Great late eighties music

A Tom Petty classic.

I love baseball...

And this is one of the great songs of  baseball--Terry Cashman's Talkin' Baseball.

How to stay on your diet

Yesterday, I discovered a new dietary aid that will help keep people from eating things that aren't on their list of things they should eat. I think I could possibly make it rich with this new innovation.
The innovation? Hair in the food. That's right, hair. Yesterday morning someone was sharing some delicious-looking red velvet cake, homemade, for his birthday. He cut up the cake on the break room table. I had just finished eating an apple and a Kashi granola bar, but that cake was looking mighty tempting. I left the break room, hoping the cake would all be gone before I walked back past the room. However, the next time I walked past, there were 3-4 pieces left. I decided I really wanted one.
The first bite revealed my new secret diet keeping device. A hair, roughly three inches long, protruded from the edge of the cake. I pulled it out, but my desire to finish eating the cake was immediately quelled. Into the garbage it went—upside down on the plate so that the guy who brought it wouldn't know I'd thrown away nearly an entire piece of his cake.
If there's one thing I can't stand to find in food, that makes it instantly unappetizing, it's a hair. Well, flies aren't very appetizing either, but I don't generally find them embedded in cake, enchiladas, or bread dough items like I do human hairs.
I wonder why that happens. Generally it happens whether or not I know the head whose hair it came from, but when I don't know whose head it came from, it's even worse. And if it was a pubic hair—well, thankfully, that has never happened to me.
I wonder if it's possible to market something like this to help people lose weight, or to stop eating unhealthy foods. Theoretically it is. I have huge numbers of hair on my head, and they always grow back, so I could make practically unlimited batches of chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, or lasagna filled with my new diet discovery. I'm surprised no one else has thought of it.

Raised bed garden project

I finally completed actually building the frames for my four raised beds. Here's a pic:

Picture strategically taken to not show my messy back yard.

Now, all that's left is digging out another section of sod (if you feel, like I do, that cutting out sod by hand is the worst garden job, raise your hand!), roughly six feet by twelve feet, moving the beds into position so that I can create a nice decorative path in between them, filling them up with good garden soil, and planting. The goal is to have all this done by mid-May. Wish me luck!

Exercise results this week

I haven't really lost much weight. Right now I'm at 191, so I think I've lost two pounds in the past three weeks. Of course, I had the kidney stones or something else that felt pretty bad this past week.
That being said, I got in a 13 minute HIIT workout on the treadmill on Friday. On Saturday, I went back to the gym and decided on the spur of the moment to see how fast I could do a 5k (3.1 miles) run. I thought I'd warm up for five minutes or for the first half mile, then run as fast as I could until I had reached 3.6 miles, then subtract the five minutes from my end time.
After the five minute warm up time, I decided that I wouldn't go 3.6 miles and subtract the time, but would include the warm up into the total, so I'd only have to run 3.1 miles--but my time would be tad slower because of warm up is done at a slower pace. I decided this because I was feeling a little tired (probably because of the HIIT workout the day before). So I ran the 5k as fast as I could and got done in 27:38, which is faster than I've run the same distance in the past two years at least. I wonder what I could have done had I not been tired!
Not to brag. I just felt pretty pumped about it.
(Oh yeah, for those who don't know, HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training.)

I like those rocks

A few days ago, Ann and I were driving past a cemetery. "I like how they did those rocks," Ann said.
"What rocks?" I said. "Do you mean the head stones?"
She didn't mean the headstones. "No," she said. "They had a small part of the parking strip that they didn't know what to do with so they landscaped it with rocks."
As I thought about it, I actually thought about the headstones and what if she'd actually been commenting on them. Most cemeteries are well-designed, and the stones--rocks if you will--are laid fairly uniformly throughout the manicured lawn and trees. They are peaceful places for the living to remember the dead for the most part. But I also thought, would anyone want to be remembered as part of a collection of nicely designed rocks? The good news is that most people aren't.
Most people are remembered for cherished memories. For the love we had for them. For the good they did and the kindness they showed in their lives. They are remembered for their senses of humor or their love of life.
Sad it would be if they were only remembered as part of a collection of neatly arranged rocks, but there are people out there like that. Perhaps their sense of isolation keeps them from making friends. Maybe they have a mental illness that makes it hard for others to befriend them. Maybe they just never had children and lived to an old age with no one to remember them.
These are the kinds of people that most need our love and attention. It's those that are hardest to love that most need that love. Remember the words of our Lord:
³¹ When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
³² And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
³³ And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
³⁴ Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
³⁵ For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
³⁶ Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
³⁷ Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
³⁸ When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
³⁹ Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
⁴⁰ And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Let's not focus on the rocks, but on the people for whom those rocks are just a representation. Let's be kind to the lonely and down-trodden in the world. Not only will it make their lives better, but it will enrich ours as well.

