Birthday at 9144 ft.

And mystery solved! Thanks to Katrina who said the picture of the 3 girls in front of the rock art on Bethany's blog reminded her of this picture of my grandfather Martin Oscar Pehrson taken in 1930. I took the picture off my wall and compared it to what we took and discovered the ground has filled in some in 80 years and the images have faded some in that time, but it is the very same place! My mother thought it was by Mackay.

We had an early birthday celebration today. Bethany got permission from a rancher for us to hike across his land to see Native American pictographs. We are at Birch Creek in this picture and the Indian art was in the cliffs behind us.

Unlike petroglyphs (carved in the rock), pictographs are painted with pigments. Aren't these totally amazing?

Every family needs an archeologist! Thanks Bethany for planning this.

These hay derricks were near the pictographs.

Then we went to the Gilmore ghost town. It was a mining town (lead and silver) in the early 1900's.

Here's how it looked then.

And the miners.

And these are some of the buildings now:

Then we continued on the road to Meadow Lake (9144 ft.) It was heaven on earth.

Notice the winter coats - it was in the 50's.

Scott caught a couple rainbow trout (and released them.)

Celeste tried to net some fish.

She loves climbing on rocks.

We had a great picnic and here's my s'mores birthday cake!

Celeste liked it.

What a wonderful day, a whole vacation in one day!