Yellowstone Away From The Crowds

Prelude
Over the last couple of weeks Rosey and I were struggling with how to spend our Labor Day weekend. We both felt like getting out of town, but I was kind of dragging my feet making plans because I hate travelling on Holiday weekends. I would almost rather spend the weekend at home than spend the weekend sitting in traffic or in a park somewhere surrounded by millions of other tourists that had the same idea for their holiday weekend.

After kicking around a couple of different ideas, Yellowstone was the idea that kept coming back up. Rosey had been to Yellowstone once with her father when she was 12 years old and was dying to go back. I have passed through Yellowstone several times on the Harley but for one reason or another have not been able to spend much time actually exploring the park. So, I've been dying to get back to Yellowstone for a while myself. But, could you pick a worse a weekend to go to Yellowstone than Labor Day weekend?

I was discouraged about our prospects of even being able to find a campsite for our weekend adventure. I had waited until three days before the weekend to make the reservation and was sure that when I called up that I would be told that every campground in the park was full. At that point I was almost hoping to hear that so that I could tell Rosey that I did due dilligence in trying to plan a Labor Day Yellowstone trip but that it just didn't work out.

When I called to make the reservation, I was totally caught off guard to hear that there were still four campgrounds that had openings. I was so certain that nothing would be available that I hadn't even bothered to pick a campground that I wanted to stay in. I had to have the operator read me the list of available campgrounds and then ended up picking Bridge Bay campground just because I had stayed there once before. I had no idea whether or not it was going to work out with our plans that weekend, but I didn't feel like hanging up the phone, researching the campsite and then calling back to make the reservation.

As it began to sink in that I was actually going to get to spend a weekend in Yellowstone, I grew more and more excited. Like I mentioned, I had attempted to visit Yellowstone on three prior occasions. On one of those I had to cut my trip short due to rain, and on the other two I was just camping as I was passing through and didn't get to spend any time hiking or sightseeing because of how much time I spent just driving through the park in traffic. One thing was for sure: I wasn't going to spend another trip to Yellowstone sitting in park traffic. I was going to park the car as quickly as possible and get in as much hiking as I could.

The Journey Begins
To maximize the amount of time that we got to spend in the park on Saturday, Rosey and I packed up the car and left home around 6:00 AM on Saturday morning. Yes, we did take the car and not the bike. There were several reasons for that, but the main one was that taking the bike meant that we wouldn't be able to leave until much later in the morning because of the cold. That in turn meant that we would spend all day riding and wouldn't get to the park until late afternoon or early evening. Again, my goal for this trip was to spend as little time driving as possible and as much time as I could in the park.

We made awesome time to Yellowstone thanks to my lead foot. Does that metaphor still work now that most long trips are accomplished via cruise control?. Anyway, we were sitting at the gates of Yellowstone at 11:30 in the morning. I had been surprised how little traffic we had encountered on the trip up there. I had warned Rosey about the mass procession of cars that we were going to see lining up to get into Yellowstone for the weekend for hundreds of miles away. That's just the way that I pictured holiday traffic in Yellowstone.

Thankfully, I was wrong. We didn't hit any traffic at all until we got to the entrance of Yellowstone. And just as I was about to lament that, feeling righteously vindicated for all of the complaining that I had done about travelling on holidays, a park ranger came up to our car and told us that we could skip the entire line because I had a National Parks Pass. Holy crap, that saved us about an hour of waiting in line. That parks pass is the best $50 that I have ever spent.

From the entrace of the park, it was about 70 miles to our campsite. Yes, the park is that big. To avoid wasting all those miles just driving, I had planned on stopping at some geothermal features along the way and doing some hiking and sight-seeing.

A Rocky Start
And here is where I made my first mistake of the trip. I sometimes feel bad that I make all of the plans when I travel with Rosey. I wonder if she feels left out or if she is just a passive participant in our adventures. So, I decided that I would ask her what her plans were. At first, she was unprepared to answer that question, she hadn't really thought about it. But after spending a couple of minutes studying the park newspaper she proclaimed, "I want to go to Mammoth Hot Springs; I think that may have been where my Dad took me when I was younger".

"Ahh Fuck", I thought to myself. Mammoth Hot Springs was at the very North tip of the park. To get there and then to our campground afterwards meant adding about 120 miles of driving. At an average speed of 30 miles per hour, that meant adding another 4 hours of driving on top of the five hours that I had already driven to get to the park. But more than anything it annoyed me because it meant spending yet another trip in Yellowstone driving rather than hiking. When I had asked what she wanted to do, what I really meant was, "What do you want to do along the route that I had already planned?".

I tried to gently persuade her, but she was resolute. After all, I had just hassled her about contributing to the plans. How could I do that and then criticize her for the plans that she came up with. So, I begrudgingly turned the car North and we proceeded up to Mammoth Hot Springs.

In retrospect I should have just explained to her how important it was to me to not spend this whole trip driving through the park. But I wasn't quite that smart. Instead, I just clammed up and started to act all sullen. In short, I kind of made that section of the trips miserable by acting like a child that didn't get his way. This, in turn, put Rosey in a bad mood and made for an uncomfortable afternoon.

The afternoon, however, wasn't a total wash. Even amongst our bickering silence we managed to stop at a waterfall on the Gibbon River for lunch, do a short hike through the Artist's paint pots, and explore the Mammoth Hot Springs area.



The Beaver Ponds
While in Mammoth Hot Springs, I stopped by the visitor's center to get some ideas for hikes. I like to ask the rangers what their favorite hikes in the park are. A lot of the time you will get an answer that is different than what the park literature says. Rangers will often suggest hikes that are more off the beaten path but still lead to some of the most beautiful areas of the park. That is how Rosey and I ended up at Chasm Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Upon asking this particular Ranger in Yellowstone, I got a blank stare. She didn't seem to understand what I was asking. Instead of giving me personal information about her favorite hike she started to give me the reading-from-the-park-manual hiking script about what hikes were available. I reiterated that I was hoping to get some personal suggestions to which she responded that there were a thousand miles of hiking trails in the park and that she hadn't been on all of them.

"But, surely you've been on some of them, haven't you? Don't you have a favorite of the ones that you have been on?". This was starting to feel like pulling teeth. "Well, I like all of the hikes that I've been on for different reasons, I couldn't really pick a favorite". At this point, I was less concerned about getting hiking suggestions and more amused by the interaction. It was just so strange. I pressed her further and did finally get her to point out a couple of hikes for me.

One of the hikes was in the Mammoth Hot Springs area and started right near where we were. Rosey was interested in checking out the hot springs, but I was dying to get on the trail. I felt like I had bent enough, just driving all the way up here. Now it was Rosey's turn to be flexible and do something that I wanted in return. She responded precisely the way that I had earlier... that is, she agreed with only slight hesitation but then seemed to be really sullen about it. It turns out that she really wanted to see more of the Hot Springs.

Not surprisingly, the hike that was reccommended by the flakey ranger was underwhelming. I was still glad for the opportunity to stretch out my legs and my lungs on the trail but this was certainly not the most beautiful hike that I had been on. In fact, you might not have even guessed that you were in Yellowstone National Park. That hike could have been in a hundred other places with rolling hills, sage brush and dry meadows... or so I thought at first. It turns out that the beaver ponds at the far end of the hike were pretty cool. Not spectacular, but still pretty cool. And the wooded areas of the hike were pretty nice too.



The best thing about the hike was that it got us away from the crowds. The park ranger did give me one good piece of advice. When I asked her how to find some spots in Yellowstone that weren't overrun by people, she responded, "Get half a mile down any trail in the park and you'll be in relative solitude. Very few people ever get out of their car or off the boardwalk in Yellowstone".

By the end of the hike, I was in much better spirits. In addition to the positive mental effects of a little vigorous exercise, I felt like I had finally beaten my Yellowstone traffic curse. I had finally done some hiking in Yellowstone. Rosey, on the other hand, still felt slighted by the whole experience. It wasn't until later that night, that we talked it through and agreed that the whole incident was a case study in the effects of poor communication. The whole scenario could have been avoided had we both been more vocal about our feelings. We vowed that we wouldn't let the same thing happen the next day.

Food Is Better in Montana
I don't know why, but food always tastes better when you're camping. Maybe it's because after hiking all day you feel like you've really earned your meal, maybe it's because you have to work that much harder to cook when you are working with primitive camp cookery, maybe it's because I'm a damned good camp chef, or maybe (Chris, this is for you) food just tastes better in Montana. I'm not sure exactly what the case was, but our meal on Saturday night was awesome. We had ginger teriyaki glazed salmon, fresh steamed broccoli, baby carrots and sugar snap peas, and cheddar broccoli long grain rice. Some people don't eat that good at home, much less while they are camping :)

Spectacular, Spectacular
Sunday started out much better than our Saturday had. Despite the temperatures dropping below freezing overnight, I managed to stay warm and comfortable and slept like a baby. In fact, I don't remember the last time that I slept that well. I woke with the sun around 6:30 in the morning and got up to make breakfast while Rosey slept in a bit longer.

My goal for that day, and really one of my major goals of the trip, was to make it to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. In all of the previous times that I had been through the park, I had managed to miss what is one of the most spectacular areas of the park to visit. Behind Old Faithful it is probably the most popular area of the park. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is a massive canyon created by the Yellowstone river which is highlighted by the grandiose Upper Yellowstone Waterfall. If I did nothing else on this trip, I was going to see this waterfall.