Return to the Titanic day

I pretty much thought that Tuesday was the day of all days as far as weird things happening. Then Wednesday happened. I had spent all night off and on in great pain, which I'm fairly certain was kidney stones. I woke up, unable to go to work, so I called in sick. Most of the stones had passed by that time, thankfully, and it was mostly a matter of resting up. I'm also very grateful that I didn't end up needing to go to the doctor or ER.

In the afternoon, I was feeling good enough to replace the motor on our dishwasher that had gone out a couple of weeks ago. So I did that. It went well.

It was Miriam's birthday and since Ann was feeling poor, it was up to me to get her present over to her. I wasn't feeling tops either, but in the snow storm, it was me or nothing. I got in the 4runner and headed over. As I rounded a corner onto 41st south, I noticed something not quite right with the 4runner. The radio was flickering on and off. In just a couple more minutes, the tachometer had ceased working. I turned on the wipers because the snow had picked up and the extremely slow sweep of the wiper blades told me something serious was wrong. I decided that I needed to turn around and head home.

I got headed back and then the vehicle stopped running completely. I had forgotten my phone, so I walked back to the nearest grocery store--Smith's which was about five blocks away, and called my family to come and rescue me. Then I called AAA to come and tow the 4runner to my mechanic.

What a last couple of days! But we at least got hit by a lot of snow. Last I heard, Snowbird got 43 inches, so that's really good.

Snow at last

April snow showers bring May flowers? The biggest storm since the winter of 2013-2014 hit the Salt Lake Valley and deposited 9" in our city of West Valley. Too bad I was sick today, and stayed home from work and won't be able to do the same tomorrow for a last gasp ski day. I would dearly love to go.
The good thing is, by the end of the day, I was nearly back to normal. The kidney stones or whatever it was that was causing great pain, had largely subsided, praise the Lord. I went out and took a few pictures of the snow.

Yesterday, as part of the "Titanic Day" the heavy winds blew over our fence.

The lilac bush was collapsed by the weight of the snow.

I think it's going to be a few days before I can work on the raised beds again. And clean up the yard.

Anna is our little snow lover and has been waiting all season for enough snow to actually play in.

It has been snowing off and on all day and we couldn't be more grateful for it. The Lord has answered our prayers. Last I heard, Snowbird had received 22 inches and it was still snowing.

A Titanic day

I found out that today was the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, and also the sinking of the Titanic. It figures. My day started out just like that. Well, not quite as bad. Getting assassinated makes for an extremely bad day, as does going down with the ship.


No, my day didn't begin quite that bad. The first thing that happened though was when I went to put on my jacket. I was late already, and as I finished putting on the left sleeve and was reaching back to grab the jacket with my right, I knocked over the pencil holder from its customary spot on top of the speaker. When I finished picking those up, I was a little bit later. I got to the 4runner and threw my gym bag into the passenger seat as is my habit. I heard a hissing noise and saw a cloud rising from the side pocket of the bag. It was my old can of Old Spice body spray. I actually had meant to get rid of it, since Ann was no longer making comments about how good I smelled, but had inadvertantly left it in the bag and somehow it had gotten punctured when I tossed the bag. By the time I got to the other side of the vehicle and opened the bag, the can was nearly empty. I grabbed it and threw it in the trash, in the process, coating my hands in the stuff. Even later now, I got in, wiped my hands on some tissue, and headed to work.


When I got there, the stench from my hands was overpowering. I tried to stay away from people until I had time to wash my hands. I finally got a chance to wash my hands with soap, only it was too late. The scent stayed on my hands as if it had been cemented with Gorilla glue. It was going to have to wear off.


I looked at my watch and found that it had stopped functioning properly. The digital display did not match the hand display (the hand display was correct), and the date had changed to January 1^st. Later on, when I tried setting the digital display to be correct, the hands moved so that they were displaying a time approximately six hours different from the correct time.


As I drove around delivering mail, I watched people's shingles being ripped off by the high winds we experienced today.


And then when I got home, I found that my fish oil supplement in liquid form that I keep in the fridge, had been knocked over and the lid had broken, spilling several ounces on the kitchen floor. And last, but not least, part of our back fence had blown down in the wind.


So, all in all, not a bad day as far as ocean sailing goes, or play watching, but definitely an unusual day with weird happenings. It probably all started because I had to make out checks to the IRS and the Utah State Tax Commission. In fact, parting with that cash was probably the worst thing that happened all day.

