The Healing Hip

Well, it's been a week since I posted. I have progressed quite a bit. I did, however, fire my physical therapist. I was not getting any value so I am rehabing on my own. With the internet you can do just about anything. Or screw up just about anything. Seriously, though, I got my program going. I see my doctor tomorrow and I am scheduled to go back to work in a week. I hope I continue to make progress and get my life back to normal.

On The Mend

I had my hip replacement surgery last Tuesday and I am on the mend. The day after surgery they started walking me with a walker and boy did that smart. Getting in and out of bed was(and still is) a prodigious task. The following day I walked a lot more and on Friday yesterday I used crutches to get around. I came home from the hospital yesterday much to the delight of the dogs. I had a home healthcare nurse come in and evaluate me and get some blood to check my protime. That will tell if I am anticoagulated enough. Later that afternoon, my physical terrorist came and put me through the paces. I thought I would just walk around inside the house but she said, nope, we are going outside. I started with two crutches and graduated immediately to one crutch.We went all the way to the mailboxes and back. She then had me do some exercises that are designed to elicit the maximal amount of pain. She will be back Monday with more torture devices and schemes. The wheels may be coming off the wagon but I am trying to get them put back on.

Swine Flu

Sam has been substitute teaching at the Madeline Choir. That is until he came home sick with an ILI(influenza like illness). It has been a week and now and he is turning the corner. We are calling it the swine flu or H1N1 to be more precise. I got the Tamiflu to him pretty early so I think it moderated his clinical course for the better. I got my H1N1 vaccination 10 days ago and I hope my immunity kicks in before I get exposed. In the meantime I am doing all the things promulgated by CDC.

Adventures in Moving

Sam and Ashley have moved to Salt Lake from Venice. They found a house to rent right away and moved in this week. They tried to load everything up on the Volvo, giving it the appearance that someone referred to as "The Beverly Hillbillies". Instead they borrowed a truck from Julie's roommate and enlisted Riley's help to get up here last week. They are all moved in. Yesterday, Diane and I used the truck to pick up a sofa at RC Willey;s. As I drove into the driveway, I ran over a valve box for the sprinklers. It broke off one valve and the water began to spew. I held the broken valve down while everyone look for the turnoff valve for the sprinklers. We could not find that so Sam lifted the water meter cover and turned off the main water valve. In the meantime we found the turn off valve for the sprinklers and we began the chore of going to Home Depot and getting a new valve. By the time we got that put back together, I had missed my opportunity to go fish the Provo with Dick. I know, it's a very sad tale. But, I did fish the day before so it was not all that bad. We are getting ready for the cool weather. In fact, yesterday, I turned off the irrigation water and drained my sprinklers for the winter. Here it comes!

The Bighorn!

I drove to the airport in Billings, Montana and picked up MIke. He arrived on the same plane as my friends, Dick Hauch, George Dykos, Ron Hayashi, and Mike Leathers. We stopped by Cabelas and got our fishing licenses and then headed for Ft. Smith by way of Hardin Montana. We drove to our guest house at the Anglers Edge and met with Brad Downey, the owner. The next day our guides showed up and Mike and I went with Dave Colombo, a transplanted New Yorker. We put in at Three MIle and headed down the river. This was day one of our three days of fabulous fishing on the Bighorn for large Rainbows and Browns. After three days of what Mike called, "Fly Fishing Boot Camp" , we left for Yellowstone. Unfortunately, our plans to fish Slough Creek in the Park were thwarted by an early season snow storm that prevented us from hiking into the second meadow for more fishing. We will just have to go back another time for that one.

Shhh! It's a Cecret

Yep, that's the way they spell it. Cecret Lake at Alta. It felt weird but Diane and I found ourselves with no landscaping projects to do on Sunday. The yard has taken up so much of our summer that we did not get to the mountains for our usual amount of hiking. We decided to hike to Cecret Lake. It was not a long hike but it had a payoff at the end, a serene alpine lake. There was more than a hint of fall in the air so we were prepared for any sudden weather change. It turns out that it was sunny or partly sunny for the entire hike. When we got to the last set of switchbacks before we got to the lake we experienced breathlessness that came from our limited summer hiking. We got to the lake and rested and hydrated and enjoyed the view. It was an outstanding outing on beautiful fall day.

More House Photos

Click on Jim's Flickr Photos to see the latest photos of the house. It has been a long summer in the yard!

Border Collies with an Attitude

Today we went to Soldier Hollow. It was the site of the cross country skiing and biathalon competition at the 2002 Olympics. Today, however it was the site of the National Sheep Dog Competition. Most of the dogs were border collies. They would travel about 1/4 mile up a hill and gather up 5 sheep and bring them back down. There were several gates set up for the dogs to navigate the sheep through. When the dog got the sheep down, he then had to separate them into groups of 2 and 3. Finally he had to send them into a pen. These animals were amazing. Their handler would whistle and they would know what to do. Wait, wait, that's not all. If you act right away......Sorry, got carried away. They also had splash dog competition where the dogs would get a running start on an elevated platform and their handler would throw something they obviously wanted very badly out in front of them and the dog would leap as far as he could. The one that leaped the farthest was the winner. Lastly, they had duck herding where a gaggle of ducks(can you have a gaggle of ducks and not geese?). The dog would run them through a round pipe and then back into their cages. A fun day. Wait, wait, we also saw kite surfers on Deer Creek reservoir and got to stop at Cabelas on the way home. Now, that was a great day. Did I tell you about the pancakes Diane made for breakfast? Now that was a perfect day.

99% Done

It has been a long, hard summer in this yard business. I am going to say we are about done. The grass went in last week and it really put a finishing touch on everything. Now we are just trying to keep everything alive. Next week the sprinkler guy will come out and we will go over the final adjustment of the sprinklers. Now for a long, pleasant fall to enjoy it.

More Landscaping

Well, we are still planting! Jamie came up to lend a hand. About all we have left is to get some sod.

Transformation

Well, the trees, shrubs, and grasses have been arriving and we have been planting for 3 days. I am sore in places I did not know I had. Luckily I found I can get strength from Sobe slushees and Arnold Palmers. One must stay hydrated for this kind of work.

Hells Bells

As Craig Ferguson says every night, "What did we learn tonight?" Well, yesterday I learned a few things. We took off early for a hike up Bells Canyon. We have hiked it several times before up to the waterfall(the one we thought was the upper waterfall). It was a pretty strenuous hike and we would pat ourselves on the back for completing it. This time our destination would be the upper reservoir which we thought would be "just a little bit further up the trail". We got to the waterfall and hung out for awhile enjoying the cool mist created by the crashing water. We then decided to push on. And push on and push on. The trail was steep and rocky and seemingly had no end, sort of like the universe. When the trail finally flattened out a little we encountered another waterfall(the actual upper waterfall). I remembered the guide book saying that there was a bridge across the stream. I looked back at the roaring stream and saw something. It would hardly qualify as a bridge. It was two logs tied together with thin nylon rope and with pieces of 2 x 4s nailed into them. It was not a bridge, it was a death trap. I immediately had visions of Diane's precarious adventure with a log on the Subway trip last year. I decided to go first and rather than walk across this "bridge", I chose to walk on the rocks and logs beneath it and use the "bridge" for balance and security. I got about halfway across and put my foot on a log to discover that it was quite slippery and I had to hold onto the bridge to keep from slipping. Watching me do this only made Diane more nervous when it came to her time to get across. In retrospect, this would have been a good place to turn around. Boy, hindsight sure is 20/20. Well, Diane made it across and we now looked for the trail. Shortly after finding it, it led us through a dense maze of overgrown ferns and other vegetation. It was difficult to find and follow the trail and we wondered at times if we were still on the trail. It was akin to a jungle. We hiked for about 40 more minutes and had taken several side trips that turned out to be dead ends. That was enough for Diane. We were scratched, bruised, bug bitten, tired, and out of patience. As we started back down, I told Diane that I thought I could see the actual trail(this was about the tenth time I had said that). She gave me the look and I decided to head on down. We negotiated the stream crossing without any trouble. Now we had the long hike down. Even though hiking down is easier on your breathing, it still taxes your legs and feet. It also seems to take such a long time to get down. We got to the first waterfall and kept on going. We were now seeing lots of people coming up, all asking how much further. I tried to give them a reasonable estimate of time so as to not discourage them but also not make them despair. One particularly colorful gentleman wearing a cowboy hat and big belt buckle asked how much further. He asked, is it about another "hoot and a holler". It was about 3 hoots and 4 hollers, I told him. We left the coolness of the stream and hiked out into the hot sunlight and finished the last stretch to the car before our tanks ran completely dry. We had hiked for over 5 hours and our legs, feet, and general constitution really felt it. I vowed to make it to the upper reservoir before the summer is out. After all, the fishing up there is supposed to be really good.