When I imagined visiting the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, I imagined that there would be a hiking trail that took you down into the canyon and right up to the waterfall. I was almost disappointed to discover when I looked at the trail maps that the waterfall was only accessible from various vista points and that all of those vista points were accessible by car. I guess that I'm kind of an elitist in that sense. I believe that the most beautiful areas of any park should only be accessible by people that are willing to work for them.

I did discover, however, that there was a hiking trail that started at one of the vista points and approached the waterfall from the canyon rim. You never really got all that close but there were still some pretty good views. It wasn't exactly what I had imagined, but it was going to have to do. So, after eating a good hearty breakfast, we jumped in the car and drove out to the Artist's Point vista.

The falls and the canyon were breathtaking. Seriously, this ranks among some of the most beautiful places that I have been. The thing that I love about National Parks is the sense of awe and grandeur that you get. Prior to seeing this view, I hadn't really felt that in Yellowstone. Sure, Old Faithful and the geothermal features were cool, but they didn't inspire awe in me like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This was awesome!



7 Mile Hole
As we were leaving the vista point and getting ready to start our hike, Rosey stopped to read one of the interpretive signs. The sign was about the colors in the canyon, but there was a tiny sidebar with a picture of a guy next to thermal feature and a caption that mentioned something about a hike that went down into the canyon. A hike that went down into the canyon? We looked it up on the trail map and sure enough there it was: 7 Mile Hole Trail. Ironically, the 7 mile hole trail was actually 11 miles long. Ouch, an 11 mile hike. That's not exactly the type of hike that you just tackle on a whim... or is it?

One of the things that I love about Rosey, is that she is the type of girl that when you suggest an impromptu 11 mile hike that is rated as "extremely strenuous" she responds with, "Let's Do It!", instead of, "What, are you out of your fucking mind?", like I imagine most girls would :) Fortunately for me, Rosey is not most girls.

We packed up our hiking pack with plenty of water, some peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and a water filtration kit and headed out on the trail. Oh, and yes, this is the same backpack that I frequently make fun of Rosey for packing because we would never need a pack that big on a short day hike. I guess I got to eat my words on that one. Having a pack that big really came in handy. Although, somehow, once we reach a certain weight threshold, it becomes my responsibility to carry the pack instead of Rosey's. Doh!

The hike turned out to be a lot of fun and not as difficult as either of us imagined it would be. We attributed the relative ease with which we accomplished the hike to all of the hiking that we've been doing lately at high elevations. The hike was listed as 11 miles with an average completion time of 6 to 8 hours. According to my GPS the hike was 13 miles long (due to some extra mileage that we added at the end) and we completed it in almost exactly 5 hours. 5 hours! Wow, that's an hour less than the low estimate and that included a whole hour that we spent at the river while eating lunch. We kick ass!

The hike was incredible and really was the highlight of the whole trip for me. The first four miles or so we walked along the canyon rim in a forested area. The grade was mostly level and Rosey and I were just blazing through this area. We averaged about 4 miles an hour. Had we been going any faster we would have been jogging.

Next the trail started a steep descent down rocky and narrow switchbacks into the canyon. We dropped over 1400 feet in about a mile and a half. That's roughly a 20% grade. After the steep descent, we walked through an active (i.e. smelly) geothermal area. It was kind of cool to go through so many different kinds of terrain on one hike. Finally, we descended the last couple of hundred feet through another wooded area down to the canyon bottom and the Yellowstone River.


It was gorgeous! And the best part was that we were nearly alone. With millions of people in the park that weekend we managed to get to an area of the park that was only inhabited by one other bright couple who had figured out the secret to a secluded Yellowstone. We hiked half mile down river so as to avoid cramping their style and, of course, to prevent them from cramping ours. We found a nice flat, secluded rock and... made lunch :) Yum, peanut butter sandwiches.


The hike didn't come without it's casualties. Rosey's feet were a war-zone. I think that 8 out of 10 of her toes had gotten blisters on the descent and even a few blisters on the top of her foot. Luckily there weren't any on her heels though. Maybe this was some weird karmic retribution for the blisters that I got while wearing her shoes last weekend :) But she was a trooper; she wrapped up her toes with band-aids and medical tape and completed the hike without hardly even complaining. Wow!

The Geothermal Zone
By the end of our hike we were both pretty beat. But, it was only 3 in the afternoon and we wanted to make the most out of our visit to Yellowstone. So, we decided that after a short stop back at our campsite for a snack and a change of clothes that we would head up to the Old Faithful Geyser basin to check out some of the geothermal features.

I know you're probably thinking, "Dan, you asshole. Rosey goes on a 13 mile hike with you but that's not good enough; you need to drag her on another couple of miles of sight-seeing trails". Well, I can assure you that wasn't the case. Although I did want to see the geothermal areas as well, it was primarily Rosey's motivation and desire that kept us moving and exploring despite our fatigue.

I was glad that we went, because we got to see some pretty cool thermal pools and geysers. Some of the colors were unbelievable. Did you know, by the way, that the colors are caused by bacteria in the water and not by mineral desposits? We did brief walk-through tours of Biscuit Basin, Black Sand Basin and even made a stop by Old Faithful.



Ironically, neither of us were that interested in seeing Old Faithful itself. We were more interested in seeing the thermal pools in the basin behind Old Faithful. So, we walked right past the main attraction and started down the boardwalk to the other thermal features.

Exhaustion Finally Wins
This particular boardwalk went on for several miles. We slowly trudged down it as if compelled to keep moving by some external force. After about a mile and a half of this drudgery, we finally stopped and asked each other why we were punishing ourselves like this. We had already seen so much that day and we were both so tired and hungry. It was time to go back to back to camp and it was time to get something to eat. And so we did, and we did.

Dinner that night didn't live up to the Salmon of the previous night, but it was still pretty damned good. We had grilled steaks rubbed with Montreal Steak seasoning, with more steamed vegetables and some sesame chicken rice. Ok, so the rice on both nights came pre-made in a packet that you only had to add water to. I'm still counting it as campfire gourmet.

Rosey turned in early that night, while I stayed up a little later to watch the fire burn. I love campfires. I love to just sit and watch the flames flicker. I love the way it makes shadows dance on the pine trees that surrounded our campground. I even love nearly suffocating when the smoke invariably finds me no matter where I stand, because I know that it means that my clothes will be infused with the oh-so-wonderful smell of campfire for the next couple of days.

What I hate is having to put out a fire prematurely by dumping water on it. It feels a little bit like taking a life; like depriving the fire of it's right to burn to ashes; preventing the wood from fulfilling it's purpose, it's destiny. This night, I was determined not to let that happen, I watched until all of the wood burned down to coals before I joined Rosey in bed.

The Ride Home
We took our time on the way out of the park on Monday morning. We did a little more sight-seeing in the fountain paint pots area before finally leaving the park. Ironically, we never did find the area of the park that Rosey visited when she was younger. At least we don't think that we did. In my opinion, I think that we did actually visit the same spot but 17 years of park changes on top of 17 years of aging warped her memory of the park beyond present day recognition. We may never know the truth... well, unless her Dad can remember :)

The ride home was fairly uneventful but there was more much more traffic on the road than we had encountered on the way into the park. It still wasn't enough to justify my paranoia about travelling on a holiday. All in all, the trip was a huge success and turned out much better than I could have expected for a Labor Day Yellowstone weekend.

The End. Oh yeah, the rest of the pictures are here.

A Busy Month (But in a Good Way)

I've got a lot going on in the month of September:

• This weekend Rosey and I are headed up to Yellowstone National Park for the long weekend.
• Next weekend I'm driving out to Seattle with my Brother, Master Fob, to help him move.
• The following weekend Rosey and I are planning an assault on Spanish Fork Peak. It will be our fifth mountain conquered this year.
• I don't have concrete plans for the following weekend, but I'm thinking about either trying to hike the Narrows at Zion or to rent a 2007 Harley Electra Glide (with the new bigger engine) and go on a short road trip.
• And finally, the last weekend of September I will be in Munich for GWAVACon.

I love months like this :)

A Weekend in Nevada

Rosey and I decided to get out of town this weekend and head to Great Basin National Park in Nevada to do a little camping, hiking and caving. We got up early on Saturday morning, packed up the Harley and rode the 200 miles across the desolate Utah desert. This isn't the first trip that we've taken on the Harley, but it was probably the coldest. It was barely above 60 degrees when we left Spanish Fork at 7 in the morning and didn't get much warmer all the way to Nevada.


Our Furry Friends
Although the ride was mostly uneventful, we did manage to see quite a bit of wildlife. There were a herd of cattle grazing by the side of the road near the dry Sevier lake bed, an antellope that looked like it was fixing to jump out in front of us, a coyote that actually did run out in the road in front of us (although far enough ahead that it wasn't a threat) and a massive eagle that we scared away from some carrion that it was picking away from the asphalt.

Bike Trouble
For the duration of the trip, the bike felt a little odd to me. It wasn't cornering quite right and I was just generally uneasy about the way it was riding. I tried not to worry about it too much and just chalked it up to the fact that it was loaded down pretty heavy. A Harley cruiser loaded down with two passengers and a hundred pounds of food, clothes, hiking and camping equipment is bound to be a little less responsive.