On past mistakes

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been'. Thus spoke John Greenleaf Whittier some of the wisest words ever uttered. And yet, it never pays to dwell on things we might have done differently long ago. The choices we make, affect the rest of our lives, but that doesn't mean we should spend a great deal of time trying the old "I wish I would have" game. One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite films (and books) The Fellowship of the Ring is this:

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

Perhaps those choices that we thought were mistakes were actually necessary for our own development of character. Perhaps those choices needed to happen for some reason. Wishing for a past that never happened can only lead to depression.

At any rate, there isn't anything we can do about our past mistakes other than looking forward with hope, striving to do better, and losing ourselves in the service of others. We can't change the past, but we can certainly anticipate a bright future.

Frary Peak - hiking Antelope Island

Yesterday's hike was amazing. First of all, know that it's about an hour and a half drive from my house to the trailhead for Frary Peak, which is on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. I wanted to get there early so I could capture the sunrise from the island with my camera, so I left the house at 4:30 (I was up at 3:45 getting ready). I arrived at the gate just about 5:30. I had checked online the night before to see when the gate opened, and the info had said 6:00, but having been there before when the gate was opened earlier, I decided to try it just in case.

Actually, I believe this was a new gate put in since two years ago (the last time I got there that early) and it was on a timer, I think. It wasn't open as I had hoped, so I had a half hour to kill in the dark waiting for it to open. I was tired because I got up so early, but I didn't want to tilt the seat back and try to sleep for 30 minutes, because I might keep sleeping and miss the gate opening. I looked out the window and saw the moon and thought I'd like to try taking a picture of it with my new zoom lens. I dug that out of my pack and stepped outside. Since I didn't want to set up a tripod, I free-handed it. Here's what I got:

So, when I actually was looking at the moon, it had a halo around it. For some reason, my camera moved this halo to the left of the moon, and as you can see, the moon is quite blurry. Of course, that's due to my not using a tripod. I think it kind of looks like how the sun might look from a spacecraft.

At about 6:04 the gate finally opened and I drove to the east side of the island, to the trailhead. The hike started out amazingly well. I was feeling alive and vibrant--great actually. I kept the long lens on the camera thinking that now would be a great time to experiment with it and find out what it could do. The moon was still up as it began to get light and I tried to get a good picture of it with mountains, birds, etc., in it. Here are some of them:

Again, this was free hand and I think for being free hand, I got a great image.

After I took the picture of the moon over a small peak (not Frary Peak) I took a few more pics and then finally did my last moon pic of this raven with the moon beside it:

Of course, as I do on every trip, I took some flowers home to Ann. Here are some of them:

I didn't see any close-up bison like I have before, but I saw these mule deer across the way. They were skittish and I had to use the full 300 zoom power of the lens to capture an image of them:

It was only a little over two and a half hours before I made it to the top. Just before the top there is a place where you have to go down quite a ways and back up again. It is the steepest part of the trail. Here's a pic of the top of Frary Peak from an adjacent peak, that makes it look much easier than it is:

That image in no way shows how far you need to go down, or how challenging the climb is back up, but I finally made it to the top, as shown by this U.S.G.S. marker:

From the top you can see a long ways. You can see how low the water is in the lake. Here's a picture of that with a vast stretch of beach that isn't there when the lake is full:

Of course, there was me up there taking the pictures. I was hungry for second breakfast by then so I dug out my peanut butter sandwich (Krema Peanut butter, which is peanuts only, and blackberry preserves), and some dried apricots.

Of course, I needed more documentation that I had actually been there. I was setting up my tripod to take my own photo when a couple of young guys showed up. I went out of my comfort zone and asked if one of them would be willing to take my picture. I guess I asked the right guy because he told me after he took a few shots that he actually had tried to take people's portraits for a living, but it wasn't steady work because too many people had digital cameras these days. Anyway, here's one of the pics he took of me:

So, I actually did make it to the top. All in all it was a great early morning hike. I'm not sure if I burned off an entire pound. I was tempted to stop at the gym where I normally weigh myself and see, but I would've needed to dress in my gym clothes instead of my heavy blue jeans and long johns to find out. I'll have to wait until Monday. As for the lens, it did pretty well until the little switch on it that switches it from "Normal" to "Macro" got stuck on "Macro". I couldn't fix it and don't know if that's permanent or not. I will have to work on it later.

If you go to Frary Peak, or anywhere on Antelope Island, take bug spray. I got up there early enough that I missed most of the biting no-see-ums on the lower part of the trail, but everyone I met coming up was complaining about them, and they were there in force the last time I hiked that trail. Consider this a fair warning!

