Food & Fun

Seems like this past week has involved a lot of food mixed with fun times!

PIZZA, PIZZA

Nancy had mentioned that she’d been craving pizza, and since we hadn’t eaten any in a couple of months either, it really sounded good to us, too. Previously we reported that Slackers in Torrey had better burgers than Chillz, but from what we were told Chillz had better pizzas than the Red Rock Inn. John and Nancy were going into Loa on one of their days off so we made plans for them to pick up pizza on the way home for dinner, and we split the cost. However before they left, our pizza party had grown as we had also invited Rangers Steven, Tiffany, and Kyle to come over after work. We purchased 3 large pizzas which we figured would provide us plenty of leftovers, and the troops brought some brewskies (none for us...we were on duty). We all agreed the pizzas were some of the best we’d had, but out of those 3 very large pizzas only 2 pieces were left! Someone (…ahem…Kyle) had been very hungry!

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

A few weeks ago we had talked about one of the family reunions that had been held in the park where the kids made tie-dyed t-shirts. What we didn’t mention is that the coordinator of this reunion was a lieutenant with the Utah Highway Patrol, and he had promised to come back and see us before we left for the season. We knew he was a busy man and covered a large territory so didn’t really expect him to make a special trip just to see us. What a surprise when true his word he showed up one afternoon in full uniform! He wanted to thank us again for all our help during his family’s stay and for making it a memorable event. He also presented us with Utah Highway Patrol 75th Anniversary mugs…how incredibly sweet of him to take time out of his day, making a special effort to think of us.

IN APPRECIATION

As a thank you for our time as campground hosts, Ranger Brenda coordinated a potluck in honor of the four of us. Since John and Nancy were planning to leave on July 4th, it was scheduled for the Friday before. It wasn’t a large group, but the food was really good (especially Scott’s sloppy joes and Al’s incredibly delicious Million Calorie Pie that he made fresh that morning!!) In the photo at left Chief Ranger Scott stands between Russ and me, and Park Superintendent Al stands between me and John. In the photo at right, our supervisor, Ranger Brenda, stands with her husband, Ranger Mike. In addition to a Certificate of Appreciation we also received a $50 gift certificate to be used in the bookstore and/or the Gifford House! Hmmmm…10 homemade pies??? Nah, I’m sure we’ll be a little more diverse than that. Thanks to all who attended and made this a special day. It’s truly been a pleasure working with all of these great people, and this little get together was genuinely appreciated.

I LOVE A PARADE

Every 4th of July weekend Torrey holds its annual Torrey Apple Days, a small town celebration complete with games, food, 5K race, arts and crafts swap meet, an evening dance, and of course a parade! Since we were off duty, we drove into town Sat. morning in plenty of time to scope out a spot for watching the parade, which goes down one side of the main street, turns around, and comes back in the other lane. At one point the end of the parade was passing the beginning! A couple thousand people lined the streets of Torrey and most of the participants threw candy to the crowds. Now we understood why so many kids were carrying plastic bags before the parade started! Since we didn’t know about this tradition, we simply had to stuff our pockets…tee hee. Of course Café Diablo had a presence in the parade with the owner and some of his staff distributing mini-apple pies to everyone along the route...yum! And what parade would be complete without a queen...isn’t she adorable? Afterwards we watched as the kids had a blast swinging over the creek that runs alongside the road. What a great time in small town America!

HELLO/GOODBYE

The couple who would be taking John and Nancy’s place as hosts had arrived a couple weeks early as they had business in the area, and since this is Dotty and Gary’s 6th year hosting at Capitol Reef, they know lots of people to visit. Dotty loves to cook so she planned a goodbye dinner for John and Nancy the day before they were going to leave (Brenda and Mike joined us shortly after this photo was taken.) Lasagna, salad, and garlic bread were on the menu followed by scrumptious strawberry shortcake, and after dinner the guys worked on the golf cart as we’d all been having some serious problems with it for a few days. You know what happens when you get great minds together!

John and Nancy left very early the next morning, and though this photo was taken on their last day of work, Nancy said it’s kind of like them saying “Bye…we’re outta here!” LOL Later that day Dotty and Gary had us over for a 4th of July BBQ with burgers, hot dogs, salad, baked beans, corn on the cob, and watermelon. I brought potato salad but it really wasn’t needed as we had plenty of food. (Sorry, no pictures of this shindig.)

So our time here as campground hosts is also about up, and it seems like there’s still so much we want to do. Hope we can fit it all in before we leave on the 15th.