California Nephews visit Uncle Tom

This week we have had a special treat. Two of Tom's nephews came to visit from San Luis Obispo, California. They are our first visitors, and they have been delightful. Ian, the older of the two, came first, arriving last Saturday evening in a thunderstorm. Here is Ian (left) and Tom (right) the next day when the sun had come out again:
Erik arrived the next evening, flying in from New Mexico where he had just completed a grueling mountain bike downhill endurance race. Here's Erik ready to go to work on our firewood:

We spent Monday in Yellowstone park. Tom and I have been so busy since we moved here that we have not taken the time to visit Yellowstone. I haven't been there since I left Big Sky in 1995. A few things have changed. The resident elk were lying on the lawn in Mammoth as always, posing for pictures while park rangers tried valiantly to keep tourists from approaching too close. The north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was closed for road construction, but we went to the south rim and walked along the appropriately named "Uncle Tom's trail" from the first vantage point near Upper Falls to Artist's Point. We arrived at Old Faithful around 7:30 pm with the sun setting and a fiercely cold wind blowing. The eruption started about twenty minutes later, and I have to admit that in the dying light with very few other tourists around it was more impressive than I remember from past visits. Mammoth terrraces, on the other hand were disappointing because since my last visit almost all the colorful springs have died and are now uniformly grey and dull.

Unfortunately, I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera before we left for the park, so I have no pictures of our park visit. Ian and Erik took lots of pictures and have promised to email some to me, so maybe some future post will have them. We arrived home from the park around 11 pm in a snowstorm. The next morning there was a light dusting of snow on everything and I had to scrape frost and snow off the solar panels. And we used to gloat at people scraping their windshields back in the city as we drove by on our bicycles!

Anyway, Tuesday morning the rental shop delivered a full-size brand new backhoe and Ian spent two days happily digging up our road to divert water during the upcoming mud seasons. He is the manager of an equipment rental store back home, and he maintains big diggers and rents them out, but he doesn't get to operate them very often, so he says (and we take his word for it) that this is a treat. Erik spent the time helping build an insulation enclosure for our water pipes until we get the real plumbing done. Then he used my chainsaw to cut up some firewood for us. The weather turned beautiful with 75 degree temperatures and sunshine.
(As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them)
Wednesday afternoon Erik went into Livingston with me to take garbage to the scenic dump and to buy fresh local produce and meat at the farmer's market. It was the last market of the season, so I was glad to get a chance to go and Erik wanted to see Livingston. We walked through downtown and out to the park where the market is held. We stood on the bank of the Yellowstone river where it makes the "big bend" and heads east into the Great Plains and admired the fall colors and the beautiful scenery.

Erik barbecued some beef Tri Tip roast (grass-fed from a local ranch) for us and Tom was in heaven with a couple of cribbage players on hand to keep him entertained. Everyone worked hard and ate well and had a great time.
Today (Thursday) Tom has gone to the Bozeman airport to take Erik to his flight. Ian is staying a couple more days, and is currently operating a D-1 digger (also known as an ordinary shovel) to backfill the trench where the wires for the pump's solar panels come out of the ground. I have to admit, I feel a little strange having these guys spend their vacation working their butts off around here, but Ian in particular seems to be pleased as punch at a chance to play in the dirt. Erik was pretty wiped out from his race, but he worked happily and took hikes up the ridge and enjoyed the lounge chairs on our deck as well. So I guess they aren't feeling too exploited. And we are absolutely tickled to have them come see our new place and hang out with us for awhile. They are both such pleasant, interesting young men we are sorry they have to leave.