My plan was to pick up Josh from the airport. His plane was scheduled to arrive at 11am. To give us a couple hours leeway we decided to leave at 12 midnight and drive straight thru the night. Luckily Brian drove from Cedar City to Las Vegas and gave me some good rest.
As we were nearing Long Beach, I decided we should stop for breakfast and pulled off the freeway. Started driving away from the freeway towards the nearest IHOP. Just my luck it turns out I endded up getting off the freeway in Compton, not a very nice neighborhood. We settled for McDonald’s since it was closer to the freeway. This place was bad, the diet coke was terrrible (it is always good at McDonald’s) and we had a drunk inside asking if he could borrow a few dollars. He reeked of alcohol already.
We survived Compton and got back on the freeway. It was my plan to take everyone to the Aquarium of the Pacific while we waited for Josh and our time to board the ship. Once again it was just my luck that the city of Long Beach was having it’s marathon that morning. We tried for some time
to get around the police barracades. Finally the police started to take them down and we were able to get to the Aquarium parking. I had no sooner paid my 7 dollars to park the van and walk across the street to the aquarium, and Josh called Nd said he had landed and was ready to be picked up. I sent the girls in the park with Bry and Sky while I went and grabbed Josh from the airport.
Josh and I made it back to the park and we found the others. The coolest thing at the aquarium was not the sea life but a bird enclosure with tons of loorikeets. We paid a few bucks for a small cup of nectar. The bird would then then fly to your with the cup and take a drink. It was very fun!
– Post From The Couch
After spending many a hour hiking with the poochie, I have decided that she should be a dog model. I am not sure how a dog gets into the modeling business, so if you know, just leave me some instructions. Really, she climbs up on what ever I tell her to, and she stays there until I am done snapping photos. Check out these pictures of her modeling her new backpack, doesn’t it make you want to go buy one?
She has been the best hiking buddy. Follows me where ever I take her. It is amazing how I will pass someone on the trail, smile and say “Hi” and barely get a response, but when they see her they usually say “Awe, how cute”. Either that or “Check out the different color eyes”. It makes hiking a lot more fun.
This past Saturday we drove up to Aspen Grove and set off to hike Big Provo Cirque. I have hike to the cirque before… once… 30 years ago. The trail to the cirque has never been a well marked trail, and not having hiked it in so many years, I was not even sure I could find my way up there any more.
Back in high school I hiked the trail with my Unified Studies class. We went up hiking through Sundance, but we lost the trail and ended up on top of a ridge looking down a 500 foot cliff at the rest of the class who made it into the cirque successfully. I thought it best to approach the cirque from the Aspen Grove side, since that is the only way I had successfully made it in the past. I knew that before I made it to the falls, I needed to branch right and go above Stewart Falls. I made the turn and headed straight up a steep hill. The further I got up the hill, the more convince I became, that I was not on the correct path. The bushes became very thick and each step up the hill was a battle. I had to remove Dallas’ new pack and carry it, because she could not make the climb through the bushes with it on. A pine covered section of the ridge was just 100 yards up the hill. If we could just make it up to there the hiking would get much easier. I didn’t know what was on the other side of the ridge. If it was a cliff we would have to come down and take a different approach. After we made it to the ridge we traded the thick bushes for steep loose rocky terrain, but it was not enough to turn us around. We made our way right above a cliffy area on a very narrow game trail. When we came to the first big rock field/slide. It was here that I discovered how cool the new doggy backpack was. Dallas really struggled to make it through the rocks, so I reached down and grabbed the suit case like handle on top of her back and lifted her up. I carefully carried here across the rock field and set her down. Not sure that is what they had in mind, but Dallas did not seem to complain. I used that feature a few more times before the day was done.
Surprisingly we made it into the cirque. I was even able to locate the memorial marker placed there for Al Davis, my Unified Studies teacher who died my senior year.
For the trip down the hill, I decided that I would like to try the route down through Sundance, that I was unable to find the year my class hiked to the cirque. I think the Unified Class quite using that route following an accident where a girl from the class died after a nasty fall. We made it through the dangerous part without a hitch, but the trail disappeared again, and we were back to bush whacking. I was quite relieved when I reached the top of the Sundance resort. I knew that there would be no more difficult areas, I just had 4 or 5 miles to cover to get back to Aspen Grove. I could see that the front mountain lift was still open. Oh if I could talk them into letting us ride the lift down, maybe someone could come give me a ride up to my car at Aspen Grove. I called my brother to see if he had plans… he did, oh well.
I would actually like to hike past Stewart Falls (or Stewart Cascades) as all the signs said.We stopped on a nice stump to regroup. I dumped the gravel, dirt, and leaves out of my shoes. I put on a fresh pair of socks. I let Dallas finish off the last of her water. I loved the falls, but there were a lot of people… too many. We were both past pooped when we made it to the car. Normally Dallas gets very excited when I ask her if she wants to go for a walk. It took her a full 24 hours before she was excited about walking again. I was glad for the break!