Frary Peak on Friday

I'm hiking Frary Peak on Antelope Island on Friday. I'm hoping to get some nice pics of the sunrise. I've done this hike before. Lots of bison and bugs. I will give a full report when done.

Acronyms

Harvey and Shelia. This is for my friend who likes acronyms. Enjoy.

Do I look stupid?

A few months ago, I decided that I needed to become more familiar with a .45 auto that was in my possession. Being a little nervous about firing it for the first time, and not wanting to look like an idiot if I couldn't figure it out (I had never actually fired a semi-auto handgun), I went out into the desert, found a nice hillside, and put up my target.

Walking back about 25 feet, I turned and pulled the action back on the gun which should've loaded a cartridge into the chamber, and I thought it did. I aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing. I tried over and over to figure out what was happening, pulling the action back repeatedly and repeatedly trying to fire the gun. Still nothing. In frustration, I walked back to my vehicle and got in, then went and did some other things while I was out there.

The thing with  the gun is that I had taken it many times on campouts just in case there was a bear rampaging through the camp. Luckily for me, there was no bear, or I would've had the nicest gun-shaped club in existence with which to fight it off.

In talking to a friend, I decided that I might take the gun to a gunsmith to find out if something was wrong with it, but instead I just put it away to wait for spring or to wait for someone who knew guns to take a look at it for me. Finally, I approached another friend of mine who I found out happened to work at the Lee Kay Center, a local gun range. He offered to take the gun with him to work and to try and fire it.

Here's what he found out. He too was unable to fire the weapon. After talking to several people there who know guns, they deduced that it was because the magazine wasn't long enough and the mechanism wasn't grabbing a cartridge out of it because of that. When I had acquired the gun from a family member, the magazine had been missing. I had taken the gun into a local gun store and asked them to match up a magazine that would work with this gun. I had bought the one they suggested. I didn't know that the particular guy wouldn't know what he was talking about.

But at least it wasn't anything I did, so if I looked stupid out in the desert, it was because someone sold me the wrong part. Now I just need to get the right one.

Weight loss, first update

Although I've been fighting a new schedule and cold weather, my exercise program is going well, and my eating habits, despite Easter, are on a better track than they were two weeks ago. I started working on my goal of 184 or less a little over a week ago, and at that time I weighed in at 193. Today I tipped the scales at 192. Not much, but I'm heading in the right direction. I will be getting a fitness assessment soon, which will measure my recovery heart rate, body fat percentage, flexibility and several other factors. I will post the results of that when it's done. That will give me a good basis from which to compare results.

More 70s music

From the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt's "Blue Bayou". A classic.

For the love of music

I suppose that one of my greatest passions in life is music. I like playing it myself, though I'm not very good at it, and I like listening to many kinds of great music. My early life was filled with music as my parents would both sit down and play the piano frequently, and they liked to listen to music in the house. My dad would listen mostly to country music--Grand Old Opry kind of stuff--and my mom was quite often found watching television programs that featured musical performers.

As a teenager, I went to several concerts. I think my first actual concert was before I could drive and it was to Gordon Lightfoot, up at the Special Events Center (now called the Huntsman Center) at the University of Utah. Lightfoot was in his heyday back then. During the seventies, I went to Styx (twice), Kansas (twice), Billy Joel, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I wasn't a heavy concert goer, and I think these may have been the only concerts I attended. Nevertheless, they were all amazing.

My first real rock concert was Kansas and it was at the Terrace Ballroom in Salt Lake.

Kansas was just becoming famous and they were on their Leftoverture tour. The Terrace, and the photo shows was a small venue, with a low ceiling and a lack of ventilation. A lot of folks there were smoking pot, including those of us (me) who never took a drag on a joint. The air was just so thick with the stuff that no one who was there could have helped inhaling it. The concert was amazing. It wasn't until years later that I thought that I may have thought it was even more amazing than it actually was because of the smoke I'd been inhaling in that arena. Still, I've always loved Kansas since then.

I only went to one concert at the Terrace, but I loved that small, intimate venue. Concerts later at the old Salt Palace just didn't have the same feel, nor did they have the same cloud of marijuana smoke--oh, there was smoke, but it rose a bit higher in the vast heights of that arena.

Any concert memories you have?

Morning takes

Sometimes, it's just tough to get up in the morning. Ever have that feeling? Right now, I'm so in need of a vacation. I do have one scheduled for the week following Memorial Day, but that seems a long ways off. I have no plans for that week as we have some money issues right now, but at least it will be time away from work.

And, I will most likely go and do some local hikes and some other outdoorsy stuff on some of those days, so even though I won't be doing a road trip that will take me away for several days, I will be doing some fun things.

I think we all need a break from the day to day routines we have. Well, most people do. I am a firm adherent to the "find a job doing something you love and you'll never work a day in your life" mentality. I still need to figure out how to get hired at a wage that will pay the bills, for doing something like hiking, fishing, or four-wheeling. And how that job being away from home will work with a spouse who is largely incapacitated.

Sometimes you just do what you need to do and take your breaks when you can get them.

Diet and holidays

One thing that's fairly obvious is that it's much more difficult to maintain a diet on a holiday than it is on a regular old day or week. Easter is no exception. But this isn't something to stew over (pun intended). In addition to their literal meaning of "holy days", holidays are meant to be times to have good food and good times with friends and family.

The question is, how do we deal with staying on top of our eating habits when we have holidays in our lives? I saw a sign the other day that said something like, "no amount of hard work can make up for bad eating habits." And that's the key. Eating habits. The most important thing is that your habits of eating well are entrenched and that you get right back to them after your holiday splurges.

The occasional piece of carrot cake isn't going to hurt you. It's the daily eating of fast food, junk foods, candy and desserts, and soft drinks that will take its toll on your health.

So don't be afraid to eat that piece of pie today. Just don't make it two pieces. And get back to eating healthy tomorrow.

Health and fitness goals

This week, I began my outdoor running for the year. I'm kind of a wuss now, and I don't really like running outside in the winter anymore. Too much opportunity to slip on unseen ice and face injury, and for pete's sake, it can get just too darn cold.


My work schedule actually precipitated a complete change in my workout schedule. I now have to split my workout into running in the morning and strength training after work. It's either that, or give up writing in the mornings, which I'm loathe to do.


All of this is part of my goal to get to 184 by July 1^st. Right now, I weigh in at 193. It fluctuates though, because at the beginning of the week, I weighed 191, but yesterday, 193, and I haven't eaten a lot of food. The body normally fluctuates because of wather intake and other factors, so that doesn't worry me. For the past few weeks I'd been at 193-194, so the 191 kind of was an anomaly anyway.


My goal of 184 is one I chose because that's the lowest I've weighed in the past ten years or so and it was the weight I was at when I did the tremendous Half Dome hike in Yosemite National Park. It was the weight I was at when I felt the most in shape that I have been in in quite some time. I will shoot for that, even though I realize that weight actually is a bad way of figuring out general health. It is one way, one factor, and that is all. It's possible that since I'm concurrently doing strength training that I will build muscle which will add weight and my general fitness won't be expressed by a loss in weight. I'm allowing for the possibility and I will know if I'm in great shape or not regardless of my actual weight. I also expect to get my body fat percentage down below 15 percent. I'm really not a fanatic about getting my body fat percentage down to zero or close to it, especially after reading about this study a few years ago: Extra Weight Leads to Longevity, but a healthy lifestyle leads to greater happiness and greater resistance to injury and many kinds of diseases.


I'm a firm believer though that what we eat is more important than exercise in maintaining a healthy life, and in weight loss. I've already begun the diet transformation that will be a part of meeting my goal. I'm not going to totally cut out things that are bad for me, but they will be the exception and not the rule. For snacks, I will more often grab an apple or some other kind of fruit or vegetable, instead of grabbing a cookie or brownie. I'm beginning to train myself in doing so, and wise food choices are the real key to fat loss.


I will post my progress here from time to time.

I would call this a defective product

It never fails to amaze me how some products just don't function the way that they should. Here's one example. We recently bought a dry erase board so that we could mount it to our door (made of metal) and write down important things (like "we need toilet paper" or "give Randy the keys"). The board we ordered even came with a couple of markers, some handy magnets for posting notes, and with magnets mounted to the back so that it would easily attach to a metal surface--like the kitchen door. The problem is, the magnets aren't strong enough to support the board when the door opens and closes, so, when you close the door, it collapses to the floor. How difficult would it have been to have provided some stronger magnets with the board, thus alleviating this problem? I'm thinking the same thing would occur had it been attached to a fridge as the door opens and closes on the fridge as well. Who actually tests these products?

I'm not actually trying to hang a piano from the door, for cryin' out loud. Just a dry erase board that weighs less than a pound. But what do I know? Maybe it's designed to collapse to the floor so that someone will actually notice the board, and then maybe notice what has been scrawled on it...

A fine man passes

One of the finest men I ever knew passed away a few days ago, and I just found out about it. Renn Robinson was one of my Scout leaders as a young man. He always greeted me with a hearty handshake and a "How are you doing, young man?" He could tell stories like no other and was always a kind and friendly man. The world will be less without Renn on it.

