Armed Forces Day!!!

For those of you who might be reading my blog and don't know, Armed Forces Day is May 19th. It is also the biggest town celebration Hawthorne ever has. That's the time when they do a parade and fireworks and all that jazz. It was a very big deal when we were growing up there. In fact, I marched in the AFD parade every year from the second grade until I had graduated and gone to college.

Well, this year, someone had the idea that Mom or I should get to Hawthorne and surprise Dad for AFD. Well, we both talked about it and decided that I would try and go. So I immediately sent out a message to the four friends that I have and asked if anyone wanted to go for a weekend road trip. The responses I got were all pretty "mheh" so I disregarded the idea and began looking forward to a rather dull weekend.

About two days before AFD weekend, I finally got some interest. And then the day before, Amanda told me that she was in. At this point I was very, VERY excited. Okay, so I was a lot more excited to surprise Dad at work Thursday than to spend a weekend in Hawthorne (I'm not quite that desperate for entertainment yet.)

Thursday morning, I got the car loaded and drove over to pick Amanda up. I was met at the door by her mom who had a very suspicious look on her face and I began to think that maybe this wasn't going to happen. She invited me in and I went down to find Amanda getting ready and looking rather pitiful. She had hurt her back the night before and was hurting so bad that morning that she couldn't even get out of bed herself. Well, I expressed concern and half-heartedly asked her if she didn't want to go. She assured me that she'd be fine and so I grabbed her bag and we went out into the hallway. This is when Amanda literally passed out. I don't know about all of you, but I've never actually seen anyone lose consciousness like that before...especially not before embarking on a nine hour road trip. It was pretty freaky.

Well, after she came to, we loaded her in the car and for some reason, her parents wished us well and we started on our journey. I'm still a little confused why Sallee would let me take her, but it all worked out for the best, even if I did spend the first two hours asking her if she was alright every minute. But we survived. We even took a few minutes and stopped at the Salt Flats

Amanda decided that she wanted to know if the Salt Flats really tasted like salt.

they do.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. To my immense relief Amanda maintained consciousness for the entire trip.

We made it to Hawthorne and building 6 with about two seconds to spare. The expression Dad had on his face when we walked into his office was absolutely PRICELESS!!!! I don't think I've ever seen him so surprised. That alone was worth the trip. I guess we could have been happy to just get in the car and come back to Ogden, but we ultimately decided that we could find something to do.

Thursday night Dad made us go to a "patriotic celebration" at the Elementary school. This was horrible for two main reasons. First of all, I have very little happy memories from the Hawthorne Elementary school gym. Second, a large majority of people I went to high school with have children in school now. So I had to see a lot, and I mean A LOT, of people from school that I had every intention of never seeing again as long as I live. Dad did take us to the El Cap after...

Friday we decided to go over to Mono Lake and Mammoth. When Amanda had visited Hawthorne before we had done a pretty quick drive by of both places, but decided that it would be fun to do a little more in depth tour.

Mono Lake was beautiful as always.

We went on the South Tufa walk and toured the visitor's center.

After Mono Lake, we stopped in Lee Vining for lunch. We just grabbed some stuff from the Mono Cone and went over to Lee Vining's park to eat. Amanda and I played on the swings and Dad took a nap on the slide.

Then we went in to Mammoth. Amanda and Dad decided they wanted to go on a hike, so we went in search of an "easy" trail.

The only problem is that every where we stopped was still covered in snow.

We stopped off at one of the lakes and played for a minute or two.

Then Dad decided that we should hike to Inyo Crater. The only problem with that was the road was snowed in. Dad promised that he knew where he was going, so we started on a snowmobile trail that he thought would get us where we were going. It was fun, but a little worrisome that we were going to get dreadfully lost. Well, that and the fact that Amanda and I were both wearing sandals and we were trekking over some very slushy snow.

We finally made it though. And it was pretty. I was thinking the whole time that we were on our way to a lake (I should have known better) so there was a bit of a let down, but it was still fun. I did get a bandanna sunburn though which was a bit embarrassing. I now have a tan line across the middle of my already large forehead.

We headed back to town after that because Amanda wanted to be home for the fireworks and "carnival" that was happening in town. I'm pretty sure that Amanda had convinced herself that Hawthorne was some sort of a Stars Hollow place where every one loves town events and it's just one happy community.

She did make me ride a carnival ride with her though. That was embarrassing. :)

Oh, we also made a photo stop at Building 3 to play in the saloon.

Saturday was the big day of the parade.

We staked a claim at our normal spot in front of the Ordnance Museum.

The parade was pretty pathetic. They don't even have a high school marching band anymore.

After the parade we headed in to Fallon. Dad had a scout thing he had to go to. We decided to make a stop at Top Gun. Amanda's boyfriend Kevin is a huge fan of the movie Top Gun, so we thought it would be funny if we took Amanda. So we had to do a quick tour of the static plane display.

I hope I won't get in trouble posting these. They have pretty strict rules about taking pictures there.

That night we sort of gate crashed a Fallon Pack's overnight camp so that Dad could receive his 20-year veteran pin. Yeah Dad!!! He was also presented with the Pony Express District's first annual Nada and Wayne Miller Family of the Year Award. It was pretty cool.

and he was pretty excited.

Sunday we went to Walker Lake!!!! Oh man, how I love that place. I was really, really excited because Sunday was a pretty hot day so it was actually warm enough that we could go swimming! I hadn't been swimming in Walker Lake since I graduated from High School because I never came home over the summer. It was wonderful!!!!!

We also had a customary cook-out on the beach. Much to Amanda's amazement, you can build the fire right on the sand. (apparently she had never done that before)