M&M, Moss and Memorial Day

This past Monday M&M, my parents, and I all went up to Santa Fe for Memorial Day. This has been a tradition in my family since my dad was a little kid, and while none of my siblings came this year, I really enjoy this annual trip to our state's capital. We always go and visit my grandparent's grave, which is where the tradition started. My dad and his family would go up to when he was a kid, to visit my grandpa's grave, and now that my grandma is buried there as well, we still go to visit her grave and put some over-the-top patriotic bouquet on it, cause that is what she would love.

It's always an interesting experience for me, remembering my grandma, marveling at my family, and examining all the graves of strangers, some of whom lived full lives and fought in many wars for our countries, and others, like the ones I saw this week, lived only a day or less, and died within 24 hours of being born, along with their twin sister.

However, that is not really what I started this blog intending to write about. The other part of our annual Memorial Day trip is that we head up into the mountains, go hiking for a bit, and dam the stream. Now I don't know about all of you, but I get an incredible amount of joy out of damming a stream, river, any sort of moving water! I remember, as a teenager, on several youth camping trips, my friends and I would spend hours moving large rocks and trees across the Pecos river, effectively raising the water level on the top side of the dam.

The stream is a bit smaller up in the Santa Fe mountains, and the team was a bit smaller, just me, while M&M and my parents watched and took pictures, but I had to get Mallory in on the dam building legacy early. :) So I moved rocks, sticks, bark, and yes, trees, and built a dam across that stream, and I probably raised it at least 3 or 4 inches.

All the while Mallory was watching. She was pretty interested at first, venturing to touch the water and throw a few rocks, but then, as I started throwing larger rocks into place, and thereby splashing her, she became less enthusiastic about her strange father out in the middle of the stream.

At one point I grabbed a larger rock, which I was going to set gently into place, but Manda said I should throw it. I warned that there would be a big splash, but she said to go for it, so I did, and what resulted is outlined in the pictures below. A wall of water came splashing over all four of them and left moss covering Manda.

All in all it was a really fun trip, and I was able to carry Mallory over the freshly built dam to the other side of the stream. I can't wait to go back next year. Maybe by that time she will be old enough to help me.