No I am not criminal, this is just another facebook application to document my daily changes (my aging). Everyday I take a picture of myself and align the picture with the landmarks so all the previous pictures align. Above this paragraph you should be seeing my “MugShow”. There are controls on the MugShow to slow down the pictures.
Yesterday I downloaded a new application for my iPhone, EveryTrail. Then Dallas and I went out to give it a test. We drove to the trail head at the mouth of Dry Canyon in Lindon. I started the application and clicked the start button. It kept track of my location as we hiked. When I wanted a picture I clicked the photo button, took the picture and kept hiking. When I was done, I saved the hike and wallah, it was on the Internet with the path and pictures that I had taken, and pins stuck in the map for every picture I had taken. The online software gives me 2 different options for displaying our hike directly from my blog.
Check it out. The first option shows the map and lets you mouse over each photo location and click to get a detailed view:
Dry Canyon at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail: Geotagging Community
The second option performs an automatic slideshow showing all pictures in order:
Widget powered by EveryTrail: Share and Plan your Trips
– Post From My iPhone
– Peost From My iPhone
I have been very impressed with the new GPS technology. It is able to pick the quickest or the shortest route to your destination. If a turn is missed, the GPS can re-calculate a new route. My wife has used it on several trips to California and Nevada in my absence. I have put great trust in this new technology.
On a recent trip with my Dad and a couple of my siblings, I thought I would demonstrate to them this great technology. We were on I-80 approaching Evanston Wyoming. It was time to get some dinner and we decided we would stop at Wendy’s. Now I don’t know my way around Evanston, but I was sure that my Garmin did. So, with the utmost confidence I grabbed the GPS and entered the necessary information:
Bingo! It lists a Wendy’s and I click on the GO button, and it starts to calculate the route. As I pull off the freeway, my sister tells me that this is not the exit that she usually takes. I assure her that I am driving the correct route, and that it is probably faster than the way she knows.
The GPS has me doing some quick maneuvering: a right, a sharp left, another right. My sister points to the left and says, I think I can see it over there… I ignore her comment and continue to follow the directions from the GPS. Soon we were heading away from the freeway and into the dark part of town, away from the commercial areas. For the first time, my confidence in the device drops, as it announces that we have arrived at the destination. There we were at an intersection in a small residential neighborhood. We all had a good laugh, at my expense, and I learned a good lesson: Don’t trust Garmin to show you the way to Wendy’s in Evanston!
It has been almost 30 years since finishing high school. High school was a wonderful time. Senior year was the best, splitting my time between my favorite class, Unified Studies, and playing on the varsity soccer team. Along with the good times, I came away from high school with some of the best life time friends one could hope for.
Lately, thanks to the whole Internet-Facebook thing, there has been a rekindling of old friendships… a mini high school reunion of sorts. One of those old high school friends came up with the smart idea to stage an alumni soccer match with the current high school team. Now we were good back in the day, taking state my junior and senior years, but now we are all creeping up on the big 5-0. My sanity should have been questioned for even considering playing in an alumni game. I haven’t touched a soccer ball in 20 years.
Brimhall kind of filled in as the coach for our team. He made sure that no one felt pressured to play. Almost everyone planned on playing. There were some exceptions: Davis has a bad ankle, Tobler has a bad back, and Coleman didn’t play. Grossen, and Mangelson both flew in from California for the game. Grossen was very excited for the game, and probably our best hope for making any goals. He plays in a league in California and keeps himself in shape by running 5 miles a day. Schmutz and Marlon have been playing soccer a couple times a week, but the rest of the team has not played for over a decade.
We met at the Orem high soccer field. Arriving a half hour early we had a little time to reaquaint ourselves with the ball. We kicked the ball around and practiced taking some goal shots. Game time was nearing and so we headed for the sideline with our team bench. At this point we experienced our first and only injury. Marlon jarred his back and ended up missing the whole game, much to his disappointment.
I told my wife about the game, and told her she should come and make an appearance. I knew many of the old gang would love to see her again. She had not shown up when the game started. I started the game on the sideline, but it was not long before someone needed a sub. So, before I knew it, I was playing.
After a solid 5 minutes… and touching the ball twice…
I was done. About 10 minutes later my wife showed up. She was a little dissappointed that she didn’t get to see me play, but I told her she didn’t miss much. We lost the game… never even made a single goal. Some say we were winners just for showing up.
For 2 days following game I could hardly walk. Now, enough time has passed, and the soreness has faded… only the fond memories remain.
… already there is talk about a rematch in the Fall.