving and from Sea World once... but we wanted to really go see the space shuttle take off, we wanted to feel, hear and experience the whole thing.  

We did not know where the best place to view the launch would be, but who could go wrong at Space View Park... it's all in the name. The park is located directly across the Indian River from the Kennedy Space Center. When we arrived at the park there was already crowds of people. Some in tents, others just in a chair and umbrella, planing to stay the whole night that way. But one thing we were not expecting was how far and wide people drove and flew to see the space shuttle. We met people from Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, California, the Carolinas and as far as Washington. 

It was a very rainy day and night but that did not stop people from coming ( I mean we went). 

We tried to sleep but the excitement was everywhere.

Our view of Atlantis that morning.

 A photo from the news of Atlantis that morning.

And how could we sleep when the live broadcast of the launch from NASA was right outside our tent? They showed each process in which the astronauts have to go through before take off. I learned a lot.   

Tents had to be down at 7am (except the news tent) so we packed up and moved to the seats we had set up the night before right on the bridge, which was one of the best spots because you could only fit so many people there. We did not have to worry about others getting in frout of us. 

Even with the threat of a reschedule because of the cloudy sky, people kept filling the park till there was almost no more room.

That did not stop people, soon crowds moved into the water.

some where even prepared with swim suits. 

  406 bridge was even closed to cars so crowds of people could watch from there, which as well was filled to the max.

Then on July 8, 2011 at 11:29 a.m. Atlantis took off into the same clouds that almost 

disrupted the final flight of the U.S. space shuttle program.

A photo from the new of the take off. 

And we were very gland we took a chance, stayed up most of the night and saw the last space shuttle launch. 

mini road trip

July 2nd Blake, Jari and I look a little road trip to Virginia. This was a very short but fun trip. Our reason for going to Virginia was to keep Jari alive. You see she had just gotten back from South Africa on June 29th and had to be in Buena Vista Virginia by July 3. Jari having jet lag and being sleep deprived was not fit to make the drive by herself. So we offered to drive her up. And to our surprise the 12 hour drive did not seem long as we thought it would. It made me ask myself why I have never made the drive before. 

After saying bye to Jari, the thought of spending the 4th on Capital Hill or better yet just drive a few more hours and surprise Jonhhy and Emily at their house in Connecticut made it hard to leave. But our empty wallets got the better of us and we headed back home. We will just have to make the drive again sometime soon. 

We did however take two detours on the way home. First stop was the said claimed "World Largest Firework Store". 

Being that it was the 3rd we had to stop and get the good stuff before we got back to Florida and the fire laws. Once the trunk and back seat were stuffed with explosives we were back on the road to Atlanta Ga.

 Why you ask? 

Because a few days prior to taking this mini road trip we had watched a show on the History channel about fast food. Here we learned all about The Varsity. A famous Atlanta fast food establishment that has been around since 1928.

So we enjoyed some hot dogs and got back on the road.

We got home just in time to sleep and celebrate the 4th at my Dad's 441 Urgent Care. Yes, my Dad has all kinds of parties for his patients and friends he loves so much in The Villages and Summerfeil Florida. There the boys got to put on a fire work show.

We saved some fireworks to play with at home too.