It wasn't until we got to the campsite in Great Basin and got off the bike that Rosey asked, "How do you check for a flat tire on a motorcycle... because your tires looked pretty low as you were riding those corners up the mountain". All of the sudden it made sense to me why the bike had been riding funny all day. I didn't even have to check the front tire to know that it was flat. But I checked it anway... and was frightened to discover that the air pressure was so low that I could make a depression in the tire just by poking at it with my finger.

I was freaked out, we were 200 miles from anywhere, and 20 miles up a mountain... this would be one of the worst possible places to get stuck on a motorcycle. Fortunately, there was still some air left in the tire and I was still able to ride it. My hope was that I could ride back down the mountain to a gas station to fill the tire with air. I was concerned that the tire wouldn't hold pressure, but I figured that it was at least worth a shot.

What really scared me about going to get more air, was that it meant leaving Rosey behind at the camp site. I didn't dare put both of us back on the bike with the tire that low, but leaving her behind meant taking a chance that I would get stuck on the bike somewhere down the mountain and that she would be stuck back at the campsite with no transporation. The matter was made worse by the fact that neither of us had cell reception. So, once I was gone I had no way of communicating with her to let her know what was going on.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. I carefully drove the bike down the mountain, rode the 10 miles back down to the gas station at the Utah-Nevada stateline, filled the tire with air and didn't have any more problems for the remainder of the weekend. But you can bet that I checked the air pressure every time that we stopped on the way home :)

Walking in Her Shoes
By the time we got the problems with the bike squared away, camp setup and had lunch it was going on 1 in the afternoon. We had planned on hiking Wheeler Peak that morning, but the bike trouble had delayed our start. I was beginning to lose motivation and didn't really want to start an 8.4 mile hike that late in the afternoon. It was Rosey nudged me a little and convinced me to make the assault on Wheeler Peak that afternoon.

Shortly after moving to Utah, Rosey bought a new pair of hiking boots. They were fancy and expensive but they had gotten good reviews on all of the online hiking website. Unfortunately, like many high-end hiking boots they needed to be broken in. She had worn them once or twice but had avoided taking them on really long hikes because she was afraid that they would end up hurting her feet. Nobody really likes breaking in hiking boots because it's like asking to be in pain.

I was starting to be concerned that unless the hiking boots got broken in soon, that they were going to turn into a wasted investment. So, being the concerned and caring boyfriend that I am, I offerred to break in Rosey's boots for her. My feet are pretty tough (literally calloused in some places) and I figured that I could hack the pain. Besides, how bad could it be?

Less than a mile into the hike I realized that bad things were happening to my feet. And yet, I decided to forge onward. I really wanted to get to the top of the mountain and besides, I was tough; I could take it. The pain grew steadily as I climbed further and further up the mountain. But with each step that I took, I got closer to the summit and found it harder and harder to convince myself to turn around.


When we finally made it to the top of the mountain, I decided that it had been worth the pain to get there. We had an incredible view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. Not to mention that it's just a wonderful feeling to be standing on the top of a mountain (our fourth one this year). The good thing about starting the hike so late in the day was that everyone else had started earlier in the day, leaving Rosey and I all alone on the top of the mountain. We took a few minutes to enjoy the solitude (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) before heading back down the mountain.


It didn't take long to come down from my high (no pun intended) once we started descending from the summit. I was quickly reminded of the pain that my feet were in. The descent became something of a Zen-like experience for me as I tried to drown out the pain by keeping my mind focused on the hike. I envisioned myself back at the campsite finally able to take the shoes off. I found myself walking faster and faster in pursuit of this goal.


We averaged between 3.5 and 4 miles per hour on the way down the mountain. In retrospect, I almost feel a little bad because we were walking so fast that we didn't get a chance to enjoy the hike on the way down. But I did what I had to, to survive :)

Being able to finally take the shoes off back at the campsite was almost orgasmic. It would almost be worth doing it all over again, just to be able to experience that sweet elation and relief as I slid my feet out from their leathery oppressors. Almost, but not really.

Upon assessing the damage, I discovered that in the course of nearly 10 miles of hiking I had blistered, popped, and then rubbed the skin away leaving a patch of blood and puss. It was really quite unpleasant to look at. But hey, I was right: I was tough, I could hack it, and I did. Thankfully there's no rule that says that I can't bitch about it afterwards... that would just take all of the fun out of it :)

To be continued... maybe... but probably not :) Just in case, here's a link to the rest of the pictures. We also did a short hike through a bristlecone forest on Sunday morning, and then took a tour of Lehman Caves. All in all it was a pretty damned good weekend.

School's In

I felt the effects of school being back in on my ride into work today. I must ride past half a dozen schools on the way into work and the traffic was double what it normally is. Not to mention that there were crossing guards and additional stop signs and lots of police officers making sure that no one was going too fast. I got a dirty look from a cop in my neighborhood for riding by at 22 MPH. Hmm, it would be pretty funny to get a speeding ticket on my bicycle :)

Rosey's Ulcer

Yes, Rosey did ride the ULCER today too. I was going to let her blog about her experience on her blog, but she said that she preferred that I just write about it here...

Although Rosey rode seperate from me, she was keeping a blazing fast speed of 18.5 miles per hour. Prior to moving to Utah she was riding in the 14-15 MPH range. She also only stopped once at the 40 mile rest stop (the same one that I accidentally pulled into).

Unfortunately, she got a screw in her tire at mile 80 and did some damage to her wheel. Apparently the screw caused some sort of nick on the inner aluminum that was causing her tube to explode violently when she re-inflated it. She went through one tube herself and then had one of the roving support vehicles go through another tube before they decided that the problem was irreparable. She got a ride back to American Fork High School from one of the support vehicles. I think that Rosey was a little frustrated not to be able to finish the ride but she seemed to have had a good time anyway.

The Results Are In

I rode 106.5 miles in about 5 and a half hours. About 45 minutes of that was accounted for by 3 rest stops at miles 25, 53, and 82. That gave me a moving average of 21.5 miles per hour. That's awesome! I usually ride to work at about 22 MPH, but I really didn't think that I could keep that up for a full 100 miles. It really helps to ride in the group and to take turns fighting the air at the front of the group.

I had tentatively planned on riding with some guys from Novell, but I pulled away from them in the first couple of miles (they were having technical difficulties) and ended up riding with a couple of random guys from Salt Lake that were going about the same pace as me. I felt a little funny about just latching on to a couple of riders like that, but for the most part they didn't seem to mind. One of the two guys was a little uptight at first, but he lightened up when he saw that I was capable of "pulling" the group behind me.

The highlight of the ride for me happened just as we passed Novell and actually got onto a street that I ride to work everyday. We were in a huge group of people. From what I could tell, we were the leading riders of the ride. Somehow I managed to work my way up to the front of the group and in a moment of bravado, I pulled out in front hammerred down, got up to about 28 miles per hour and pulled a couple of hundred yards out in front of the leader. Of course I couldn't keep that speed and eventually I had to drop back down into the pack to get back in the draft. But damn it felt good to be out in front if only for a little while. It proved that I'm capable of riding with the big boys.

The course was really poorly marked and there were several times that I took a wrong turn and had to correct. Of course, I don't like to lose ground, so correcting meant catching back up to the group that I was riding with. I nearly killed myself a couple of times trying to catch back up to the group.

The worst of these occasions was as I was just rounding West mountain from the North. There were arrows on the road indicating that we should take the right fork in the road. Unfortunately, the arrows didn't indicate that was the direction to the rest stop which no one in that group actually intended on stopping at. The other half of the group kept riding straight and left us behind. Thankfully, there were a couple of really strong riders in the group that turned off and we were actually able to catch up to the other group over the course of the next 5 to 7 miles. Actually I should make it clear that I had very little to do with the catching up, I just got behind these guys and rode their draft all the way back up to the front group. It was awesome.

I was riding really strong all day long and didn't really feel the affects of fatigue until about mile 100. In fact, I'm not sure that it was really fatigue or just a general lack of motivation and energy due to the fact that I felt like my ass was going to explode :) I knew that I should have used the bathroom at that last rest stop. It was so bad that I thought a couple of times about just pulling over to the side of the road, ripping my bike shorts off, squatting and relieving myself right in the ditch. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. I was able to squeeze out those last couple of miles and made it back to the porta-potty at the high school parking lot where the ride started.

The Night Before Another Century

I will be riding my second century (100 mile bike ride) tomorrow. It's funny how much less nervous I am about this one than I was about the last. I have ridden so much over the last couple of months that this really doesn't feel like a huge challenge anymore. It's just another Saturday on the bike :) I'm no longer concerned with whether or not I'll finish and more concerned with how quickly I can finish.

