Franklin Pioneers

We were able to drive through Franklin Idaho recently and stopped for a look at the monument and cemetery where Charles Hobbs and his brother were listed and buried. Charles and Henry joined the church in Cheltenham England. Charles and his wife Mary Ann came to America with their three young children (among them my one year old great grandmother Edith Ann Hobbs) and came across the plains as pioneers in 1862. They settled in Franklin Idaho shortly after as one of the founding families. No moving around for them, they stayed in Franklin and are buried along with numerous other Hobbs in the small cemetery.

Franklin is of note for several reasons:
*First the place was chosen in the belief that it was still in Utah. But the maps were corrected years later and it was discovered to be just over the Idaho line. Thus making it the first white settlement in the territory of Idaho.
*Second, due to the presence of white settlers there were negative interactions with the Indians of the area. In Jan of the year 1863, the worst Indian massacre in the United States, the Bear River Massacre, occurred just northwest of town. The cavalry came through Franklin and afterwards the wounded were tended by the women of the town (I do not know if the Hobbs had arrived there yet and were witness to the tragedy.)
*Thirdly, Ezra Taft Benson was born and grew up just north of Franklin in Whitney.
And while the film Napoleon Dynamite took place in the nearby town of Preston, Franklin can be said to have basked it its fame as well.

There is a very small park with a stone monument with the founding fathers listed. Next door is a small museum, which was not open, where I am sure I could find more information about Charles and his family. I have seen the monument before and it had an old and aging plaque. It was nice to see a new one had been placed.

We have found a replacement for Shasta. She is a mix, probably part king cavalier spaniel and maybe pomeranian. She is about 8 lbs, a little smaller than I was hoping for, but at least she isn't tiny. I think she is beautiful. She was a stray and is about 6 yr old. I've named her TinkerBelle. She had another name, but once I realized that was not her name, but just one someone at the shelter gave her I felt no loyalty to it and came up with my own. I asked and asked and nobody had even one idea. So it is definitely my name. That's okay, she really is my dog. At the adoption event even though Carley had her leash and walked her around it was more than obvious that I was the one she wanted to stay with.

She is also slowly getting used to men. She likes Caleb pretty well, but the rest she runs away from. It is also obvious she has been kicked by the way she reacts to feet raised anywhere near her.

I have decided she lived with a single woman who worked during the day and lived in an apartment, and after they went outside at night Tinkerbelle would lay in her lap and the lady would rub her belly. She also was fed people food, and slept in bed with her lady. So she is a little confused when I won't let her on my couch and don't feed her by hand and make her sleep on the floor and don't rub her much. She is adjusting slowly. I'm trying to teach her to sit and lay and stay. We go on walks and this is helping me, because she has a much faster pace than I do, so I am getting a work out.
She got out once, when a cat in the yard ran under a hole in the fence I didn't know was there. Tinkerbelle was able to squeez through just as fast as the cat. I found her around the corner standing there with a look on her face like what do I do now. Thankfully she did not run away from me, but sat there and let me come get her.

I'm glad we got her.

29th Anniversary

Not much money this year so we stayed close to home. Spent some bonus money I'd been given. We ate at Tiburon restaurant which I have wanted to visit forever. I'm glad we were able to finally go. It was DELISH! Russ had Elk and I had Halibut. A treat for the taste buds like I have never had before. Excellent food.


Then on Friday we headed down to Spring City where we stayed at the Osborne Inn Bed and Breakfast. This was a great choice and we WILL be going back. I fell in love with Spring City, what a great little town. The whole town is a National Historic District with 68 buildings being on the list. One of them is the Inn where we stayed. There are only 4 bedrooms that they let out, and I guess they live in two of them, so really only two at the moment. We stayed on the ground floor in the Ruth May and Jesse Fox room. The sheets were the most wonderful I've ever slept in and that is saying alot. The home was similar in some ways to the BnB in Tyler TX we stayed at, but that was redone like a museum, and this was more like someone's lived in home. Very comfortable and relaxed, with old and new things intermixed seamlessly.























We were welcomed by a fire in the stove in the parlor where I sat and read about Spring City. Later under a full moon I walked around the block and down Main street to the center of town looking at and reading about the historic buildings on the way there and back. It was so quiet. Only one or two cars through town.




















In the morning after a delicious breakfast we were able to visit awhile with Barbara the owner. She is still pretty new to the area and we had a great visit.

Then we walked next door to visit the Horseshoe Mt Pottery shop of Joseph Bennion. We loved it and after looking at the items for sale had pretty much selected what we wanted when he walked in. I guess he saw our truck and thought he ought to make an appearance. We enjoyed visiting with him and learning about his daughter Louisa who is living in France and making her way by playing Irish music for money in the market town. He and his artist wife Lee are excited to be going for a month down the Colorado. I started getting jealous of their quiet life in the country. I think some part of me is a bohemian wannabe.




















Anyway, then we headed down to Manti to enjoy that beautiful Temple. We enjoyed an unhurried visit and then headed home.
Love You Russ.

