Wend-O-ver

Mike had his summer drill this past couple weeks and like always they went to Wendover(blah). Why can't they go to Hawaii like other guard units so we can visit him there. Anyway, it is nice because it's not to long of a drive for us to go out and spend a night with him. We haven't gone in a couple years but this(hopefully being his last) year we decided it would be fun for the kids to see all the big trucks and toys daddy plays with when he goes away. Camera phones are the best, we would get a couple pictures a day from him and the kids loved to see him.

Wendover isn't the most family friendly town. Actually it's not really fun to take kids there at all. It's worse then Vegas, in that it has really nothing for kids. Besides the one park that you can go to if it's not scorching hot outside. But we did some research and found this really cool lake about 15 miles south of Wendover that's a natural hot springs. It's stays warm year round so they do alot of scuba diving there. The drive was fun, we got to use the 4 wheel drive feature on the car and off road it a bit. Blue Lake itself was really awesome. Not really big but there was birds of all kinds and a TON of dragon flys. All different colors of dragon flys. We went out and sat on this not so sturdy dock, at one point Mike tried to rock us all in the water. And we just talked. Christian sat for the longest I've ever seen him sit without something to keep him busy. There were no cars, no hustle and bustle sounds. It was so quit. The kids loved it. Every time Mike would introduce them to someone in his unit Lorin would tell them all about the lake and the dock and the ducks. After dinner and some arcades we were all ready to call it a night.

The next day Mike had to get up to go to their site and pack all the trucks up and get everything ready for the convoy home. And then for lunch they were having a big end of drill BBQ and his commander told Mike we should go. So how obligated are you to go when the commander's inviting you? So the kids and I killed time in the morning by going to that one park in the middle of the city. Thank goodness it wasn't a hot day and we went to the Wendover museum.

FYI- Wendover was the home to Enola Gay. The huge plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. So they have a museum and markers of all the old buildings that were used when Wendover was a much more occupied city. The movie Con Air with Nicholas Cage was also filmed there and they have the old airplane still there for you to go inside. Some of ID4 was filmed there and they have some of the towers from that.

Of course I forgot our camera at home, and Mike left his camera at the hotel while we were out and about. So we had to make do with our phone cameras. Mike took us for a tour of their site and the huge trucks that were packed up and in line ready to go home. He put the kids up in the truck that he got to drive home. And it was huge. They're actually taller than commercial trucks so the seat was higher then my head. Of course the kids loved it. Christian had to play with all the old style buttons and Lorin had to press on the air brakes so that they kept making a honking sound.

This is the 5 ton truck Mike gets to drive.

And these are only 2 1/2 tons. But supposedly much worse to drive. No air conditioning, no power steering, it's not automatic and you even have to manually swipe the windshield wipers to get the rain off the window.

See how close the steering wheel is to the seat. The seat, nor the wheel move. so imagine a grown man having to sit there and drive. SUCKER

On the way home I got the kid's snacks and Lorin got gummy bears. When Kaki saw them she started saying mine mine. Lorin tried to hand her one but she wanted the whole bag. So Lorin gave her the whole bag and when Lorin asked for the bag back a little latter they were all gone. When Lorin asked where all the gummy bears went Kaki opened her mouth and pointed inside and said AH, AH. She is so funny!