Running...now we start.

I just started my outside running this year by running a measly 15 minutes in the dark. It was difficult. Number one, it's difficult running in the dark, but my new work schedule makes it impractical to run in the afternoons--especially since within just a couple of months it will be the hottest time of the year. Number two, it's different running on pavement/concrete, than it is running on a treadmill. Instead of pacing yourself by the steady rolling of a belt, you need to pace yourself by feeling your breathing and your heart rate. If you're not used to it, it takes time.
So, it was hard, but not that hard, and if I'd have allowed myself more time after writing to run, I could've gone longer. I'm not sure what pace I was running--likely ten minute miles.
My advice is this: if you are beginning an exercise program, or changing one up, take it slow at first. Work your way into it for a few days. Adjust.
It's important to exercise, but not at the expense of injury due to too much enthusiasm and biting off more than you can chew.
Now tomorrow, I will go longer, and stick to streets where the streetlamps are working, but I will begin slowly and build up speed as my body feels like moving. That's how it's done.

Just because I like R. Carlos Nakai

I post this for no other reason other than for your enjoyment. I like R. Carlos Nakai's music. So serene and peaceful.

Fixed NCAA?

There's something fishy about the NCAA basketball tournament. First, last night in the Sweet Sixteen, Utah's best player, Delon Wright gets saddled with a third foul in the first half, that really wasn't much of a foul. Here's an article on it: clickety-click
Duke went on to win the game.
Then, Saturday night, Arizona's best player, Brandon Ashley, gets saddled with early foul trouble on a questionable call.
Isn't it strange that after two number one teams (Duke and Wisconsin) make it to the Sweet Sixteen and  Elite Eight respectively, that a couple of questionable calls largely helps to decide who wins the game...when major stars of the losing teams were forced to sit out for major portions of both games? Doesn't it seem like they're trying to get the number one seeds to make it to the Final Four?
And then three number ones make it to the Final Four...as they should've if they were actually number ones, but the road seemed to be made easier for this to happen, just by making sure some PAC-12 stars got in early foul trouble.
I'm not saying that's the case. It could've been just circumstances. After all, Ashley was plagued by early foul trouble all year. But one has to admit that some of the refereeing has been less than stellar at crucial moments in certain games. Either there was a deliberate attempt to make bad calls on opposing teams stars, or the officiating was just plain bad. In either case, it needs to be fixed.

Signs

For the past few weeks, Arctic Circle Drive-in has had a sign up on their marquee that says: "We only serve real halibut". I wonder how many fish actually walk into that place, and how many of them get turned down for service because they aren't "real halibut". I can't believe the discrimination these days.

The value of hope

I have found that having hope is the driving force behind life. And that without hope, the road turns to despair. This become particularly important in helping those with long-term illnesses keep up the will to live.

Living, for all of us, has its challenges, but for one who faces each day with the prospect of pain, or the haze of drug-induced pain killers, and no end in sight except eventual death, well, that is far more challenging than everyday life for most of us. This is where something to hope for can help the person with a chronic illness cope.

If they have big plans for the future, something to look forward to, they can place their trust in that hope. If we who care of them take away that hope through our choices or actions, we cause them to drift down the road to despair. We need to be very careful when we make life decisions to include those who need hope the most, just to survive, to continue to have the will to keep fighting. If we don't think about the effect our decisions make have on our loved ones with chronic illnesses, then we can end up hurting them in ways we really didn't know we would.

The best solution then is to help them put their trust in God, but also to not take away their dreams. It's often a difficult and impossible conundrum, when we feel we must act a certain way, but that way seems to put their hope in jeopardy.

Life is a challenge, but people matter. Putting others above ones self is the most important. I'm a firm believer that once we do that, all things will eventually work out, even though it may take much longer than we thought. We can still treasure our own hopes and dreams in our hearts as we care for our loved ones.

Say good-bye to an icon...

Amidst the hoopla and the roaring crowds for the men's NCAA basketball tournament, nearly unnoticed by most of the folks gathered to cheer for their favorite teams, was the death of an icon of the sport of basketball. "Hot Rod" Hundley, most recently known for being the play by play announcer for the Utah Jazz for 35 years, died Friday at the age of 80.

Legendary, every Jazz fan remembers the "leapin' leaners" and the "frozen ropes" and the "yo yo'in at the top of the key"--descriptive lingo coined by the one and only Hundley. His husky, Texas-accented voice brought the games to life for thousands of fans. Who could ever forget "another gray hair on the head of Jerry Sloan" or "You gotta love it, baby"?

He lived and died with fortunes of  the team he worked for, his voice edged in emotion when they lost to MJ and the Chicago Bulls in two consecutive NBA finals, and his voice tingling with elation and excitement whenever the Jazz won a big game.

No Jazz fan will ever forget the simulcasts, before the Jazz got financially well-off enough to pay both a radio broadcaster and a television crew. Hot Rod handled both jobs efficiently and with aplomb.

As a broadcaster, he was missed when he hung it up. As a Utah Jazz icon, he will be missed by all who knew him. Guys like that, who really care, don't just fall from the sky. Folks like that, who live with passion, are the kind who make the world better, even if it's helping someone to enjoy a sport just a little bit more. They are filled with life and when they're gone, people notice. Good-bye, Hot Rod. You made my life just a little bit better by your exuberance.

Vindication

I blogged about this several weeks ago, and it looks like I had good reason to do so: E-Cigarettes have 10x more cancer causing ingredients than regular cigs

Getting the garden ready

Yesterday on my day off, instead of going out and having fun, I did yard work. Yes, it's that time of year, and since I've sacrificed much of my time in the evenings to watching the NCAA basketball tournament, my time to actually do meaningful stuff is on my days off. Thankfully, March Madness doesn't last that long.

So Ann and I drove down to Riverton to IFA to pick up some blackberry plants. Just last week we had gone to the other IFA and they were out of them (they did have one left, which I bought). I made sure I called first. When I got there, they had a lot to choose from and I ended up purchasing two more blackberry plants, a boysenberry plant, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a huckleberry plant. I snagged that one right up, huckleberries being one of my favorite berries and all, though I'm thinking that I may not have success with it actually living. I remember quite a few years ago, Larry Sagers on the KSL Greenhouse program mentioned that it's very difficult to get huckleberry plants to actually grow in the home garden. Most of them are found in the wilds.

There's actually a place up near Bear Lake that has some huckleberries growing naturally. To the best of my knowledge, it's the closest place to my home that they are growing, and it's quite a drive, so if you don't time it right, you either find them still unripe, or you find that the bears have eaten all of them. If you really time it wrong, you find the bears still there.

I got those planted and also got the metal sheets for my raised beds cut. It actually wasn't as difficult as I imagined it to be--the saber saw worked well for the task. I'll still need to build the frames and fill them up with a combination of sandy loam and compost before they'll be ready for planting. Yeah, I'm thinking the cold season crops aren't going to happen this year.

The rest of the day I did just a few things, including moping because I hadn't actually taken the day off and done something fun.

Secretly though, I enjoyed getting those blackberry and that huckleberry plant in the ground. I'm looking forward to some good berries in a couple of years. And next week, I'm actually planning on getting out and hiking on my day off, so there's great things in store in the near future.

Humor for the day

This is about a year old, but I saw it for the first time today. Check out this link: Dad fills out questionaire for 11-month-old at daycare

Check out this saxy music

A time dilemma

I'm not good with adjusting to schedule changes. Saturday, my work schedule changed from starting at 7:30, to starting at 7:00. This may not seem like much, and over all, I like the idea of getting off work a half an hour earlier, but it puts me in a dilemma. The dilemma is when to write and when to get my exercise in. About a year ago, we changed from an 8:00 starting time to a 7:30 starting time, and I still haven't fully adjusted, and now, I have to adjust again. I do my best writing in the morning, mainly because there are too many distractions for me when it comes to writing in the evening. On the other hand, going to the gym after work is harder, because sometimes I work overtime and the need to get home outweighs staying until 6:00 at the gym to complete a workout.


My workout is generally completed in an hour, but there is drive time, and doing it after work puts me in the middle of rush hour traffic trying to get home. I'm thinking that I'm going to end up splitting my workout and running in the morning (I will have to anyway once it gets hot), and then doing my strength training after work. Running in the morning will still allow me to write for a while, so I think that may be the best possible solution. I'll need to be disciplined to do it, especially since I will need to get up at a consistent time, but that will be possible. The only thing I worry about is running in the dark. I haven't done that for years, and don't have the reflective gear for it. Of course, that can be easily purchased.


So there will be that, and I'll also try to get some cooperation around here with doing some writing at night. My computer just may have to be off-limits to the grandkids and others unless I'm watching a game or movie, or playing a board game with Ann. Of course, this time of year brings a number of things that take away time that could be used for writing—yard work that must be done, and of course the outdoorsy stuff that I always do and that nearly always takes precedence.


I'm glad my time dilemmas are only between things I want todo and not between things that I have to do.