It will be fun to have the opportunity to ride with some faster bikers tomorrow. When I rode in Minneapolis we started a little late and so we were riding from behind and passing a lot of slower riders. It was a nice ego boost, but I'm sure that it gave me an artificial sense of speed. Tomorrow I will be starting near the front of the pack and I'm sure that I'm going to be humbled by all of the stronger bikers whizzing by me. At least it will give me something to chase after :)

My Next Challenge: The Other Half

I just signed up to run the "The Other Half", half-marathon in Moab, UT on October 22nd. I haven't done much running in my life, but I started jogging with Rosey a couple of weeks ago and I am really starting to like it. A half-marathon, 13.1 miles, is something of a stretch goal for me considering that three weeks ago I could barely run 3/4 of a mile without stopping. My body has adapted quickly though and yesterday I was able to run 4.5 miles without stopping. Tomorrow, I'm going to shoot for a full 6 miles and then I'll add one mile per week until the race in October. If I am successful in meeting this challenge, I may consider training for a full marathon later in the year. Wish me luck! :)

Bombay House, Mount Baldy and Antelope Island

I'm too lazy to write a more substantial post about our weekend, so I'll just post links to some pictures instead.

Friday night we drove up to Salt Lake to meet Rosey's brother Ben and his wife Wendy for dinner at the Bombay House.

Saturday morning we went hiking with Rosey's Dad and stepmom, Karen, to the summit of Mount Baldy. The wildflowers were spectacular!



Saturday evening we camped on Antelope Island and then got up on Sunday and biked around the island.

Preparing for an U.L.C.E.R.

The weekend after next is the Utah Lake Century Epic Ride. It's a 100 mile (i.e. century) ride adjacent to Utah Lake that Rosey and I signed up to ride. Since it had been a while since either Rosey or I had ridden that far consecutively, we decided to do a training ride this weekend to prepare. We rode 80 miles behind Utah Lake from Elberta to Eagle Mountain and then back. Although I'm in pretty good shape from riding my bike to work several days a week, going on that long of a ride is a whole different challenge. A ride that long is as much of a test of your endurance for pain as it is a test of your physical fitness. Fortunately, we both survived the training ride and I think that we are in good shape to tackle the full 100 the weekend after next.

Camping and Hot Pots

Marci, Malina, Rosey and I went camping this weekend at the Diamond Campground in Diamond Fork Canyon. It was a little strange for me to go camping so close to home (about 15 minutes away) but it was a nice campground and we still had a lot of fun. Hey, any excuse to build a campfire is a good one... even if it is only 15 miles from home.

On Saturday morning we packed up camp and then hiked to the Spanish Fork Hot Pots on the Three Forks Trail. Parking was a beeyatch because the canyon road is extremely narrow and they have put signs up prohibiting parking anywhere near the trailhead. So, we parked about a quarter mile away and hiked along the road to the trailhead (which look abandoned despite the fact that there were a number of other hikers on the trail).

After crossing the river on a pile of sticks and logs, I felt compelled to come up with a better option for future traversals of the river. So, I started hunting for large rocks and plunking them down in the water to make stepping stones for a safer, easier crossing. In the end, I'm not sure how much easier it was to cross the river on the stepping stones but I still had fun building. Thankfully, Rosey and Marci were very indulgent of my bridge building compulsion and waited patiently for me to get it out of my system :)


The trail followed a river through the canyon for 3 miles and ended at a small waterfall that fed pools of water that were being warmed by some hot springs. Someone had built little structures around some of the pools turning them into nature-jacuzzi's. I hear that a lot of people come up here to get naked in the hot pots. After seeing the water and the muck at the bottom of the pools, I'm not sure that I would really want to get naked in these pools.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Here is a map of the hike in Google Earth. The GPS was having some trouble getting satellite reception at some spots in the canyon on the way back, so the trail looks a little jumpy.

Assault on Santaquin Peak

Rosey and I tackled our second mountain peak this weekend: we hiked to the top of Santaquin Peak on Loafer Mountain. It was a 13 mile round trip hike with an elevation of 10, 648 ft at the peak. The peak was only about 3,000 ft higher than the trailhead but because the trail constantly gained and then lost elevation we did substantially more climbing than that figure would suggest.


The rest of the pictures are here.

This is the second of three goal hikes that I had planned for this summer:

• Timpanogos Peak [done]
  
• Santaquin Peak [done]
  
• Spanish Fork Peak

We will probably tackle Spanish Fork peak within the next couple of weekends.

This may be too much information (even for a blog) but this hike was achieved despite facing great adversity. On friday night (before the hike), we tried out Rosey's quesadilla maker. The quesadilla's were so good that I ate 3 of them. Mmmm. Turns out that it's not such a good idea to eat that much cheese before going on a 13 mile hike up a mountain :)

We were less than a mile into the hike before it felt like my ass was going to explode. It was very unpleasant. Fortunately Rosey thought to bring wet wipes and there were plenty of bushes for cover. Between the two of us, we had a total of 3 ass-splosions on that mountain. We're probably not going to be making quesadilla's before our next big hike :)

Switching gears...

One of the cool things about having the GPS is that it records the path that you take on a hike. When I got back home, I downloaded the GPS data off of the device and fed it into Google Earth to get a 3D satellite imagery representation of the hike that we went on. I have a screenshot posted below, but to get the full effect you really need to download Google Earth and then look at this file.


(N.B. - The mountain wasn't really covered in snow when we hiked it... the satellite imagery used by Google Earth is usually at least several months old or more. So this image was probably from this spring or maybe even sometime last year.)

My New Geek Toy

I've been lusting after a GPS for pretty much the better part of the last year. After hiking with a borrowed GPS in Glacier National Park last summer I was convinced that I needed to get one. And yet, I continually came up with reasons to delay they purchase. Well, a week and a half ago, I quit delaying and finally bought a new Garmin eTrex Vista CX. It's pretty sweet although I'm still figuring out exactly how to use it :) Rosey and I have used it on a couple of different hikes now (as well as for navigating our way to the Hard Rock Cafe in Salt Lake City) and it's awesome to know how far you've hiked, how much farther you have to go, how fast you are hiking and how much elevation you are gaining or losing. I've only had it for a little over a week and I already can't imagine how I ever hiked without one :)

Long (and Belated) Lake

I finally put up some pictures of a hike that Rosey and I did last weekend to Long Lake in the Uintas. It was a short and mostly flat 5 mile hike but the views were gorgeous. Besides after doing Timpanogos the previous weekend it felt good to go on a hike that was more recreational than athletic.



The rest of the pictures are here.

I'm Going to Munich!

When I got to go to Barcelona last year for Brainshare, I figured that it would just be a one time thing. My job does not usually entail a lot of traveling. However, I just got word from my director this afternoon that I was picked to be one of the engineers representing GroupWise at GWAVACon in Munich at the end of September! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself :) This is going to be awesome!

Tackling Timp... Finally

I attempted the climb to the summit of Mount Timpanogos with my sister and brother-in-law back in 2000, but stopped about a half-mile shy of the peak; partly because we had run out of water and partly because the heights were kind of freaking me out. Over the past 5 years it has killed me to tell people that I have climbed Timp but have never made it to the top. Well, today Rosey and I remedied that problem and hiked all the way to the summit. It was long, it was grueling, in some places it was even a little treacherous, but it was worth it!


Our adventure began with my alarm clock going off at 4 in the morning. Temperatures have been reaching the 100's over the last couple of days and I wanted to get started on the trail as early as possible to minimize the amount of hiking that we needed to do in the sweltering mid-July heat. Unfortunately neither of us slept very well and we had to reluctantly peel ourselves out of bed when the alarm went off.


We began the hike in Aspen Grove at 5:50 in the morning and climbed what felt like hundreds of switchbacks up the mountain to Emerald Lake. We must have passed half-a-dozen waterfalls on the way up, crossed over several mountain streams and saw millions of wildflowers. It was gorgeous.


From Emerald Lake (which was really more of a pool), we could see our goal resting atop the sheer cliffs above us. It would have been a short hike (albeit strenous) if we were able to go straight there. But the trail had us hike a couple of miles out and then back up a ridge to reach the peak.

About 3/4 of a mile between Emerald Lake and the Saddle (where you get onto the ridge for the first time) was covered in snow. It made for an extremely slow crossing. It would have been challenging even if the snow was on level ground, but the fact that you were walking sideways across a snow covered slope made it even more difficult. With every step you faced the possibility of losing your footing and sliding down the mountain to the rocks below. Our only solace was knowing that even if we fell, we probably wouldn't have died... probably :) We may have just been maimed really bad.


Fortunately, the snow subsided once we got up to the saddle. The 3/4 of a mile or so to the peak was steep but not too bad otherwise. We took our time and made it to the top shortly after 11 AM. The summit was 11,750 ft above sea level and about 5100 ft above where we had started. That's nearly a mile of elevation gain! It was also nearly as high as we were in Rocky Mountain National Park when we hiked to Chasm Lake.


It amused both Rosey and I that the most common activity on the top of this beautiful mountain was for people to get on their cell phones, call all of their friends and family and ask the question, "Guess where I am". We had a short lunch just above the saddle before beginning our trek back down the mountain.

Neither of us were looking forward to crossing the snow field again. In particular, I was freaking out about a particular section of trail just below the saddle. There was about a 20 foot section of trail that was steep and covered in snow. For those 20 feet the trail was only about 6 inches wide; just enough to step foot over foot. As if that wasn't bad enough the use of the trail all day had turned the snow to ice. Coming up that section of trail was bad, but at least we were ascending. Going back down I was concerned that gravity was going to work against me and send me flying off of the mountain.

