The first adventure of Percy and Harry

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my mother's father leased some land from the National Forest in the 1950s and built a cabin on it. It's in the Soapstone Recreational area, about 14 miles up the Mirror Lake Highway from Kamas, Utah.

Over the years, it has changed a bit. People have come and gone as part owners. Interior walls have come down. The stairway to the upper bedrooms moved completely. Electricity was added. And the bathroom has become a real bathroom.

Mr. Perfect loved the idea of a family cabin, just maybe not one quite so rustic as this one. The first time we took Beatles Lover and Game Boy, I think they were really scared of the place. They've only stayed overnight once (okay, it was for two nights, but still...).


For Christmas, Mr. Perfect gave me a beautiful pair of snowshoes. I love my snowshoes. They are a thing of beauty, and I plan on using them for many, many years.

So, on Tuesday, we packed up Dexter the Xter with the snowshoes, Mr. Perfect's cross-country skies, plenty of water and lunch, and headed up to Kamas. The weather reports said there was a 20% chance of snow in the afternoon, but Wednesday there was a 100% chance of snow.

The weather more than cooperated. It was beautiful the entire time we were there. The snow gates start at the Soapstone turn off, and the road down past the Provo River bridge was groomed. Past the groomed stuff, we followed snowmobile tracks on the road up to the gate and to the first fork after the gate. From there, we were cutting new trails.

The snow was about 3 feet deep, and the snowshoes handled it all perfectly. I mostly followed Mr. Perfect as he cut the trail ahead of me. It took us about 1-1/2 hours to get up to the cabin from the highway. It's a good thing we both love to walk and use the elliptical, treadmill, and stair climber on a semi-regular basis, otherwise we wouldn't have made it past the gate.

Once up, we built a nice fire. It took about an hour for the three feet in front of the fireplace to warm up enough for us to remove our coats. We ate our lunch, drank some water, and played plenty of Angry Birds. (Psychotically addictive game on Mr. Perfect's Droid X phone.)

After a couple of hours of rest and heat, Mr. Perfect headed up for some more skiing opportunities, and Most Happy Girl headed down towards the gate. I actually made it all the way back to the highway and sat waiting on the Provo River bridge for about five minutes before Mr. Perfect came into sight. Good thing there were no bears or crazy hunters in the area.

By now, you're probably asking yourselves "Who are Percy and Harry?" Good question. Another thing we did for Christmas was have a contest to find travel mascots similar to the Travelocity garden gnome. Well, ours are Percival the Penguin and Harold the Hound. They're small, cuddly, and fit perfectly into a fanny pack.

They made the trip with valiant courage, never wavering when asked to step into the deep snow and pose for a picture. What troopers.

So, here are some pictures from our first adventure with Percy and Harry.