Veteran's Day

In a rare concurrence of events, Jeremy had a day off work when the boys had a day off school! When Jeremy went to pick Spencer up from Scout Camp this summer, he fell in love with the Mt. Lemmon area. So with a day off work, he wanted to take us on an overnighter to see the fall leaves on the mountain. We stayed at the Viscount Suites in Tucson on Tuesday night. Jeremy took Noah, Jacob and Isaac swimming while "sickies" Spencer and I just rested in the hotel room.

In the morning we drove up the mountain and saw a few trees with red and yellow leaves. What the boys liked, though, were the "hoodoo" rock formations.

When we arrived at the Scout Camp it was closed to the public, so we just drove on a little road just behind it and stumbled on to this cute LDS campground called Camp Zion: High on a Mountaintop. There was a family there who gave us a tour and told us the history of the site. It is owned by the Church and is used for family- and YW-camping (Spencer was kind of bummed when he learned that there was a girl's camp a stone's throw from where he camped this summer and he didn't know about it!). Each feature of the campground was named from scripture.

There were campsites named for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith and others. The basketball court was the Court of Solomon. So fun!

This is the "Straight and Narrow Path" constructed as an Eagle project several years ago.

Then we drove a little further up the mountain to a cabin community called Summerhaven (8200 feet) which was destroyed by fire in 2003. It was fun to see the shops and cabins that have been rebuilt using leftovers from their former "lives".

We ended the day on Mt. Lemmon with pizza and giant cookies from the "Cookie Cabin" in Summerhaven. Both were delicious. Then it was time to head home so Spencer could get to mutual on time.

Please see Isaac's video tribute to Veteran's Day, below: