N euschwanstein Castle

The conference doesn't start until tomorrow, so we basically had all day today to do some sightseeing. We decided as a group to go and visit Neuschwanstein Castle. It's about 2 hours from Munich by Train. The castle is built right at the base of the Alps. The scenery, including the castle itself, was absolutely gorgeous. It looked like something out of a fairytale.



On the train ride through the country there were these incredible rustic roads that made me really wish that I was on a bike instead of a train. Which bike? It doesn't really matter. I would love to ride either the Harley or the road bicycle through the German countryside. When we got to Fussen, it didn't help that we passed a bike rental shop and saw a bunch of people actually riding up to the castle. I had to keep reminding myself: "This trip is for business... it wouldn't be cool to ditch the group to rent a bicycle". I finally just resolved that I would have to come back again sometime to do it the "right way".

The castle was a half hour hike (walk) up a hilll from where the Bus dropped us off. It actually felt good to stretch out my legs for a little bit after spending a couple of hours on the train. We stopped for lunch at restaurant just a couple of minutes from castle. It was pretty cool to eat lunch outside on the porch with one of the castle spires looming above us. The food was really good too. I had real German Bratwurst and Apple Streussel. Mmmm...

I actually had a chance to get a short jog in before eating lunch. A couple people in our group didn't realize that we had stopped at the restaurant and kept walking up the hill towards the castle. Before anyone realized that they were missing they were out of sight and earshot up the hill. While someone fumbled for a phone to try and get ahold of them, I handed my stuff to Dirk and just broke into a jog up the hill. It only took me a minute to catch up to them. I actually beat the phone call :) It amuses me that a couple of months ago I couldn't run for more than a couple of minutes without stopping and now I am able to run up a pretty steep incline without batting an eye.

So, about the castle... It was built by King Ludwig in 1864. Actually it was started in 1864 and was never completed before he died. King Ludwig was named king at 18 and never really accepted the responsibility of the position. Instead he nearly drove the country broke by building all of these ornate fairytale castles all over the country. This particular castle was built as a dedication to the music of Richard Wagner. Various rooms in the castle were painted with characters from Wagner's various operas and there was a "singing room" where performances of Wagner's music were given for the king.

Some of the marble fixtures inside the castle were really impressive but overall I thought that most of the inside of the castle was rather gaudy. The paintings were in bright colors and there was a lot of gold paint and fake looking jewels. The most impressive part of the castle in my opinion was the view that you got of the surrounding countryside when you looked out the windows. It was for this reason that I wasn't upset to discover that they didn't allow photos of the inside of the castle. Apparently they want you to buy post cards in the gift shop. They were pretty strict about it too. A couple of people in our group almost got kicked off the tour for taking photos inside.

One of the most interesting rooms in the castle was the cave room. King Ludwig had built a special room to look like the inside of a cave. It came complete with fake stalagmites and stalactites. It was really kind of bizarre.



The only thing that I didn't like about the whole castle experience was that it was so rushed. We had a meeting back at the hotel at 5PM and the train ride took a 4 hour chunk out of the day. So, we really didn't get to spend that much time at the castle. I was particularly disappointed that we didn't get to do any hiking in the mountains surrounding the castle. There were several trails that went to waterfalls and a gorge. It literally caused me physical pain to have to leave without doing any hiking. Again, I had to remind myself that this trip was being paid for by one of our partners so it wouldn't be cool to skip their meeting to go hiking in the Alps. I consider myself lucky just to have seen the scenery that I got to see today. I'm glad that I got the opportunity to go even if I didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked to.

Eine Mass Bitte

"One Litre (of Beer), Please"



I headed back downtown last night to have dinner with the a bunch of Novell and GWAVA guys at the Augustiner Bierhalle. The place was packed. The beer came in huge liter sized steins. I probably could have stopped at one litre, but I wasn't going to let a couple of guys from the Netherlands outdrink me :) The food was pretty good too.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and broke into two groups. One group sissied out and went to bed and another group congregated in the lobby just outside the bar and continue drinking into the wee hours of the morning. Can you guess which group I ended up with? I had way more jagermeister than I probably should have, but it was kind of fun to cut loose. I don't really drink to get drunk very often but on the rare occasion that I do, I go all out.



I stumbled back up to my room at about 1:30 in the morning. I was dead tired after basically not sleeping since leaving Utah at 3:30 on Thursday morning. I gave Rosey a quick call on Skype, although I'm not entirely sure that she understood anything that I said considering that I was slurring and hiccuping uncontrollably.

After hanging up with her I had the daunting task of figuring out how to get a 7AM wakeup call when the phone buttons and menu were all in German. You would think that you could always dial 0 to get the front desk, but that apparently doesn't work at this hotel.

Unfortunately, I never did meet back up with the two guys that I met on the train. They stopped by the hotel like they promised, before heading downtown but I figured that it was more important for me to hang out with work people considering that they are paying for me to be here. So, I had to cancel my plans with them. I felt bad because they had been really friendly to me and I was hoping to at least have the opportunity to buy them a round of beers to repay them.

Planes, Trains and... Well, just Planes and Trains.

My flight from Chicago left forty minutes late. I was sleeping at the time so I didn't figure out until later that it was because one of the plane tugs had accidentally smacked the plane and they need to make sure that it was still safe to fly. Considering that we only had a 50 minute layover in Frankfurt, being forty minutes late pretty much guaranteed that we were going to miss our flight to Munich. And we did.

Not only did we miss it, but we were disappointed to discover that we hadn't been rebooked for a new flight like the rest of the passengers. Upon asking we were told that we needed to talk to the Lufthansa people to get a new flight. But the Lufthansa people told us that all the flights to Munich were full because of Oktoberfest, so we would need to talk to the United people (who were the ones responsible for making us late).

The United people told us we basically had two options: we could spend the day on the waiting list for one of the flights to Munich or we could just catch a train. I thought the train sounded fun and the idea of spending the day in the airport just to repeatedly hear that we didn't make the waiting list for the next flight sounded grueling. So, we decided to hop on a train to Munich.

Unfortunately, we needed to claim our luggage first. When the told us about the train option, I figured that we would grab our bags and be on the next train in 20 minutes. What they didn't tell us was that it was going to take the next 2 hours to track down our luggage and send it down to us in the baggage claim. They also didn't tell us that the baggage claim was in the the bowels of the airport.



By the time that we got our baggage and got on the train it was 10:30 in the morning... 3 hours after the time that we were supposed to be in Munich. I think that we were all excited to be taking the train and seeing the countryside but it really sucked that we had spent so much time waiting for our baggage and then waiting for the train.

The train must have been packed with additional Oktoberfest passengers because when we first got on there weren't any seats in our car. We were concerned that we were going to have to stand for the entire 4 hour train ride to Munich. Fortunately, Morris and Sundy found seats within a couple of minutes and I was able to get a seat at our next stop which was only fifteen minutes away.

One of the things that confused me about the whole train experience was that some seats were reserved and others were open for anyone with a general train ticket to use. But I didn't understand which was which. I eventually figured it out in Nuremburg when I was kicked out of my seat by a family of four.

Just as I thought that I was going to be stuck standing again a couple of guys invited me to sit with them. They had planned on travelling in a group of 3 but one of them wasn't able to make it so they had an extra seat reserved. However, shortly after introducing themselves they disappeared to the bistro car to get a couple of beers. At least they left me their ticket so I could prove to people that the seat I was sitting in (as well as there two seats) were indeed reserved.

The two guys were gone for a really long time and I was started to feel bad for riding opposite of two empty seats... there were still people standing in the back of the train including Morris and Sundy. But it's not like I could give these guy's seats away after they had been so nice to me.

Eventually the two guys came back carrying with them as much beer as they could hold collectively in their four hands. I thought it really nice of them to offer me one of the beers. We spent the remainder of the train ride talking about Germany and America and the differences in language, culture and education (I think it's interesting that Germans are required to learn English starting at age 9).

When we got off in Munich, Andre and Frank, offerred to take me out for a few more beers before turning in. It was really incredible of them considering that they had just met me. They actually escorted me to my hotel so that I could drop off my bags and then we headed into the heart of downtown Munich (and Oktoberfest) to have a few beers and a bite to eat.



The place that we ate at was called Spaten Hof (I think). We had a couple of beers and I tried a traditional bavarian dish of leberkas and german potato salad. The lieberkas was something like a bologne meatloaf while the german potato salad was not that spectacular. Surprisingly the lieberkas was not all that bad with a little bit of mustard.

So, after all of that I am just now finally getting back to my hotel at 5PM. What a day. I think that it's been nearly 30 hours since I have last slept (really slept, the airplane doesn't count). I'll probably head back out to Oktoberfest for a while tonight before turning in. I'm tempted to get some sleep now, but I'd kind of like to force myself to stay up to get accustomed to the schedule here.

Here are some of my first impressions of Germany:
1. Everyone smokes here. People smoked in the airport, on the train and just generally everywhere in public. Not to mention there were cigarette ads everywhere. Big tobacco may be dying in America but it's still going strong in Germany.

2. The airport was really run down. It was probably just because it was under construction but it felt like we were in a third world country. There were walls torn down and wires hanging everywhere. It felt a little like a war zone.

3. Everybody speaks English here. The language just hasn't been a problem. It almost makes me embarrassed to be a stupid American that only speaks a single language (2 years of Latin in High School don't count).

4. The countryside is really beautiful. I loved taking the train to Munich. We got to see a lot of the country that we wouldn't have otherwise have gotten to see. I wouldn't say that we got into any real mountains but there were plenty of rolling hills and lush greenery.

Ten Things I Love About You (Rosey)

10. I love that you are so intelligent. I am inspired that you are always reading. In particular I love that you don't just blaze through books but you take the time to really understand them. You make notes in the margins and really mull things over.

9. I love that you are determined to meet your goals. I think that it's incredible that you have made so much progress on your fitness and weight goals since moving to Utah despite adjusting to a completely new life.

8. I love that you are active. I love that you are not the type of person that is satisfied to just waste your life away sitting in front of the TV or at the bar.

7. I like that you are adventurous. I love that you are the type of person that would agree to hike 11 miles to the bottom of a huge canyon on a whim, or hike 4 mountains in a summer, or explore caves, rivers, national parks, mountains, etc.

6. I love that you are independant. I love that you take your work seriously and are good at what you do.

5. I love that you can take care of yourself. When we were hiking Timpanogos we passed a woman who was totally freaking out about crossing a small section of snow. It took her husband and both of her kids to get her to cross a 10 foot section of snow. I remember thinking to myself. Thank God, Rosey isn't like that. I know this sounds silly, but I have thought this on several occasions. I like that you are not the type of girl that needs a guy to help get her through the "hard parts". You live for the "hard parts".

4. I love that you have taken over my house as your own. I love that you planted a little flower bed. I love that I haven't had to do the dishes once since you moved in. I love that you have taken over the yard.

3. I love that you have a good sense of humor. I love that you watch Scrubs and South Park and that even though you are capable of speaking about philosophy and religion that you are also able to laught at Cartman and Stan.

2. I love that you had the courage to pick up your life and move across the country just to be with me.

1. I love that you have shown me what it feels like to be in a loving relationship.

...

0. Oh yeah, and you're great in bed :)

My Deodorant is a Threat to National Security

I am sitting in Chicago right now, killing a little bit of time before I hop on the next leg of my flight to Frankfurt Germany. The Wi-Fi access isn't cheap but it sure beats using my laptop to do something resembling work. I am surrounded by a terminal full of German speaking teenagers and it's finally starting to set in that I am about to be in a different country. It's kind of a surreal feeling. This morning, I was in Spanish Fork, Utah and tomorrow I will be in Munich Germany. Yes, the fact that I'm so amused by this betrays the fact that I'm still a pretty novice world traveller :)

So, about the title of the post... I had heard about all of the new restrictions about bringing liquids on planes. But, to be honest, I didn't even think of it as I was packing last night. So, I packed my deodorant and my toothpaste without even thinking whether or not they would be OK. I mean it's deodorant and toothpaste... what kind of a threat could they possibly be?

Well, when asked to declare all of my "liquids" as I passed through security. I whipped out my Deodorant and asked whether or not it would be OK for me to take. The security guy grabs it out of my hands and inspects it like he had never seen deodorant before. Despite the fact that the deodorant was in a clear plastic container and you could clearly see that there was a gel inside, he pops off the cap to get a closer look before finally pronouncing, "Yep, that's a gel, you're going to need to declare that".

He was just about to hand it back to me when he noticed the label. "4 ounces. I'm sorry sir, you're not going to be able to bring this on the plane".

"Why not?"

"Sir, you are only allowed to have 3 ounces of deodorant with you on the plane. Those are the rules."

"But it's only half full. There can't be more than 1.8 ounces left in that container."

"I'm sorry sir, the rules are based on the size of the container and not the amount of actual deodorant. You can't bring this on the plane with you."

And then he turns around and flings my 1.8 oz of deodorant (in a 4 oz container) into a garbage bin behind him. Oh well, i bought a new travel size deodorant on the other side of security. I'm sure that the airport is making a killing on travel size personal hygiene items right now.

Motorcycle Wreck (Not Me)

I saw a guy wreck on his motorcycle on the way into work today. It kind of freaked me out. I was coming down Hwy 6 and this guy on a Suzuki Intruder came flying by me. I remember thinking that he seemed to be riding awfully agressive. This was all just before the intersection where the McDonalds, KMart and Blockbuster are. Well the light at the intersection changed and I was a little surprised to see that he slowed down like he was trying to stop only it didn't look to me like he had enough time to stop.

In the meantime, the cars turning left from the other direction saw that he was slowing down and tried to turn before the light changed. The first car made it through just fine. But then after that it was like the guy on the motorcycle realized that he couldn't stop all the way so he was going to just run the intersection. Unfortunately, by then a second left-turning car decided to go and ended up pulling out right in front of the motorcycle. The guy on the motorcycle locked up his rear wheel and the bike slid out from under him and went careening into the left-turning car. He ended up tumbling on the ground for a couple of feet. Traffic stopped and people came swarming from their cars to check if he was alright. I don't think that he died, but I'm willing to bet that he broke a whole bunch of bones.

The sad thing was that the guy looked like a twenty-something who probably had a young wife and kids at home. Even sadder is that I think that the accident could have been prevented in half-a-dozen different ways. First of all, if he really had control of his bike it shouldn't have been a problem to stop at that intersection. Second, if he had just decided to run the intersection instead of slowing down he would have made it through just fine and the cars would have waited for him to pass before turning left. Third, if instead of locking up his rear brake and turning he were just to apply pressure to both brakes he probably could have stopped without hitting the car. Fourth, had he just steered around the car instead of locking up his rear brakes it would have been trivial from him to avoid the car.

I've spent the last 30 minutes being mortified by the whole experience. But the more that I think about it, the more that it just pisses me off. It was really irresponsible for this guy to be riding like that without the proper experience. It's just so frustrating to think that this was a very avoidable accident.

I do my share of screwing around and riding agressively on my motorcycle. But I would like to believe that I have the experience necessary to avoid pointless accidents like this one. Who knows, maybe I don't. I hope that I never have to find out. I think that any time that you get on a motorcycle you're risking your life plain and simple. I don't have any delusions about that and I have come to terms with that. But if my time comes while riding a motorcycle I hope that it's the result of a situation that is completely and totally out of my control and not something that I could have avoided by not riding like a jackass.

I'm Soooo Jealous!

I'm So Jealous
Those were the words that Master Fob got to hear from me over and over again this weekend. I loved Seattle. It kind of made me wish that I was moving to Seattle too. Seattle just has a neat aura about it. It's a beautiful city, minutes from the mountains and ocean. It's green, as evidenced by their bike friendly streets, abundance of recycling bins and lack of diesel powered monster pickup trucks. It's also politically liberal, as evidenced by a number of anti-bush bumper stickers, including one that read, "The Only Bush that I Trust is My Own". Indeed, my friend. Indeed.

Endurance Driving
The drive out was a little grueling. It took Master Fob a little longer than he expected to pick up the truck on Friday morning so we got a late start packing. We didn't get on the road until quarter after eleven. One of the points of me coming along was so that Master Fob and I could split the fourteen plus hours of driving between Salt Lake and Seattle. I took the first shift driving while Master Fob ate a little breakfast that my sister had packed for him.

At the end of my first shift of driving, I was still feeling pretty alert and decided to go ahead and take the second shift as well. Driving has a soothing affect on me and besides, I get really bored just sitting in the passenger seat.

5 hours later, after 10 hours of driving, we stopped in La Grande, Oregon to refuel and grab a quick bite to eat at a Subway. At this point, it occurred to me that we were only one tank a gas away from Seattle. I wasn't all that thrilled about driving at night and I was starting to tire a little, but was seduced by the lure of being able to say that I drove the entire distance to Seattle. You know me, I'm all about the endurance activities :)

So, I double fisted two twenty ounce cups of cappucino (I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bung-hole) and tackled the remaining distance to Seattle. The last leg of the journey proved to be the most daunting. We were driving through some pretty hairy mountain passes in the pitch black of night in a 14 foot Uhaul towing a Chevy Cavalier behind. A couple of times, I considered pulling over and surrendering the helm to Master Fob, but the closer we got to Seattle the more determined I was to finish the drive.

Bright Lights, Big City
We arrived in Seattle at 1:30 in the morning pacific time; fifteen hours after we had left Orem, Utah. We were greeted by Seattle's rather impressive downtown skyline. It was awesome. I had been through Seattle a couple of times before but never at night when the city was all lit up. Master Fob kept saying, "This is so cool. I can't believe that I actually live here now".

It didn't take too long to get through the city and to find the hotel where Master Fob will be residing for the next couple of days. We took a couple of minutes to unhitch the car and lock up the Uhaul and then headed up to our room where we passed out almost immediately. I was dead tired. It was really quite amazing that I fell asleep so quickly considering that I still had several thousand milligrams of caffeine coursing through my veins.

Our Saturday Adventure
We woke up six hours later on Saturday morning. I probably could have slept a little longer, but once I noticed that it was light outside I couldn't help but get up. I think that both Master Fob and I were excited to go out and explore the city. I was a little disappointed to discover that the weather was very overcast and it was kind of drizzling. Hey, I guess that just life in Seattle.

Master Fob didn't seem deterred by the rain and was still excited about our plans to explore the city by bike. I was really impressed by that. So, we jumped in the car, and after running a few errands, made our way to Gregg's Cycle in Green Lake. We found a bike for me to rent right away, but Master Fob wasn't finding a bike that he wanted to buy. Bikes in a bike store tend to be much higher quality, but they also tend to have a much higher price.

I was anxious to get out on the bike, and was concerned that I might not be able to get a rental if I stopped back later in the day. So, I rented a Trek road bike and decided to follow Master Fob around the city on the bike while he shopped a little more. I have become so accustomed to riding with clipless pedals that it was a little awkward for me to ride a bike without them. As I pulled away from my first stop light, I tried to use an upward motion to help drive the pedal and nearly ended up with my knee in my chest since my foot wasn't actually attached to the pedal.

Riding through the city was way cool. There is an official bike lane on a lot of streets and even when there wasn't an official lane, there was plenty of room. I never felt threatened by riding in traffic. Me riding while Ben drove proved to be an interesting experiment. As we headed through the city to a used bike store I was actually able to get ahead of Master Fob on the bike proving that a bike can actually be a more efficient means of transportation in the city. Although in this particular case it only resulted in me missing a turn and Master Fob needing to chase me down to correct my route.

In the end, Master Fob ended up buying a bike from a Fred Meyer. It was a little painful to see my brother buy a bike that cheap, but I understood that price was a serious factor that he needed to juggle. Besides, he was mostly using the bike to commute several miles a day. It's not like he was going to be riding hundreds of miles a week like I do :)

Once Master Fob had his bike we rode the Burke Gilman trail together for several miles. The trail goes right past the University and his house so he wanted to check things out. After riding together for a short period, I needed to stretch out my legs a bit. I pulled ahead and rode the entire 12 miles of the trail and then met back up with Master Fob a little later. The trail was gorgeous. It was a paved trail that rode beneath a canopy of trees and was lined with fern and wild berries. The views of Lake Washington were incredible.

After meeting back up we rode past Master Fob's apartment, and then checked out the library on the University campus where he will be working. The campus is really neat. It almost made me want to go back to school :) Almost, but not really.

Sending Out Props
I really admired a lot of things about my brother this weekend. I admired that my brother is the type of person to move across the country to chase a dream. I particularly admired that he did this even when he didn't have all of the details worked out for the plan. Sometimes, you just need to jump and then work out the details later. His plans have been a little rocky, but he's rolled with the punches and everything seems to be turning out OK.

I also discovered that my brother is very much an explorer just like I am. We spent the weekend driving and biking around the city. We rarely ended up taking the most direct route, but we got to see a lot of the city that we wouldn't have if we had printed out maps to everywhere and just taken the interstate. I love that.

The Other Half Training Progress

My training for the half-marathon that I am running at the end of October has been slow but steady. I feel like the limiting factor is not my athletic ability but my body's ability to recover from the physical stress that jogging places on it. In particular, my shins have given me some trouble and I've had to take it really easy. For the last couple of weeks, I have only been able to run one day a week. Of course, it probably doesn't help that I do so many other things besides running. I'm still biking between 40 and 120 miles per week and I'm climbing mountains on the weekends. My body would probably recover a lot quicker for jogging if it were the only thing that I was doing.

I did achieve a new personal best with my training run this morning. I haven't verified the exact distance yet with my GPS, but judging from the map it looks like I jogged about 7.5 miles this morning. My previous best was about 6.3 miles. The funny thing is that I almost did it on accident. I was out running with Rosey this morning on our normal 6.3 loop. As I was approaching the final leg of our run (a good couple of hundred yards behind Rosey), I decided that I was feeling good and wanted to push myself a little harder this morning.

I figured that I would just jog up the road a little further and then come back before turning onto that final stretch. Of course, the further I got, the further I wanted to go. I knew that there was an intersection further up the road and thought that maybe I could turn down it and just make a slightly bigger loop. What I didn't realize was that the intersection was more than just a "little" further up the road. Before I knew it, I had run all the way out to the Krishna temple nearly into Payson. I was beginning to think that maybe I could just keep running. I dreamt of "accidentally" doing a full half-marathon as a training run.

Unfortunately, my dreams were bigger than my energy. I got up to the intersection of Hwy 164 and Spanish Fork Main before I just couldn't run anymore. Now the problem was that I was still 4 miles from home and it was already 7:30 in the morning. At the rate that I was walking, it would probably be about 9 in the morning before I finally made it back to the house. I was kind of starting to freak out, but then it occurred to me that Rosey hadn't left for work yet and that I might be able to coax her into coming to pick me up. My friendly neighborhood CarQuest auto parts store let me use their phone and shortly thereafter Rosey showed up to rescue me. Crisis averted. Next time, I think that I will plan my route a little more thoroughly.

The encouraging thing about my run this morning (besides the fact that I hit a new distance record) is that I don't feel nearly as much stress in my shins and knees as I have on previous runs. My calves, quads and butt are plenty sore, but those are just muscles. I can deal with muscle fatigue. The lack of soreness in my shins and knees may be an indication that my body is finally acclimating to the stress of jogging.

Reaping the Fruit

I discovered earlier this summer that I have a peach tree in my back yard. The tree has always been there, but this is the first year that I've actually seen fruit on it (thus identifying it as a peach tree). Rosey and I have had to wait all summer for the peaches to ripen but we have finally been able to harvest some of the fruit over the past week or so. Wow! Those peaches are incredible. They are some of the sweetest peaches that I've ever had. I've been cutting them up and eating them with some Breyer's Natural Vanilla ice cream. Who knew that something that good could grow right in my back yard?

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.