I was sure that certain death awaited me if I were to attempt that section of the trail on the way down. So, I opted instead to climb up and over the snow patch that was covering the trail. That was a good idea until I got to the other side and realized that I still had to come down. I slid about 20 ft. down a 60 degree incline on my ass. The slope consisted of a bunch of loose rock and I nearly started a small rock slide. Meanwhile, Rosey decided to cross the trail on the snow. It was a good thing that I was too busy creating a rock slide to watch Rosey traverse the snow otherwise I probably would have had a panic attack just watching her. Thankfully, we both made across OK.


Later in the day, when we got back down to our car we discovered that someone had been injured on the mountain and that they were sending in LifeFlight to retrieve them. I wondered whether or not that someone had fallen off of that ice-covered section of the trail. It really was dangerous.

The highlight of the day came shortly after our near-death snow traversal. There was a second snow patch covering the trail down from the saddle. The second snow patch was much less treacherous and had the added advantage that instead of having rocks beneath it, the snow extended all the down to the snow field below. This meant that we could shave about a third of a mile off our hike by sliding down the side of the trail instead of hiking down it. So, we hopped over the edge dug our heels into the snow and slid down a 45 degree incline to the snow field below. It was awesome!


By the time that we got back to Emerald Lake we were both dragging ass. We were tired and sore but we still had two and a half hours of hiking ahead of us to get back down. Still we were grateful to be leaving the unsteady footing of the snowfield behind us. We made pretty good time down the mountain, stopping only once at Couch Rock to rest our legs for a few minutes, drink some water and eat some snacks. We made it back to the car at 4:10 PM, 10 hours and 20 minutes later than we had started that morning. I'm not certain exactly how long the hike was, but I have heard it estimated between 16 and 19 miles. That's a lot of hiking.

The rest of our pictures are here.

Five Years With Novell

Yesterday marked my 5 year anniversary at Novell. I got an email with a PDF certificate of recognition for my years of service. Yep, I started here on July 9th, 2001. It's hard to believe that I've been here that long. It seems like yesterday that I sat down in my own office for the very first time excited and terrified to be starting my career as a software engineer with Novell.

I feel pretty lucky to have this job... sometimes even a little spoiled. I am reasonably compensated, get to work on interesting projects with interesting and intelligent people, feel like my contributions to the company are appreciated and best of all, I get to show up to work most days wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I shudder to think about having to wear a tie to work. I'm not sure that I could do it.

So, I guess that the moral of the story is that I think that I'll stick around here for a while. For another 5 years? I don't know. But I'm not in any rush to leave as long as the work continues to be interesting.

Zion By Harley

I took a road trip down to Zion National Park this weekend with Rosey, Dad, Andria, Marci and Malina. It was the first semi-long trip that Rosey had taken on the Harley and she did awesome. She struggled a little bit to get comfortable in the back seat of the bike but we managed. We may make a few modifications to the bike to increase her comfort before we take our next trip. We probably covered 500 miles over two days. Seriously, that's awesome that she not only survived that but was enthusiastic about it!



On Saturday we rode down Hwy 89 and came into Zion through the East entrance of the park. Riding through the east side of the park is like driving on another planet. The checkered and swirling red-rock formations are other-worldly.

We met up with Andrea, Marci and Malina mid-afternoon and then did a couple of hikes. Marci, Rosey and I hiked up to Hidden Canyon while Dad, Andrea and Malina lagged behind. Actually the three of them completed the most difficult part of the hike but then stopped because Andrea was uncomfortable hiking a section of the trail with some steep and scary drop-offs.



Later that night we did the Riverside walk and even hiked down the narrows for maybe a quarter of a mile. Unfortunately we brought the wrong shoes for walking in the river and Rosey twisted her ankle pretty good. We did get to a section of the narrows where the water was chest deep... well it was chest deep on me. Rosey missed the shallow section and ended up crossing through a section that was so deep that she had to swim :)



The rest of the family stayed the night at the Bumbleberry Inn but Rosey and I camped in the park at the Watchman campground. It ended up being a bad decision. Between the tiny tent that we brought along, a fierce, howling wind that blew all night long, and a late night conversation that lasted until the wee hours of the morning we hardly got any sleep at all. I may have gotten 3 hours of sleep but I think that Rosey got even less.

We woke up the next morning at 6 AM to meet the rest of the family for breakfast at Zion Lodge. I had been hoping to get some longer hikes in that morning but we were all feeling a little ragged and we had to get back to the hotel in time for Marci and Malina to get to church. So, we did a short hike up to the emerald pools and then headed home.



Rosey, Dad and I headed out on the bikes while Marci, Malina and Andrea went to church. We decided to take the scenic route home. We stopped through Kolob canyon to do a scenic ride and got some incredible pictures of the redrock cliffs up there. Further up I-15 we cut through Cedar City and went back up into the mountains to Cedar Breaks National Monument.



We were planning on taking Hwy 89 back home from Panguitch but once we got there the threat of thunderstorms and the desire to get home as quickly as possible sent us back out to I-15. About 30 miles south of Fillmore the lack of sleep hit Rosey and I. We were both having trouble staying awake on the bike. Yeah, that's not a good problem to have on a bike :) So, we stopped in Fillmore and loaded up on Caffeine and sugar. It felt disgusting to ingest that much junk food but it was a matter of survival at that point :)

The rest of the pictures from the trip are here.

Drinking Rotten Apples

I took a shot of raw apple cider vinegar this morning as an alleged remedy for the mucous build-up that resulted from my head cold over the weekend. Rosey swears by the stuff and has been using it for over a year as a home remedy for her asthma and various other ailments. I was a little skeptical about how drinking rotten apple juice could have any positive health benefits so I decided to do a little internet research this morning.

I found one set of websites that championed apple cider vinegar as a panacea and claimed that it could cure anything from arthritis to asthmas to high blood pressure to cancer. There were even claims that apple cider vinegar could assist in weight loss. I found just as many websites that claimed that the claims on the first set of websites were made by a bunch of quacks and that there were no scientific reasons to believe the claims. Although both sets of sites referred to medical studies that backed up their claims neither of them provided detailed information about the studies or references to look up the studies for yourself.

Here is what I am skeptical about... the proponents of apple cider vinegar claim that it's effects are the result of all of the nutrients that it contains. In particular they list potassium and calcium among a number of other minerals, trace elements, proteins, etc. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is the thought that apple cider vinegar could actually contain more nutrients than contained in the original apple that the vinegar was made from. Wouldn't it be better and much more palatable to just eat the apple? Maybe there is some truth behind the saying, "An apple a day...".

The other thing that I found curious was the claims that the potassium content of apple cider vinegar was responsible for many of benefits. Many of the sites that I visited went on to cite medical studies about the effects of potassium deficiency. It seems to be well established that potassium deficiency can cause a number of health problems. But a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (the recommended dosage) only contains about 5 mg of potassium. A medium banana contains over 300 mg of potassium. Why not just eat a banana to get your potassium?

The one aspect of apple cider vinegar that does 'make sense' to me is it's acidity. I could be convinced that raising the pH of your digestive system could have some positive benefits and may help clean out your digestive tract. I have not seen enough evidence one way or the other though to establish that apple cider vinegar is the only or best way to do this. Would eating foods (fruits) with an elevated acidic content (citric acid) have a similar effect? I don't know.

And yet for all my skepticism, there are hundreds or thousands of testimonials from people who have taken apple cider vinegar and claimed that it worked for them. Could they all be wrong? I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I guess this will remain an unsolved mystery.

4th of July Hike

Here are some pictures of a 4th of July hike that the whole family did up Timpanogos. After lunch at the second waterfall, Rosey and I split off from the rest of the family and hiked another couple of miles up the mountain.

The Ride Home with Rosey

I can't believe that it has taken me this long to put something on the blog but there seems to be less time for blogging with a live-in girlfriend :)

Here are pictures from the trip:

• Mammoth Caves National Park
• Road Trip through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri (Misery), Kansas and Colorado
• Rocky Mountain National Park

Rosey and I had an incredible time together on the way home from Alabama. Here is a quick synopsis:

• I flew in to Alabama on Friday night, went on a short bike ride through Rosey's neighborhood (down and then back up a killer hill) and then had dinner with Rosey's Mom at Jim and Nick's Barbecue.
• On Saturday morning we got up had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel (which Rosey affectionately refers to as the Ass-Crack Barrel) and then drove to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.
• On Sunday we went for a short bike ride through the park where we saw a rabbit running away from us alongside the road. It was so frightened that it ran itself right into a tree stump and completely knocked itself out. It was one of the funniest and saddest things that I have ever seen :)
• Later on Sunday we rented a canoe and paddled 7 miles down the Green River in Mammoth Caves National Park.
• Even later on Sunday we went on the River Styx tour inside of Mammoth Caves. It was incredible to be walking through what used to be a massive underground River. The tour actually went down deep enough in the cave to where the river is currently flowing.
• Monday morning we got up packed up camp and drove through Kentucky, Illinois and Misery to Kansas. We stayed at the Hampton Inn (they have awesome beds!) in Lawrence, KS. I was ecstatic to discover that Lawrence had both a Perkins Restaurant and a Culvers Frozen Custard restaurant. We also discovered a kick-ass mexican place called On the Grill. Because of the three restaurants and the fact that we were tempted to stay an extra day in restaurant just to continue eating, we dubbed the area the Bermuda Restaurant Triangle.
• Tuesday morning we decided to sleep in and really take our time getting out of Lawrence. We wanted to enjoy our nice bed at the Hampton and have plenty of time to eat at Perkins and Culvers before leaving. After eating, taking a few pictures and stopping by Walmart to grab some additional camping supplies, we finally got back on the road at one in the afternoon. I still can't believe that we got started that late, but we had a lot of fun in Lawrence and it felt good to just take it easy.
• We drove all day through Kansas which was unbelievably windy. Our gas mileage sucked. But we did eventually make it through to Limon, Colorado where we stayed the night. After spending the previous night at a fairly nice hotel we decided to stay at the cheapest cherry-popper hotel that we could find in Limon. Fortunately there were plenty to choose from. We stayed at a bright pink hotel called the Safari Motel. The room was actually pretty nice considering how cheap it was.
• On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning both we unhitched a couple of Rosey's bikes from her truck and went riding through Limon. Tuesday night we just did a short ride through town to the Subway at the T&A truck stop. On Wednesday morning we did a slightly longer ride through the country side. It felt awesome to get out on the bike after spending so much time driving in the car.
• We managed to get back on the road at a decent hour (before 9AM) and made it through Denver and into Rocky Mountain National Park in the early afternoon. We did a short 5.6 mile hike up to Loch Vale before going to the Grocery store in Estes Park to stock up for the next couple of days.
• On Thursday morning we followed the advice of an 0ff-duty ranger and decided to hike up to Chasm Lake on the east side of the park. The ranger, whom we spoke to on the shuttle on the way back from the Loch Vale hike, gave us some good advice. He said, "You're always either having fun or building character". The hike up to Chasm Lake was a little bit of both. It was one of the most beautiful hikes that I have even been on in my life, but it was definitely challenging. The hike started at 9500 ft. above sea level and ended up just shy of 12,000 ft. above sea level at a huge lake in a hanging glacial bowl. It was wicked cool. We were actually hiking up above the clouds. We spent about an hour at the lake where we ate lunch and then laid back on the rocks and watched the clouds form and then disperse overhead. After lunch I read Rosey some poetry by Pablo Neruda. The whole experience was awesome!
• On Friday morning, sore and tired from the previous days adventure, we packed up camp for the last time. We drove through the park out the West entrance so that we could experience just a little more of the park on our way out. After a very long day of driving we finally arrived back in Spanish Fork shortly after 7PM.

This was the abbreviated version of our story. I would like to put something more detailed up eventually, but for right now I just wanted to get something up there for everyone to see.

Just Struttin' Along

Here is a recording of me playing the jazz song, "Just Struttin' Along" on my piano. It's not a terribly complex song, but you have to remember that I only started taking lessons in January. I think that I've come a long way from struggling to play Jingle Bells :)

An Evening Stroll Up Timpanogos

A took a short hike up timpanogos tonight. Here are my pictures.

Cleaning Out My Closet

As I was cleaning out my closet to make room for Rosey, I decided that today would be a good day to get rid of all the clothes that no longer fit me. It turns out that this was pretty much all of the clothes in my closet :) I took a picture of everything stacked on my bed before delivering it to DI. I must have had 2 dozen pair of jeans and slacks, a dozen pair of shorts, countless shirts, several winter coats and some snow pants and bibs.

By the time that I was done, all that was left was two pair of jeans, two pair of cargo shorts, some board shorts and half a dozen t-shirts. Hmm, I think I need to go shopping :) At least there is plenty of room in the closet for Rosey now :)

Recycling Frustration

On the morning of January 1st 2005 I looked around at all of the empty beer bottles left over from the night of New Year's Eve festivities with Marci's in-laws and decided that I just didn't want to throw them away. It seem like such a waste to put that much recyclable glass into the trash. So, I decided to start collecting recyclables with the eventual plan of actually recycling them.

Shortly after that I called up the Spanish Fork city manager and inquired whether or not Spanish Fork had a recycling program. I was and still am almost embarassed to live in a city without a recycling program. When I lived in Wisconsin recycling was just part of your regular trash pickup. I was pleased to discover that Spanish Fork was renegotiating it's waste management contract and were hoping to include recycling services in the new contract. Unfortunately, this was going to take about six months.

I decided not to be discouraged, and I just started accumulating trash bags of glass, plastic and aluminum in my garage. Six months came and went and although there was some mention about the possibility of a recycling plan in one of my monthly utility bills nothing ever came of it.

It has now been a year and a half since I first started collecting recyclable garbage in my garage. I probably have a dozen trash bags filled with various glass, plastic and aluminum containers. I want very much to get rid of them out of my garage. This morning I decided that I'd had enough and went on a quest to find a place to dispose of my recyclables. This proved to be a much more difficult task than I could have imagined.

It was trivial to find a place that would recycle aluminum but very difficult to find places to take the plastic or glass. There were a couple of places in Salt Lake that sounded promising but none of them were open on Saturdays. Damnit! In the course of my googling I discovered that Provo actually has a curbside recycling service. I dug a little further and found out that Provo also has a place to drop off recyclables at their yard waste processing station just down the street from Novell.

So, I loaded my car with all of my garbage and headed off to Provo. When I pulled into the site, it wasn't obvious where the recycling drop off was. I spoke to the redneck attendant and asked him to point me in the right direction. He replied, "Well we do have that big blue thing over there, but I don't really know what it's for. I don't give a shit what you put in there." It turns out that big blue thing was meant only for recycling computer paper.

Can it really be that difficult to recycle glass and plastic in Utah County? In deperation I drove around Provo hoping to stumble across some big recycling dumpster that I knew didn't really exist. I drove past the Provo city offices, I drove past BYU, I drove past the Springville yard waste recycling center and then I finally drove past the Spanish Fork city offices before finally admitting defeat.

I was awfully tempted to just drive by a dumpster and unload my garbage into the trash. Was it really worth all of this trouble to recycle? The thought of unloading those bags of garbage back into my garage was killing me. In the end I decided to stick it out just a little longer. I couldn't stomach the thought of holding on to all this stuff for a year and a half only to end up throwing it away in a regular dumpster. Monday I'll call around in Salt Lake and find a place to recycle my garbage. I'll also be calling Spanish Fork city to harass them about not following through on their recycling plans.

A Life Told in T-Shirts

In order to make some room for Rosey in my closet, I decided to retire my Harley T-Shirt collection (very few of which actually fit me anymore) into the closet in my spare bedroom. I took a couple of minutes and catalogued all of my t-shirts as I moved them. It was fun to reminisce about all of the cool places that I've been on my Harley (and a few that I haven't been but had friends or family send me shirts).

I'm So Excited!

And I just can't hide it. There are only 9 more days until I get to see Rosey again. It has been a long and painful 3 weeks since the last time that we saw each other. It has been so painful, in fact, that we decided that we just can't do this again in July. So, instead of going out to visit Rosey next weekend, I am flying out and driving her back with me :) We are going to take our time and have a little mini-vacation adventure as we pass through Texas and New Mexico on the way home to Utah. It's weird to think that I will have a roommate in less than 3 weeks. I'm so excited! I guess this means that I've got some house cleaning to do this weekend :) And yes, Dad, this means that she will be here to meet you in July.

My Breaking Point

I found my breaking point on the bike last weekend. I had this crazy idea that I was going to ride the Nebo loop. The entire loop is a 92 mile ride with a good 30 miles that climb a winding mountainous road. I made it about 20 miles into the ride before my legs just couldn't take any more. I rode from my house in Spanish Fork and stopped a couple of miles above the Payson Lakes campground. It made for a 40 mile roundtrip. The total elevation gain was about 3500 feet (Spanish Fork sits at about 4500ft. and I stopped just about 8000ft.). Actually, I felt like I could have pushed forward another 20 miles through the mountains, but I knew that I wouldn't have the strength to ride the 50 miles back home once I got to the other side. I need to reattempt this someday with a support vehicle waiting for me in Nephi so that I can catch a ride home if I don't have the energy to continue.

My Compulsion

I have a problem. I am forming an addiction to riding my bike. Yesterday I rode nearly 70 miles in the course of commuting back and forth to work, and a 'short' recreational ride that I did on the way home. 70 miles. For fun. I rode 13 miles into work, 16 miles at lunch, 16 miles on the way home (via a different route), and a 25 mile sidetrip up the right fork of hobble creek canyon.

What's even worse is that I purposely choose rides in which I will be climbing monstrous hills. Hobble Creek Canyon is essentially 12.5 miles of uphill (of course that's followed by 12.5 miles of downhill). I remember not so long ago when I rode 60 miles for the first time and thought that I was going to die afterwards. My, how things have changed :)

Weekend Update

I have neglected my blog over the last week or so, so I thought that I would give a blanket update of my life in a single post:

Salsa!
I started a Salsa dancing class with Lisa on Thursday night. I've been wanting to take some dancing lessons for a while so when Lisa invited me to join her it seemed like a good opportunity. Ideally, I'd prefer learning to salsa with a girlfriend rather than a sister, but I'll take what I can get. I rode my Harley to the first night of class and I can safely say that I was the only one there wearing combat boots. Believe it or not combat boots are not the ideal shoes for learning to Salsa. I may have to dig up a different pair of shoes for next week's lesson. Unfortunately, I'm going to be dancing solo for my next two lessons. Lisa snuck off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks leaving me without a partner.

The Phone
It is inexplicable, but I have spent over a dozen hours on the phone with Rosey over the last 4 days. It's particularly strange because both of us claim not to be 'phone people' and yet we can't seem to hang up. On Thursday night we talked for 5 hours until nearly 3 in the morning. Saturday night (after talking twice earlier in the day) we talked for three hours until 2 in the morning. It's a good thing that Rosey has a good cell plan with free nights and weekends :)

Gaining a Roommate
On Thursday night as Rosey and I were discussing her plans for moving to Salt Lake I brought up the idea of living together. On the one hand it seems terrifying to move in so quickly, but on the other hand neither of us could imagine living apart once Rosey lived out here. We didn't arrive at a conclusion on Thursday night but after letting it simmer for a couple of days we decided on Saturday for sure that Rosey will be moving in with me when she moves out to Utah in July. I know it's a little crazy but we just decided that we wanted to have an adventure and that we were willing to take a risk.

The Visit
I will be flying out to Alabama one more time in June to visit Rosey before she moves out here. I fly out on Friday the 16th of June and come back on Monday the 19th. The plan is to rent a Harley on Saturday and spend the day riding and camp overnight in some place that I can't remember the name of right now :) On Sunday we will return the Harley and switch gears to riding non-motorized bicycles through Northern Alabama. Sunday night and Monday we will probably just kick back and recover from our weekend adventure.

The Move
Rosey is planning on moving out to Utah in mid-July. The plan is that I will fly out to meet her in Alabama and then we will drive back together. I'm planning on taking a week off of work and turning it into a mini-vacation. We are going to hit Big Bend National Park, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands National Monument and Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the drive back. I'm excited, it should be a lot of fun!

The Book
When I wasn't on the phone with Rosey this weekend, I was reading, "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku, one of Rosey's favorite books. It's a physics book that provides an introduction to higher dimensional space. It can be a bit heavy in parts but it has been a really interesting read for me. One of the things that I really like about Rosey is that she challenges me intellectually. My brain feels like it actually needs to work to keep up with her :)

Stuart Falls
Although I spent most of the weekend in a lethargic state in protest of the cruddy weather, I did manage to get off my ass on Saturday afternoon to go hiking with Owen and Kim. We hiked out to Stuart Falls above Aspen Grove in Provo Canyon. Stuart Falls is one of my favorite hikes. Last summer I hiked it several times a week to build up my stamina for hiking in Glacier National Park. I also snowshoed it several times this winter. I had dragged Owen out to Stuart Falls on a previous occasion, but this was Kim's first time ever. It was a pretty good time even though we were hiking in cold weather and a slight drizzle for part of the hike. I put some pictures up here.

Timpanogos Cave
On Monday I was invited to spend the morning and afternoon 'celebrating' Memorial Day with my friends Dale and Bethany. We did a short hike up to Timpanogos Cave and went on the cave tour. Despite having been through the cave on numerous occasions before I still always enjoy it. Although I have to say that the tour guide that we had today was not really the best. She wasn't horrible, but she just wasn't as personable as some of the guides that I have had in the past.

I hiked most of the way up and the entire way down with one of Dale's two kids on my shoulders. It amuses me to carry extra weight when I hike now considering how much weight I've lost over the last year. I could've carried both of Dale's kids at the same time and still would have been lighter than the last time that I hiked up Timpanogos :) Here are some pictures from our hike.

Wipe Out

I totally wiped out on my bicycle on my way back from lunch yesterday afternoon. I was pulling back into the Novell parking lot when I noticed that the sprinklers were on up ahead of me and were doing a pretty good job of watering the pavement. Most of the parking lot is paved with asphalt except for a small patch right in front of building H that is smooth concrete. I was approaching the building from the South and needed to make a hard left to get to where I parked my bike on the West side of the building. This took me right over the patch of smooth, wet concrete. I've had trouble here before on my motorcycle when the pavement was wet so I slowed way down on the bike.

I was probably going 20 MPH when I pulled into the Novell parking lot and slowed down to a good 10 MPH as I was approaching the wet pavement. Well, apparently I didn't slow down enough because as soon as I turned my handlebars, my bike went flying out from beneath me and my body slid a good 6 to 8 feet on the concrete. Ouch! The most embarrassing part was that there were a good half a dozen people standing in front of the building who witnessed the whole event. They all rushed over to see if I was OK. Fortunately I was. My head did hit the ground but it was little more than a light tap. I had enough forward momentum that it was really more of a slide than a fall.

After taking a couple of seconds to regain my composure I hopped back on my bike and rode the rest of the way to the side of the building. I didn't do any major damage but I've got some small patches of road rash and a couple of bruises today.

Living the Dream

I had an incredible weekend with Rosey in Alabama! The photos are here.

What surprised me the most about meeting Rosey was that I didn't get nervous at all; not even when I got off the plane in Birmingham. When we finally met it was like I had known her forever and this wasn't really our first meeting. In fact, I was so comfortable around her that I think that it made her a little uncomfortable at first :)

We talked alot. We laughed alot. We even laughed about some of the things that we talked about. It amused us both that we were comfortable enough to talk about a number of things that were atypical for 'first date' conversations. Even when we weren't talking it was just good to be in each other's company.

Our drive up to Bankhead National Forest was one such occasion where we didn't talk a whole lot but were still comfortable and just enjoyed being together. It was a beautiful day, my iPod was cranking good music through the stereo, and we just sat holding hands and enjoying the passing scenery and the warm sunlight beating down through the windows of Rosey's Silver Rodeo.

Holding hands was something that we did a lot of over the weekend. In fact it seemed like hardly a moment went by where we weren't touching each other in some (totally innocent :) way. I loved that; I'm a very kinesthetic person.

Kissing was another thing that we did a lot of. We must have kissed a thousand times. It almost got to be a problem. On several occasions, we were just about to head out somewhere when we would 'accidentally' get locked in embrace and inevitably get distracted from our original plan :)

Camping in Bankhead National Forest was awesome. We backpacked in several miles alongside the Sipsey River, sometimes hiking in the river itself. We setup camp at a spot on the bank of the river where we could hear a waterfall in the distance. There were a ton of waterfalls. Well, Rosey called them waterfalls, I called them water trickles :)

Rosey did all of the packing for the trip. It was almost amusing to me (in an endearing sort of a way) how thorough she was. She thought of everything. She actually bought me a special pair of shoes for hiking in the river and a head mounted flashlight for hiking the trails at night (both of which came in handy).

Ironically, after all of that preparation, there was one thing that we actually forgot to pack in: the cooking kit. So, we had a sterno stove and plenty of food but nothing to cook in :) Fortunately, Rosey had packed enough snizzacks (snacks) to last us an entire week. So we didn't starve by any stretch of the imagination. Rosey was still a little disappointed by the oversight. She had worked so hard to prepare a 'perfect' camping trip only to have her plans thwarted by a delinquent cooking kit.

It's hard to pick a favorite moment from the weekend, but I could at least throw out a few moments that would be competitors were I to make such a distinction. It would be one of: laying with my head on Rosey's lap on the rocks behind the 'waterfall' above our campsite, taking an impromptu 'shower' beneath the waterfall up the hiking trail from our campsite, cuddling beneath the sheets in the tent and wasting away the morning talking on Sunday, or giving and then receiving a full body massage on Sunday night back at the hotel in an attempt to relieve our sore muscles.

When we talked later in the weekend about how the other person differed from our expectations going into the weekend I told Rosey that she was pretty much exactly what I had expected. I wasn't disappointed or caught off guard in any way. I think that's why I was able to feel so comfortable around her.

It almost freaked me out how closely Rosey matched my 'dream'. The only bad thing about that is that the whole weekend felt like a dream. Had she differed from my imagination it would have dragged me back down to reality and grounded me a little. But she didn't. It felt like I spent a weekend living inside of my own dream.

I suppose that in the grand scheme of things that there are worse problems to have than living in your dreams :) Nonetheless, I am hoping to be able to snatch Rosey from the ether and pull her down into my everyday life where she can keep me company. Or maybe I'm looking at things the wrong way. Maybe what I need to do is to find a way to elevate myself into the ether to join her.

Sweet Home Alabama

Well after nearly 7 weeks, I am finally flying out to Alabama this afternoon to meet Rosey. I'm not nearly as nervous right now as I expected to be. I'm sure that it will hit me like a ton of bricks when I get off the plane in Birmingham. We're probably just going to hang out tonight, but tomorrow we're getting up early and heading off to do some backpacking in Bankhead National Forest. I'm excited, this will be my first overnight backpacking trip. Well, I suppose that I should start packing.

Before and After

I have wanted to post some before and after pictures for a while but I've been waiting for 'after' to actually happen. Well, it hasn't happened yet, I still have more weight that I want to lose, but I thought that it would be fun to post these pictures anyway. So, here goes:

In just under a year I have dropped a little over 100 lbs going from 325 down to 222 and lost 10 inches from my waist going from a size 46 to a size 36. Wow, that's a lot of weight.

Although I have slowed down a little I am still very active and am hoping to lose another 20 to 25 lbs. At this point I am no longer actively pursuing a weight goal. I am simply eating well and exercising regularly and hoping that the weight will come off naturally as my body finds a new equillibrium. So far it seems to be working.

Hiking Hobble Creek

Went hiking with Marci and Malina in Hobble Creek Canyon on Saturday. Here are some pictures.

Assault on Sundance

For years I have driven the steep and twisty road up to Sundance and passed cyclists chugging their way up that seemingly interminable hill. I always thought to myself, "What a bunch of bad-asses". Seriously, you have to be in pretty good shape to tackle a hill like that. I secretly wished that someday I would be in good enough shape to bike up Sundance. Well, today was that some-day.

I started this morning at my house in Spanish Fork, rode through Mapleton, Springville and Provo to the mouth of Provo canyon where I started to climb up to the turn-off to Sundance and the Alpine Loop. I did take a quick pitstop at Vivian Park to relieve some fluids and replenish others. Once I got on the Alpine Loop Road, I just started chugging. It wasn't necessarily pretty... I had to kick it into my lowest gear and I was leaving a trail of sweat behind me. But I did it!

In fact, not only did I get to Sundance but I continued up the road another 3 miles, past Aspen Grove to the parking lot for the Timp hike. I probably could have ridden further but the road was closed. Coming back down that hill kicked ass! I was going so fast that it was almost a little frightening at times. I don't normally ride with a helmet but I brought one along today precisely because I knew that I was going to be cruising down this hill. Of course, at the speeds that I was going I'm not sure that the helmet would have done much good.

I was pretty damned proud of myself on the ride home. My legs were sore and I was riding a little slower than usual, but damnit, I held my head high :) And just then when I was feeling like I had conquered the world, a car full of kids drove by and shouted, "Fatass!" as they passed. I know that I shouldn't have let it bother me, but it kind of hurt my feelings. I was more than a little pissed off. Eventually I calmed down though and decided to take it as a brutal but valid reminder that as far as I've come I still have more to go.

Oh, by the way, the ride total was 60 miles today. It wasn't the longest ride that I've been on but it was one of the most challenging ones.

Three Hundred and Fifty Three

Three Hundred and Fifty Three. That's the number of emails that have been sent back and forth between Rosey and I over the last 37 days. It's nuts, but I love it.

Who is Rosey? Rosey is one of the most incredible girls that I've ever met. We were introduced through Yahoo Personals. She is currently living in Alabama but is planning on moving to Salt Lake in the near future. She posted her personals profile in Salt Lake in order to meet some people before moving out here. Neither one of us started off looking for something more than friendship, but we instantly clicked and could tell that there was a possibility for something more.

One of the first things that caught my attention about Rosey's profile was her love of the outdoors. She is really into biking, hiking, kayaking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, camping... basically anything outdoors :) If that were the only thing that we had in common I would have been really impressed, but there is so much more. The next thing that really got me interested was that, in her profile, Rosey mentioned that she was really into Physics, Philosophy and Eastern Religion. She is a frighteningly intelligent person.

In one of our early emails we were discussing the Tao Te Ching. I had mentioned that I had read it but that I was underimpressed by the philosophy contained therein. Rosey countered with some very interesting insights into the nature of nihilistic belief systems. I was incredibly impressed but I began to wonder to myself, "What if she is all intellect and there is no lighter side to her?".

Just as I was pondering that question I received a new email from Rosey entitled "Cheesy Poofs". I bust out laughing immediately before even opening it. She had sent me a video of herself doing an impression of Cartman, a character from the cartoon, "South Park". She definitely has a lighter side :) From the Tao Te Ching to Cheesy Poofs in 30 seconds or less... seriously, how cool is that?

Our list of similarities and compatibilities is really pretty long. We frequently have moments when we are talking to each other where we really get freaked out because one person will say something that totally mirrors how the other person feels about something.

The thing that I probably love best about Rosey is her ability to dream. She is capable of imagining her life different than it is now and is taking the necessary steps to bridge the gap between the real and the imagined. She sets goals and then follows through with them. This is evident both in her plan to move out to Utah and in the fitness goals that she has set for herself. I love that about her.

So far Rosey and I have only spoken via email and over the phone. We haven't actually met in person yet. However, that is about to change. The weekend after next I'm flying into Birmingham, Alabama to meet Rosey for the first time. Will the sparks fly? I don't know for sure but I'm hopeful. If we have even a tenth of the passion for each other in person that we have in our emails then I am sure that things will go spectacularly.

Rosey is such an amazing person that I seriously wonder what the hell I've done right in my life to deserve a shot at being with a girl like her. I'm not going to let that shot go to waste. Wish me luck! :)

Non-Competitive Ride

Several people have asked me about this so I thought that I would clarify it here. The 100 mile bike ride that I did on Sunday was a non-competitive ride. That means that there wasn't a winner and there were no places assigned to individual riders. I believe that most of the participants think of it more as a personal challenge to be able to complete a 100 mile ride. The wind and the rain made it an even greater challenge than it would normally be.

A lot of people have also confused this Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride with the Ironman Triathlon. I am not certain whether or not the two events are affiliated in any way. But this was just a bike ride and certainly was not a triathlon. It might be kind of fun to train for and participate in a regular triathlon but I'm not sure that I'd ever want to do the real Ironman triathlon. It sounds way too grueling.

St. Paul's Most Wanted

We had a little excitement this morning before leaving Jame's place. Chris and I were packing our bags and just about to leave when James stopped talking mid-sentence dropped his glass of water on the counter and started running full speed out of the house, down the street and into the woods. Chris and I just gave each other funny looks and wondered what the hell just happened. A couple of minutes later James emerged from the woods and explained that he had seen a couple of kids running out of the house across the street carrying several bags of stuff that obviously was not theirs. James called 911 and within two minutes the street was lined with cop cars. Within four minutes there was a K9 unit sniffing out tracks in the woods. Within 10 minutes they had arrested the two little punks that had broken into the house and were hauling them off to the police station. Way to go James! It turns out that these kids had been responsible for several break-ins in the neighborhood over the last couple of weeks.

Ride Photos

We didn't get a ton of photos but the ones that we did get are posted here.


By the way, the bike in the foreground of the picture does not belong to any of the three of us. It just happened to be sitting there.

A Hundred Miles Of Rain

It was cold, it was wet, the wind was fierce, but I rode hard and took no prisoners. The most difficult part of the ride was fighting the wind. There was a 20 MPH wind blowing from the East all day long. Unfortunately nearly 50 miles of the ride was riding directly into the wind. There were several times when the wind was blowing so hard that I had to stand up on my pedals as if climbing a hill just to keep enough forward momentum on the bike to prevent falling over.

The gear that I bought did a reasonable job of preventing me from freezing in the 45 degree temperatures all day long but it didn't help much to keep me dry. In the first 5 miles of the ride my socks were soaking wet and shortly after that everything else was as well. Surprisingly that didn't bother me so much as long as I kept moving. It was only when we stopped that it really became a problem.

The adverse weather conditions actually caused a lot of grief for the event organizers. It was taking everyone significantly longer to complete the ride than they had planned. We started riding at 8 in the morning and I didn't finish until nearly 5 PM. James finished a little after me closer to 6:30PM and Chris was having technical difficulties so he dropped out near the 75 mile mark.

The three of us had ridden together for most of the day but at the 65 mile mark I split off and wanted to open it up on my own for a while. It was actually kind of fun to test my legs out on a road bike. On that last 35 miles I was really riding hard and passing people like they were standing still. Not a single person passed me on that stretch of the ride. I'd like to think that I was just riding like a madman, but it could be that all of the really strong riders were already in front of me.

I have to admit that I was a little bit of an asshole at one point during the ride. I was climbing a fairly large hill but was taking it really easy because I didn't want to get too far ahead of Chris and James. A group of bikers came chugging past me riding in formation. As they passed the lead biker looked at me with contempt for going so slow as if he were saying to me, "You have no right to be here". It kind of pissed me off.

So, I let them pass and then decided to show them what I was really made of. I started pedaling at my full capability, easily caught back up to them, paced the leader for a couple of yards, gave him a dirty look and then went flying past him without even breaking a sweat. When I got to the top of the hill I turned around and came back down. I probably could have passed them a second time but I didn't want to rub it in that much and I wanted to get back to riding with Chris and James.

Unfortunately no bad deed goes unpunished by Karma. A minute after coming back down the hill I got a flat tire and had to stop. Luckily James had a spare tube and all of the right tools for getting flat swapped out. We were back on the road in a couple of minutes.

That was the first of 3 flats that I had while riding. The second happened after I had split off from Chris and James. Unfortunately I was not bright enough to think to carry a pump or spare tube with me when I left. So, I stopped another biker and used his pump to put a little air back into my tire. I knew that it wouldn't last forever but I was hoping that it would at least get me to the next rest stop in 6 miles. I got about 5 miles before the tire had so little air that I couldn't continue. Fortunately a guy from a local bike shop (they were all there manning the race) happened to drive by and helped me swap out a second tube. This time we found a big chunk of glass embedded in the tire.

All in all I really had a lot of fun. The weather did make it a little grueling but it wasn't too bad. My month of training definitely paid off for me. I wouldn't have survived the ride if I had just shown up without any training all. I might have survived in fair weather, but not with the crap that we had yesterday.