July 4th, Denver, Mission Report, and Havasupai

Two weeks ago I got on a plane bound for Pocatello. My brother-in-law picked me up in the sweet Mustang from the airport with Wendy and the boys. We had fun with Kirkham cousins.

We spent the morning of the 4th of July with Wendy's brother, Scott, and his family. Scott is a dealer in heavy equipment, and he knows lots of people. We went to the Inkom 4th of July parade. We got set up to watch the parade and along came a Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicle on a flat bed truck. It stopped right in front of us, and Scott told us to climb on.

Scott had made arrangements with a buddy for us to ride on the IFV during the parade. It was a lot of fun.

On a whim we decided to head down to SLC to watch 4th of July fireworks with my brother, Beck, and his family.

On Tuesday we headed to Denver for a quick house hunting trip. The boys were cared for by my brother and his family.

My high school friend, Brandon, lives in Parker, CO. While Brandon and his family were on a family trip to Mexico, we stayed in their house. They were kind to host us at their place and eat their food. In exchange we watered the house plants and fed the geckos and fish. Over the course of two days we looked at ~30 houses. On Thursday night we had narrowed the list down to 8 houses. On Friday morning we put an offer in on a house.

We drove back to SLC arriving late on Friday night. On Saturday morning, we spent time with my brother and his family and returned to Pocatello to link up with the Kirkham family.

On Sunday Wendy's parents gave their mission report at church, which was the whole reason for the trip. They spoke about desire and knowing individually that each is a child of God. After church we traveled south to Orderville, Utah and spent the night at my brother's cottage.

On Monday morning we repacked the car to go to Supai, AZ. To get to Supai, we had to hike and wanted to make sure we weren't forgetting anything. The launching point is the Havasupai Falls Campground parking lot. Along the way to Havasupai, we got word from the seller of the Colorado house. One of the contingencies was to have the carpets and ducts cleaned because they have a cat, and Wendy had a reaction to the cat while we were at the house. Unbeknownst to us, our agent had offered them 10k less than the listing price. They countered at 5k under the list price and agreed to the carpet and duct cleaning. We countered again with a full price offer, but we asked for 6k to have the carpets replaced rather than cleaned. Our agent met his carpet guy at the house and happened to meet the owner. The owner started to cry as she talked to our agent. (He told us it was the first time that had ever happened to him, and it was a little uncomfortable for him - he's an ex-marine.) The owner said she felt a great connection to our family. Later that night the seller agent contacted our agent to tell him about wanted to give us an additional $1,500 to put in new carpet in the house. Our agent said that in 17 years of real estate he's never had a situation where the seller came back and offered more than what the buyer had asked for like this. Needless to say, we are very grateful. We signed the contract. 

On Monday night we made it to the Havasupai Falls Hilltop parking lot.

My sister, Merris, was kind enough to let us spend the night in their motor home. They hiked in on Monday morning. This was a huge blessing because we arrived after dark and likely would not have slept well on the ground. We finally got to sleep around 10.

We got up at 4:30 Tuesday morning and were on the trail to Havasupai Campground by 5:15.

Seven hours and ten miles later, we arrived at the campground.

We were grateful to finally arrive. 

 

On Wednesday we hiked down to Mooney Falls and played in the water. The trail to get there near gave Wendy a heartache. You hold onto chains all the way down.

It reminded Wendy of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan.

The boys especially liked the rope swing.

Wendy took lots of pictures.

While there I noticed that a squirrel was helping himself to another hiker's lunch. The squirrels will eat right through anything to get at your food! Hurricane noticed that another hiker was playing in the water with a large inflatable slice of pizza.

Being the bold Locey that he is, Hurricane approached the man (after he'd finished using the slice) to ask if Hurricane could float on it for a while. The man said that he was leaving the next day and didn't want to pack it up the hill, so he gave the water toy to Hurricane! What a blessing.

 On Thursday we went cliff jumping with Merris and Yvette's families.

The waterfalls were very private, and we had to wade up river to get to them.

Yvette chose to stay in Flagstaff with her daughter, Ariana, who had been throwing up for 5 days over the previous week. Yvette didn't think it wise to have Ariana walk the two miles from the helicopter landing pad down to the camp ground. After the cliff jumping, we chose to visit Havasupai Falls.

Who did we run into? Yvette and Ariana. The two helicoptered in on Thursday morning. We were so glad to see them.
 

On Thursday night we packed up our gear and got ready to head back up to the parking lot. We were grateful for the help we received from our friends, the Earls, who also came with us to Havasupai Falls. The Earls helped us take down our tent and get our gear taken care of. This is the second vacation we've taken with the Earls. We will miss them dearly!
 

Wendy and I got up at 2:30 on Friday morning with the goal to be on the trail by 3 a.m. We finally got started at 3:45. It was a long 10 mile hike. Underfoot and Hurricane did exceptionally well for such a difficult hike. By 8 a.m. the sun was up and the heat was on. Along the way a kind couple gave Hurricane one of their sun umbrellas. I carried it for him, keeping him out of the sun for the better part of the morning.

The Earls Family arrived much earlier than we did.

We finally arrived at the parking lot at about 11:10 - 7 hours after leaving the camp ground. Each of us had a 'carrot' to help us get to the top - Wendy's carrot was a cold soda, mine was a phone call to our Tucson realtor, Underfoot and Hurricane wanted to get a Mini Mighty Micro Lego set. Along the way up the trail, Hurricane began negotiating for cold hard cash. Hurricane negotiated hard. He wanted $1 for each mile he hiked.

Wendy and I relented around mile 16. His logic was sound. My nephew, Grant, chose to hike out with us. He hiked in with Merris' family on Monday.

The mules arrived with our gear about the same time we did. We loaded the car and headed out. On the road back to civilization we got word that we had an offer on our house in Tucson! We chose to eat lunch at Westside Lilo's cafe in Selgiman, AZ. While there we got word that the offer on our house in Tucson had been withdrawn. The week prior we got two offers on the house, but there were problems with both of them. This third offer looked promising. The offer was withdrawn because the couple had put in offers on multiple houses and one of the other sellers had accepted their offer. The good news was that our agent had been told two other couples were preparing offers, so if they wanted the house they needed to put together a strong offer.

Passing through Phoenix we got word that the two other offers had arrived, and they were good. Late Friday night we signed on our Tucson house. We are under contract to sell our house on August 17th and purchase our new house on August 18th. Saturday we spent the day doing laundry, unpacking, and taking care of logistics for our upcoming move. It is hard to believe that we have just one month left in Tucson!

Be Well!