Theme for 2010

I have a theme for 2010:
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it;
blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
Rainer Maria Von Rilke

catching up

So much has happened that I am just thrilled with and abit overwhelmed by. First we welcomed Jesse home from his summer at Glacier. He'd been able to enjoy that beautiful place, take lots of hikes, meet people from around the world, go to church in Canada, and grow his hair out. I'm so glad he was able to have that experience.
Then we were so happy to welcome Hyrum back home. He gave a wonderful talk in Church sharing how faith can grow by being consistent in reading our scriptures (every day), saying prayers (everyday) and attending church (every week) and be like a river... "And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying: O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!" 1Nephi 2:9.

Then in November Carley finished her student teaching and she and Caleb moved in with us. It is a full house with 7 adults and 5 cars. But it has been really wonderful for the first time in almost six year for us all to be together and for all of the kids to be able to enjoy time together. I've loved having friends over and good times happening.

Then Caleb twisted his knee and ended up with a torn ACL. He had surgery that repaired his torn cartilage, but will need another one to fix the ACL. That put a damper on his hopes to be part of the UVU racquetball team this year. I'm hoping he'll be able to concentrate instead on school and make some headway towards graduation.

Russ started a new job with the University of Utah. We feel very blessed by this job offer. He is back doing what he feels most comfortable doing....building maintenance. Plus with him at the U we have the backing of a major employer for insurance and retirement. So far it has been going well. I'm glad he got the job. For awhile I thought we might have 4 unemployed men in our home.

We had a nice party with Mom on her birthday and were able to visit with our family who continues to grow. I can't believe how much has happened this year. Was it really only a year ago Russ and I went down to Page and I took that hike to the Wave?

Mountain Highs, and Rockies vs Cards

We took the opportunity to go on a couple weekend trips. If we had gone to get Jesse I would have done this Beartooth highway on the way home. But since he took the bus home we took a special trip up there. We drove through West Yellowstone and through the West entrance and headed east. It is a great time to be in Yellowstone,,,we saw Bull elk with their herds, a Bald Eagle, buffalo of course and antelope. It was calm and beautiful.

We stopped at the Firehole river swimming hole and I went wading. The water was not hot, but not cold either. Nice bathtub temperature. I wished we could have taken a swim. Missed Old Faithful by about 5 minutes, and headed out the East Entrance. We had never been this way and it was fun to see the Sylvan pass and the wide Shoshone river canyon heading to Cody. We camped at Buffalo Bill Reservoir, though I wouldn't recommend it.

We spent the morning at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center which is absolutely fantastic. It would be worth going back to Cody just for that. There are actually five museums. I went through three of them feeling guilty about taking the time. Meanwhile Russ was wandering the firearms museum and loving it.


When we felt like we had seen enough we headed north to Red Lodge and across the Beartooth Hwy. This is a beautiful drive well worth all the praise it gets. It was a little cold and they were repaving, so lots of construction, so didn't do everything we could have, but if we go to Cody again we can do the loop and throw in Chief Joseph Hwy as well, which would be great. We ate lunch at a beautiful quiet alpine lake and watched the construction trucks and fall traffic drive by.

Just after Cooke City we went through the NE entrance. We hoped to see some wolf, but only saw antelope and fisherman. South through Yellowstone stopping at Tower Falls, Artists Point for the Lower Yellowstone Falls and getting a camp spot at Grant's Village. I finally was able to figure out what they had done since we camped there in 1983 with Louisa. They had built a hotel on the meadow where we camped and moved the camping further out into the forest. We drove out the South Entrance and past the Tetons having gone through 4 of the 5 entrances in two days. It was a great trip even though it was a lot of driving.


The next weekend we drove to Denver for a Rockies game. Russ had been talking about going to see the world series if Colorado got in it and I started realizing he had seen quite a few of the playoff teams this summer. We looked at who the Rockies were going to be playing and one of them was St Louis who was also a playoff contender. So we decided to go see them. In the end Russ had seen all the playoff teams this year except Minneapolis. Louisa went with us. We had a ticket for Jesse if he was home, but he decided to stay in Idaho Falls instead of spend the weekend with us. We drove from SLC Saturday in time for the game. We had a great time. It was so fun to be among the crowd and cheer and share in the excitement. It looked pretty close to sold out and there was a lot of energy in the crowd. Didn't matter, they lost anyway. Then we drove to Boulder and found a hotel.
Next morning we drove through Rocky Mt National Park. This was an interesting contrast to Beartooth. This road goes higher, but in many ways they are the same, high altitude over-treeline tundra. Only it had snowed two feet over the week and it was windy and cold on top. The big attraction again were the elk at the lower elevations. We ate lunch at the Trail Ridge Grill in Grand Lake. I thought it was really grand :D. Anyway, reminded again that the Colorado used to be called the Grand River and is still as it empties into Grand Lake. We drove 40 home. It again was a lot of driving, but we had a great time and I was glad we went.

Russ went the next day to pick Jesse up from Idaho Falls. It was kind of crazy since we were having dinner with TA friends from Australia. So I saw him first at the restaurant. He'd had a great summer and came home happy, which made me really happy as well. Russ got most of the stories on the three hour drive home, I was envious.

This is for Caleb

and this one: