Bryce Canyon

I never wrote a race report for the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon because it sucked. I had a a horrible race and was very disappointed. Luckily, we still had a very fun trip and enjoyed spending time with two of my sisters and their kids and my parents.

Some of the highlights from our little trip include:

• Lots of junk food, including home made English toffee fudge from a candy shop in Tropic and homemade ice cream we made ourselves with a ball you throw around.
• The Bear Fiddling Festival in Cannonville which included fun fiddling from 80 year olds and 12 year olds, hot dogs, dutch oven potatoes, and home made root beer.
• Shopping the clearance sale at True Value Hardware in Tropic and happening upon the Jazz Bear.
• Participating in the Bryce Half with many of our good friends. I think there were at least a dozen of my closest friends who also did the race. It was so fun to see them all. Too bad they all stayed at the KOA in Cannonville and we stayed at Ruby's Inn. Maybe next year I can convince them to stay at Ruby's.
• The drive home on Sunday. We took the scenic route and made a few detours. We stopped for picnic lunch in great forest near Panguitch Lake.
• We also drove to the top of Brianhead Peak and saw the Civilian Conservation Corp hut built in the 30s up close. We always see it from a ditance when we ski at Brianhead but have never gotten to go inside. The peak also offered spectacular views in every direction all the way to Arizona and Nevada.

Walk as a Witness

Porter Rockwell Family, minus papa Porter, big sis Larue (Caiti) and Little P.

This year our ward decided to do a Pioneer Trek for our youth conference. We have never done one before, but luckily we had awesome coordinators and the whole thing got put together in two months.

We were on a tight budget, but were able to borrow handcarts from a nearby ward.

We were lucky to have a guy in our ward who owns a bunch of land in the mountains that let us use it for the trek.

We have awesome youth who pulled and pushed those carts on empty stomachs, over steep rocky mountains, through hot summer days, all without complaint.

River Crossing

I really think this trek was "meant" to be.

I am so glad that Tom and I got to be a Mama Anne and Papa Porter to the awesomest group of kids out there. We had 6 kids and flour sack baby, a handacart piled high with bedding and clothes. We had meager rations of food that lasted (we even had leftovers) and tasted delicious. These kids ate vegetable stew (water, veggies, salt and pepper) and thought it was the best stuff on earth.Our Camp

They were awesome at rationing their food so we had the most divine breakfast on the last day: light and fluffy flapjacks, banana "jam", and brown sugar. We were fortunate to find an egg in the chicken we killed so it made the flapjacks awesome. We also got a little buttermilk and butter from fresh cream.

It was an emotional experience to watch these kids struggle to push and pull the handcart up the steep, rocky mountains and not be able to help them. I wanted to. We did get to help in one extra hard section. I think that made the trek extra awesome, because it taught the youth that they can conquer whatever challenges they are faced with, but if the going gets really tough, there will be help available to them.


The women's pull was so awesome and so hard. We had 15 exhausted girls pushing two carts up the steepest section of the trek. The young men and leaders walked beside them in silence. Many of the young men moved rocks or brought water. It is bringing tears to my eyes just thinking about it. These girls probably never worked so hard in their lives, but they did it. They were able to get these carts up all on their own.

Overall, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Pre-Independence Day Ride

Tom and I rode 80 miles on July 3. It was super hot, super hard, and super fun. I didn't have a whole lot of energy so Tom had to pull most of the way.

But we got to ride through the coolest National Park in the world, I discovered Coke is awesome for energy and refreshment at mile 60, and I got to be with my favorite person in the world.

Happy Independence Day!

2nd Annual Pioneer Day 5K

Hurricane Valley Pioneer Day 5K

Fun Run and Walk

Sponsored by the Hurricane and Hurricane West Stakes and

Hurricane Runners’ Club (hurricanerunners.blogspot.com)

Pioneer children walked, and walked, and walked, and RAN!

Friday, July 24th, 6:30 AM

Hurricane City Park - 200 N Main

Fun for all ages and abilities!

Registration fee:
2 non-perishable food items to donate to
Dixie Care and Share

Pre-register at Classic Sports or with
Elizabeth Dansie at 58 W 1125 N
or I can email you a form, just send me an email at edansie@gmail.com

Day of race registration from 5:45 to 6:15 AM.


Contact Elizabeth Dansie with any questions at 635-4486 or edansie@gmail.com.