Fishing

I took off last Thursday to fish the Provo. I had heard that The Green Drake hatch was coming off. It was only about a month late. I am always excited to be able to fish the Provo on a weekday. There should be far less people. Should be. I pulled into my semi-secret parking lot and found it not only full, but the road leading to it was jammed with cars. I figured that if I hiked up river far enough I could find a little tranquility. Seems everyone was looking for tranquility that day. I guess the fish don't like crowds either. I had a few strikes but brought on one fish to the net, it was a nice 14 inch rainbow who came up slowly from below to take my Green Drake. I got a few more strikes and fished until I ran out of light. That one fish was worth the day's effort.

The next day I went with Tom Meuleman and his friend, Wally to the North Fork of the Duchesne. After a short hike we waked onto the river that loads of bugs hovering over it This looked too good to be true. It was a hatch of many varieties of mayflies, caddis flies, and midges. I was asked what fly to use. Put on anything, I said. We began fishing and much to my chagrin, we brought up nothing. The next thing I noticed was that the water, which was clear and made the bottom visible was now murky and unfishable. We had to change plans. We drove up river and found some construction going on. We went above that and got down to the river again. This time we started picking up an occasional fish. It was difficult bring them up to the surface. In about two hours there I caught about 5 fish. I decided to switch from dry fly fishing to a "dry and a dropper". Off the dry fly I tied on a length of tippet about 12 inches long and then tied on a bead head nymph. My favorite is called the Rainbow Warrior. It is a small, size 20, hook with some tan and red dubbing with a tungsten bead. As soon as I had cast into a run an allowed the dry to drift down, the dry fly wiggled. I set the hook but I was too late. I soon learned that I had to have no slack whatsoever in my line when I set or I would be too late. Over the next hour, in one spot, I caught 20 fish. Tom and Wally had a deadline to leave as they were going to play golf that afternoon. If they had not had that, I would probably still be there.

Yesterday after work in Rock Springs, a friend called me and asked If I wanted to go fish the Green in the Seedskedee National Wildlife Refuge. Duh, it's fishing, why wouldn't I want to. My only question was do I get a annual nonresident license or pay the 14 buck daily fee. I figured that even with the conservation stamp you have to buy with the annual that I only have to fish 8 times in Wyoming to break even. Plus, I don't have to go and get a daily license every time I want to fish. We went as far as the Fontanelle dam and began wet wading. The wind was blowing and there was no surface action so we were stripping streamers across the riffles in the river. The wind was not our friend. Every once in a while it would let up and I would see bugs coming off the water. They looked like caddis to me. Then I saw a fish take one on the surface about 25 feet away. I quickly started tying on a caddis dry fly. I learned that the faster you need to tie on a fly, the slower you actually get the fly tied on. I took my time and negotiated the elk hair bristles nearly covering the eye of the hook and got the fly tied on. Was I too late. The wind was still down and I was able to get a nice dead drift over the spot where I had seen the fish before. Bam! He took that fly like he had not had a bite to eat all day. When I landed him I saw that he was a beautiful brown trout. He was only about 9-10 inches long but he will get bigger and maybe I can catch him again some day. That turned out to be the only fish I caught that day. In my optimism I noted a pattern developing. Catch one fish one day and then 25 fish the next. Hmmm. Should I go fishing tomorrow? Duh!

Back Home Again

On the Friday before the July 4th holiday, Diane and I drove to Craig, Colorado where I had an assignment to be on call for the weekend. I no sooner got there and got called to OB and then to the OR for an appendectomy. I got home about 11PM to find that Diane had saved me some chocolate cake, which I ravaged. The next day I was on beeper call and fortunately did not get called. Diane and I went for bike rides around Craig both in the morning and in the afternoon. The next day I went in for a leg fracture and after that I went off duty and we drove to Green River, WY. We stayed at my place there and the next morning(which happened to be Diane's birthday), I dropped her off at the airport and then I went to work. I worked the week until Friday and came home Friday evening. On Saturday we did our Costco business and then worked around the house for awhile. We watched Fiddler on the Roof that evening. Sunday was our hiking day. We decided to hike the White Pine trail. It starts at the same trailhead as the Red Pine trail and then splits after a mile. The trail was actually an old jeep road. It was long with lots of switchbacks. Diane was using her Camelback. After a little more than 2 hours hiking, we encountered a snowfield that we started to cross. It was on a pretty steep incline and I realized that it would be easy to slip and slide down into some boulders. That had broken femur written all over it. We backtracked and tried to climb down through the boulder field and cut across below the snowfield. We decided that this too was treacherous and unhappily decided to turn around and do the hike later in the summer when the snow would be gone. We made our way down stopping for food and water from time to time. We got back to the car 4 hours and 10 minutes after we started. We treated ourselves to lunch at the Porcupine Restaurant, eating outside in some delightful weather. I am working in Salt Lake this week but hope to do some more hiking and fishing in between

Colby and Camo

My neighbors in Green River have two labrador puppies. One is a charcoal lab and the other is a silver lab. If a chocolate lab has two recessive genes on the gene for color formation, then a silver lab color results. If a black lab has two recessive genes at this location then a charcoal lab results. Camo, the silver lab, has blue eyes. The next door neighbor girls, Aspin, Jessica, and Paige posed the puppies for me to take pictures. Meet Colby and Camo.

Graduation Day

Jamie received her Masters from Pepperdine on June 20th. We had a good time and a fun weekend.

RATTLER!

Diane and I decided to take the dogs for a walk this afternoon. We were doing the Sunrise Point trail that Mary and I did when she was down here. We got to the point and started back. She had Cub on leash and I had Chloe. All of a sudden Chloe jerked away and went after something just off the trail. When I looked up she had gone after a rattlesnake. She was all over it and I jerked her leash as hard as I could to pull her off and away from the reptile. I thought the snake would just slither away but it stayed there guarding the trail. We went around and when we got to the entrance to the park Chloe's legs starting giving out and she could not walk. I was worried that she had been bitten and was suffering from neurotoxic effects. I left Diane with Chloe and Cub and I started running back to the house to get the car. About half way there, Diane came by having flagged down a guy who drove us back to the house. When we got home Chloe seemed to be normal. We called the vet and she had us look for signs of swelling in the face and legs. There were none. We continued to watch her and she still seemed normal. She is a lucky girl. I usually have the dogs off leash in this area but boy am I glad I had her leash on so I could pull her off the snake. It could have very well been a different outcome. Have I told you, I don't like snakes.

 

We watched the weather forcast and thought we saw a window of no rain in the morning on Sunday so we decided to hike up Grandeur Peak. Some may recall the fateful hike last year with the dogs when we had to rescue Cub off the mountain with a wheelbarrow. Not wanting a repeat of that we left the dogs at home. As we started hiking we found ourselves alongside 3 other people. Two were Russian young men and a young girl from Tennessee who played the Cello and was in town for some instruction in the Suzuki method. It made for interesting conversations on the way up and down. It was about 2 1/2 hours up and about 1 1/2 hours down. The weather was cool and crisp which would have made for comfortable hiking had it not been for the 3,000 feet of elevation gain. We timed the weather correctly. Dark clouds moved in as we were driving home. We really like getting high in Utah.

Pine Creek/Zion National Park

All my previous trips to Zion National Park have been to get out on hiking trails or adventure hikes like the Subway and Orderville that require rope assists more than actual rappelling. The trip to Pine Creek has 5 rappels, the longest of which is 100 feet. That is why I invited my friend, Chris Reveley who is an expert rock climber. I obtained the permit for 5 people. The three others were Dick Weber, Pete Griffen, and Pete Jensen. Other than Chris none of us had any recent rock climbing experience. I read all about the routes, knew where the rappels were, knew where the anchors were located and knew the length of the rappels.

Pine Creek can be bone dry or it can be filled with water. With all the recent rain, we expected water. We went by the outfitter and rented dry suits, shoes, helmets and the other equipment we would need and got as much information about the route as we could. We drove to the trailhead and began to gear up. A dry suit is different from a wet suit in that it keeps water out (that is the theory anyway). It does that by having tight rubber gaskets that go over your hands and feet to form a watertight seal. It is the same thing for the head hole but it has a drawstring. Getting these suits on was a challenge in and of itself. Once we were geared up, the hike began.

We headed down a sandy hill to the wash below. After 15 minutes of hiking we came to our first obstacle, “Intimidator Pool”. This was a pothole full of water with slippery sides. The guidebook says if you have trouble here, turn around as it only gets harder. We got by the pool trying to make it look like we were not having trouble. The actual trouble was the dry suit. It made me feel like the Michelin Man and restricted my movement. We arrived at the first rappel to find a back up of several people. They said they had 12 in their group and offered to let us “play through”. We accepted. Their rope was already in place so we rappelled off of it. I went first. This was a 60-foot drop in two stages. I got down to the pool and stayed on the rope to go the rest of the way. When I tried to put some slack in the rope as it came up from below I saw that the rope was caught in a crack. This gave me a rigid line above and below me. I was on the edge of the pool and if I slipped into the pool I would have two ropes pulling me in opposite directions. Chris yelled down that I would just have to figure it out. I was able to flip the rope out of the crack and give myself enough slack to run some rope though my ATC (that was my rappelling device. It stands for Air Traffic Controller. Cute huh?). I made it down into a deep pool and pulled the rope through my ATC so the next person could come down. I met Amy who was part of the first group. She set up the next rappel for us while the rest of our group got down. This was a short rappel but again, into a deep pool. These were called “swimmers” for obvious reasons. We were now ahead of the large group. Most of the members of this group were wearing only shorts and tee shirts. They would be hurting by the end of the day as the water was cold, there was very little sunlight and they would be standing around a lot. I was glad we had our suits.

The next rappel was The Cathedral, a double arched chamber that dropped 60 feet. I was the group photographer so I went first. What a trip! It was magnificent. As I lowered myself down the rope I was awestruck by the beauty inside this rock chamber. My waterproof camera has only automatic exposure settings so I could not adjust it for the low light conditions but I did get some fair pictures. I tried to get pictures of all the guys coming down but it was difficult to get my cold hands to work the right buttons on the camera. When the entire group got down we just looked up and marveled at where we had come from. The next section was a scramble over huge boulders and a few pools some of which were swimmers. Soon we were out of the cavern and into daylight. We missed the fourth rappel. We went left instead of right and ending up scrambling down a route that they should call the Mackin Bypass. Next was the 5th and final rappel. Chris had to reach out to set it up and that was a little scary to watch. This rap was 100 feet and it was free, that is, you do not have anywhere to put your feet but you hang on the rope all the way down. I went down and then watched the others follow. It was pretty amazing. We hiked down to a beautiful grotto and had a little bite to eat before heading down the canyon. The hike out was a lot of bouldering and scrambling. There was no right path only multiple options. We came upon the trail leading to the long uphill climb out of the canyon. It was now warming up a bit so one of the best parts of the day was getting out of those dry suits. This was one hell of a day for us all.

Bell's Canyon

Diane and I went for a hike up Bell's Canyon today. We left from the Little Cottonwood Canyon trailhead near our house and headed over to the lower reservoir. From there we found the trail and headed on up. It was a cool morning with cloud cover. We saw two deer right away. The trail ascends gradually. There was a footbridge over the stream which was roaring from the snowmelt. The further we went, the steeper the trail got. It paralleled the stream for the most part. Soon, the trail was strewn with boulders of various sizes. The last section was a steep uphill grind with boulder hopping. We crossed another stream and rounded the corner to see a magnificent waterfall. We then headed down and got to the car. It was a 2 1/2 hour trip. It was a good warm up hike for the upcoming season. 

A Side of Ribs

The part I left out about my hike down to Zion last week involved a slip and fall onto a rock(or rocks). I landed on my right flank and immediately realized that it may have been a mistake to go on a backpacking trip alone. I had stashed my backpack at my campsite and started on the hike to Kolob Arch. When I got to the end of the trail I found out that I could not get a very good view of the arch from where I was. Ignoring the "Travel beyond this point not recommended" sign, I went further, scrambling up and down over very rocky and steep terrain. The next thing I know, I am on my back. I get up and assess the damage and realize that I am going to have to get myself out of there. The shortcut I choose took me in a circle. I managed to get back to my campsite where hordes of black, biting flies descended upon me. My insect repellent was more like an attractant. I decided to keep walking while I could and headed in the direction of the trailhead, 6 miles away. Every time I would stop and thinking about staying for the night my ribs started hurting more so I just kept going. I got back to the trailhead after dark, about 9:30 and into a motel about 10:30. Ice packs became my friend for the next few days. Last week at work was pretty tough but I made it through. It only hurt when I moved or breathed so I tried to minimize that!  I have a trip back to Zion in two weeks and I am trying to decided if I should go or cancel. I am not going alone! I will take a couple of days to see how my healing goes. Another life lesson learned.

 

LaVerkin Creek

A short trip down to Zion's Kolob section. La Verkin Creek and Kolob Arch

Empty Nest Syndrome

I never thought I would be affected by the empty nest syndrome. It turns out that I am. This morning I opened the door to look in the nest where the finch chicks were to see if I could get a picture of them with their beaks up waiting for food. They were still asleep, all huddled together, warmly embracing each other. I took a picture anyway. I saw one beak visible.  Today being Mother's Day I made myself entirely at the disposal of Diane. For Mother's Day she said she wanted to go on a bike ride. We loaded the bikes and went to the Jordan River Parkway and did an out and back 18 miler. We stopped for lunch and then headed home. After putting the bikes away, I grabbed my camera and opened the door to look into the nest. I was stunned!  I had just seen the four chicks in there a few hours ago and now the nest was empty. I tried to tell myself that they flew off but I knew, and Diane confirmed in the bird book, that they were not ready to fly. Such are the trials of life. Now the big problem: What is Jamie going to tell her school kids, who had been following the pictures and the story?

Bird's Nest

Mary discovered a birds nest on our front door so we looked in and saw the babies and one egg. The next day all the babies were huddled together.

My sister, Mary is here for a visit. She came last Wednesday and then dropped off her spleen and pancreas at LDS Hospital last Thursday. She came home from the hospital on Sunday and has been recuperating here at our house. We see the doctor tomorrow and hope to get that all clear. She has been entertained by the workers putting in the sprinkler system, the cat, and the dogs. Also, she found a bird's nest on a wreath on our front door and when we looked in there were three babies and an egg yet to hatch. 

Glad That's Over With!

Well, another birthday down the drain. I may have wanted to ignore it but it seems others did not get the memo. This one was memorable for it's reverse surprise. I flew Jamie in to town to surprise Diane for my birthday! We had a good visit and she and I got a ski day in at Snowbird. In addition to that Mary was in town for some medical tests and I had a real live sibling present on my birthday. I heard from the others by various, mostly digital means. I also got felicitations from Sam and Riley and Sam's girlfriend, Ashley. It was a good day.

Tee Time or Liftline?

I guess it is a good thing I don't play golf(You have to save something for your old age). If I did I would be saddled with the question of whether to play golf or ski. The answer is made for me. I ski. In fact, with some rain down here tonight, which is snow up in the mountains, we are planning a trip to Solitude tomorrow to close out their season. If the weather is nice we will take our lawn chairs and when our legs give out we will have a picnic in the parking lot with the rest of the crazies. Notice the purple haired chick who wandered into our area in a previous last day outing. Who knows what we will see tomorrow!

Winter Won't Leave

I love the snow but it is April now and it is time for other activities in the valley and shoveling snow is not one of them. We have been getting storm after storm this week. Of course I am working everyday this week and can't get up to go skiing. Maybe I can get up there one day this weekend. I am really not ready to put the skiis away yet, anyway. Spring can't be to far away, or can it?

Still Winter!

We have had snowstorms all week with more forecast for the next two days. I like winter but I also like the other seasons and I don't think winter should hog the entire year. It is time to say goodbye but it just won't go away.  This time of year we usually just get rain in the valley and the snow stays in the mountains. This year the snow is lingering in the valley.  I must say it makes for good skiing and it should bode well for our water year and the fish just love water. 

Recession Survival

If last night is any indicator, we may survive this recession after all. Diane and I drove back up the canyon to Dick's house for dinner. Mandy was there with her boyfriend Josh. Dick's other daughter, Lindsey pulled into the driveway right behind us. Nancy was there with her brood; daughter Amy and husband Matt; son Michael and his wife Stephanie. Amy girls, Anna and Lucy were there. It was a real mob scene. Everyone got their fill of delicious and spicy, spaghetti. There was salad and garlic bread galore. After the cleanup, Diane got out her dessert and prepared it. It was Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was to die for. The cake part had chopped dates along with the other usual cake ingredients. The topping a caramel toffe s

Fun Day at Solitude

We received lots of snow recently and my friend Dick called and asked me to go skiing with him and his daughter, Mandy and her boyfriend, Josh. It was a great day. Plenty of fresh snow and sunshine. We found several powder runs and skied until our legs gave out. 

