Grandpa Raynes' Cabin

Up Hobble Creek Canyon, there is a magical place. It's Grandpa Raynes' cabin that he built with his BARE hands. No joke, kids. Grandpa built this towering cabin of awesomeness with NO POWER TOOLS! Of course, that means his 10 kids were his power tools. We all have such awesome memories of this place. Everytime I go up, I feel really close to my Dad and I have to sit and thank him for all the hours he spent with us up there.

Want some stories of the cabin? You asked for it. (Ask me later to expound on all of these...they are fantastic):

• The infamous story of Derrick falling three stories to his death, only to have my Dad grab him like a super hero at the last moment.
• The old abandoned bus that we claimed was haunted. Pretty sure it was haunted by the dirty hippies living in it.
• The MANY hikes we took just wandering around the mountains, while Dad talked to us about life.
• The million deer hunts. (My job was to sit in one place and throw rocks to scare out the deer. Now that I am older, I understand this to mean, "Just stay here and stop complaining about how you hate hunting so much.")
• The many hours we all spent up there building the cabin, while taking breaks to go jump down the rockslide into the freezing water.

I really want my kids to have the same experiences with this place. Alice asks to go up there all the time--she understands its magic. I do too.

Thanks Dad! I am sure the first thing you wanted to do with your time was spend countless hours with your whining kids building a cabin by hand. But, what you really wanted to build was a fantastic childhood and eternal memories with your kids.

You really just had it all figured out, didn't you? Miss you everyday.