A Special Saturday Snapshots

I have so many photos this week, I decided to post some of them today. These are all from an adventure we went on when A.'s dad and his wife were staying with us last weekend.

There is a ghost town about 40 minutes from our house that has a maintained church and only a couple of long-abandoned houses left. It's technically located on a private ranch, but we have permission to go there.

So we did.

The town was there long before the ranch. It's one of the old Spanish settlements. I'm not sure exactly how long a town as been there, but certainly at least 150 years. It's in a pretty spectacular setting.

Not too crowded.

There were lots of interesting rocks in this particular spot.

The church, as I mentioned, is maintained by a group organized by Jack's teacher. Her aunt and uncle were the last people to live here. They left in the 1970s.

I always marvel at the devoutness of a people who lived a subsistence lifestyle, but managed decorations like this in their tiny churches. There are many, many examples of this around here.

There are some old cars left around. I can't imagine how rough a ride it must have been on the dirt track into this place in the 1950s.

There is also a stream nearby--which of course is why there was a settlement here--and we played there for awhile.

Poppy went across the rocks many times with the help of A.

The boys, meanwhile, built a dam with their grandfather, to make a pool for the cows that wander around here.

The trees in the stream had big tangles of grass and branches wrapped around them, evidence of flooding at some point. In one of these tangles, Cubby spied an antler wrapped around a tree.

This, of course, must be rescued. Eventually, it was freed from the mud and grass.

It was a big one: five points.

And then Cubby hauled it back to the van. Luckily, it was fairly dry, and therefore not too heavy.

We had a picnic snack while Cubby and Calvin* climbed up to the cliff, with Jasper as their watchdog.

And then we all piled in Adventure Van and headed home.

Adventure Van in its natural habitat.

And there you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* The middle son has finally learned of his blog name, and objected to it. So he will be Calvin from now on. Appropriate, given his affinity with the highly intelligent yet mischievous boy in Calvin and Hobbes.