Tonight Diane and I are going up to Dick's house for a recession dinner. That is, spaghetti, bread, and salad. Diane is concocting one of her famous deserts.

Bike Safety: Give bikers a brake!

A week ago  the news reported that a bicyclist had been struck by a car near where we used to live. The driver of the car got out and looked at the injured man and then drove away. The victim was taken to the hospital in critical condition. A few days later Sam called me and told me that it was his friend's father(and a friend of ours) who had been hit. Sam said that nearly every bone on the right side of his body was broka

Yearning for summer when we can get back on the hiking trails. This hike was a 13 miler in the High Uinta Wilderness Area. 

I don't like the daylight saving time. The days are naturally longer in the summer. We don't need to be fooling around with Mother Nature. It has been shown that the reasons for starting are invalid. Studies show that it does not save energy! Now the school kids have to go to school in the dark. Who wants that? 

This is the time of year when we get a teaser of spring and then--Bam, we get a snowstorm. Soon we will be on the shoulder season when you can play golf(I don't), ski, hike, or fish. Decisions, decisions. Or one could work. It seems I have encountered an epidemic of wellness lately. Work has been slow but my skis have been busy.  

Stick in the Eye

Couldn't you just poke a stick in my eye, instead? Yes, we spent Saturday at a car dealership. Diane's ride is 12 years old and pushing 195k. It may have some miles left on it but who wants to breakdown in the middle of nowhere. A month ago we went through the drill and she narrowed her 3 choices (Forester, CR-V, and RAV4) down to two(CR-V, RAV4). On Friday she narrowed it down to one(CR-V). She took care of a bigwig from the large dealership group who said he would get her the best deal possible(Could it have been the residual effects of the anesthesia?). We set out to the Honda dealer and she said she wanted to just sit in the RAV-4 one more time. Well, she sat, she drove and now has changed her mind. That was OK because her buddy, Sal, covered this dealer as well. We decided on a model and the salesman found the car she wanted. We got a quote and then that is when we pulled out our Ace. "We know Sal!" I think his answer was , "Sal who?". He called his boss and found out that Sal left the companies 2 weeks ago. That was OK because our guy was going to give us the same deal that Sal could have given us. Right.  Now the fun begins. Diane wanted leather seats. The guy said no problem, we will add that at no charge(usually 2,000 bucks). We go round and round and I get up head for the door a couple of times to get the price down even lower. It was the end of the month and that is supposed to be a good to deal. I liked the price but the T, T, T boosted it up, of course. I gave him a figure, an out the door figure, and said that is what I am prepared to spend today to get this car out of your inventory. He talked to his boss and he ok'd it.  We had just bought a new car. Like I said, couldn't you just poke a stick in my eye, instead!

There are a few things I rate up there with having a colonoscopy. One of them having to deal with car dealers. Diane has seen the handwriting on the wall and knows that here 12 year old volvo with 195k on it will not last forever. For a couple of months we have been "looking" at cars. It came down to RAV4, CR-V, and the Forester. Although the Forester has an improved look Diane said it did not pass the sit test. While out of town this week

Wave Video

Snowbird, First Day of Season

Powder!

It is not that often that I have a day off after a foot of snow has fallen in the mountains. Today was such a day. I made my way up to Solitude and and got on the high speed chairlift and headed up the mountain. I usually like to take a warm up run before "hitting it" but who knew how long this good snow would last so I plunged over the edge into the soft powder snow like a golden to water. Float to the left, float to the right. I thought that this must be what flying is like. I tried other runs and they were equally as fun. Talk about good timing about the time the powder was almost completely skied off, my legs were gone. I had given myself another reminder of why I live here!

And the Grammy goes to........

The best R&B album goes to Jennifer Hudson for the album Jennifer Hudson. When a Grammy is awarded it is won by all of those who worked on the album including the sound engineers. Can you see where I am going with this? One such sound engineer was Riley Mackin. Congratulations Riley on your first Grammy!

                          The Wave

Solitude

The day before Jamie and Riley left to go back to LA, Jamie and I went skiing at Solitude. We met up with my friend, Dick and his daughter, Mandy and her boyfriend, Josh. Here we all are minus Dick who was the photographer for this picture. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.