A beautiful weekend

We're back! We spent the weekend revisiting our old stomping grounds in southern Utah. On Thursday we drove to Loa where we dropped off the dogs with our friends Pat & Michelle for the night. At that point I still had no idea what Brandon had planned for us. We drove from Loa to Teasdale (near Torrey/Capitol Reef) and checked in at the Muley Twist Inn B&B (http://www.muleytwistinn.com/). We changed into our "nice clothes" and went out to dinner at Cafe Diablo (http://www.cafediablo.net/) in Torrey. We had Rattlesnake Cakes for an appetizer and enjoyed live guitar music while we ate our dinner. On Friday we picked up the dogs and headed up onto Boulder Mountain. Tears welled up in my eyes when I realized that Brandon had reserved the Aquarius Guard Station for Friday & Saturday nights - the very same place where we stayed during the week that we did Castilleja aquariensis surveys together 12 years ago. As luck would have it, they just started renting it out this summer. Before this summer you couldn't stay there unless you worked for the USFS. And not only that, we were treated to hot and cold running water, a propane stove, AND a propane refrigerator! All luxuries that we didn't have 12 years ago. Still no bathroom, but the outhouse had a fresh coat of paint. Still no electricity but we had lots of candles to light up our Trivial Pursuit and cribbage games, and a woodstove to keep the chill off at night. We spent Saturday exploring Boulder Top and the Aquarius Plateau. Brandon got some good fishing in while I relaxed, read books, and explored. We also stopped to inspect a few of our old C. aquariensis plots. Joie and Brody had a great time running, swimming and chasing cows and we were all sad this morning when we had to leave. I'll put some pictures up on Shutterfly soon, but for now here are a couple of my favorites.