I'm feeling a bit sucky today

Some days, you just don't feel all that great. It can be a physical thing, or it can be something emotional or mental. Sometimes you can't even do anything about it. Like now. For me.

We all feel down sometimes. And we all need to know how to climb back up. I know. You've felt down before too. Maybe you're even feeling so now. So, now, how to climb back up. That's the million dollar question and there often aren't easy answers.

Here's my suggestion. Grab your life by the scruff of the neck and make it do what you want it to do. That's it. Be proactive. Don't wait. Do something. Maybe knocking yourself off dead-center is what you need to do in order to get out of the blues.

It's what I need. Or at least, part of what I need. The other part lies down the road, and only time will cure that part.

Until then, I (and you) need to make the best of what God has given us. We all do. It's those who can do so who end up living happy lives filled with great things. And that's what I want.

Cats are strange

Sometimes my cat Scout is frankly, a moron. First there are the times when she hops up, strides in front of the monitor, walks on the keyboard, and prevents me from interacting with websites. Pay attention to me, she seems to say, not that screen. It can be irritating and endearing at the same time.

The thing that takes the cake though is this morning. I just happened to be in the bathroom, urinating (Sorry for the graphic description. You can stop reading now if you want. But come on, we are all adults here.). Scout hopped up on the bathtub edge, then walked over onto the front part of the toilet, right underneath the stream, and stood there. What was I supposed to do with that situation?

You make the call...

It's great mailman weather

Spring is  here, and with it comes one of the best times of year for mail delivery. I should know--that's my job. There's nothing like being outside when the weather is nice, but not too hot. As an added bonus, I got to deliver an hour off of a walking route yesterday. Now driving around in a truck all day isn't bad in this kind of weather, but getting to do a walk in it is amazing. Walking all day kind of defeats the purpose of enjoying it, but just doing an hour? That I can handle. I used to walk all day delivering mail, up until five or six years ago. It kept me in great shape. The thing is, when I went to do the things I loved to do after walking all week, I didn't want to do them. Hiking doesn't sound fun after packing around mail for 27 miles in a typical week. I finally took advantage of my seniority and bid on a "mounted" route, which is basically another name for a driving route, and presto, my hikes became much more fun.

I never expected to be still delivering mail after this long. In August, I'll have worked for the USPS for 32 years. That's a long time. I'm not really a big fan of government jobs, in fact, I've supported legislation that would be detrimental to my own job, simply to cut down on governmental waste. I'm not a hypocrite when it comes to my ideals and how they apply to limited government. That being said, the need to put a roof over my family's collective heads, and food on our table kept me doing the job for longer than I'd planned. I'd always thought I could go back and finish my degree at the University of Utah, and never realized that there was some kind of statute of limitations on the courses I took. I actually went back to school for a few months to Salt Lake Community College, but again, the family needed my income more than I needed another job and I stopped attending. I learned a lot of math though, and some computer skills.

When all is said and done though, I have other options. I've got one novel completed (not a very good one), and another one that I've completed 58,000 words on. When I get that done, it may not make me rich, but it may help me to end my postal career a bit earlier than previously planned. I'm not counting on it, but I am going to try and finish it to see what will happen. Right now, it's a pretty awesome story line, with a lot of exciting scenes, although most of those scenes have kinks in them that need to be worked out. I'm estimating that it will be around 80,000 words long when completed.

The thing is, delivering mail has its perks. For one thing, the nice parts of the year and being outside. Another advantage to being outside is to not have to hang out with the managers. There are very few with whom I'd like to hang out--too much watching you--you know, the kind of feeling you get when the boss just walked into the room? I know that feeling from both sides, btw. "GG" was the last manager with whom I actually liked hanging out. So "GG", if somehow you're out there reading this, let it be known that you were a cool person to hang out with.

Okay. It's another spring day today, with temps in the low 70s. I think I'm going to wear my mailman shorts today.

Hiking near Heber, Utah

Heber Valley, Utah, is a place where many choose to stay for family reunions, etc. Heber itself is really a gateway to numerous outdoor adventures. If you're an avid hiker, Heber is a location that makes hiking in both the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains accessible. Within just an hour or so drive time, you can be into the heart of the Uintas, up along the Mirror Lake Highway (Highway 150), or up along the scenic Alpine Loop Road, with access to Mt. Timpanogos in the Wasatch Range and more. To say nothing of various walks and short hikes along the edges of the Heber Valley itself. For some great hiking in the Uintas, check out this link: http://www.utah.com/heber/hiking_trails.htm

Of the hikes mentioned in the preceding link, I've done the Bald Mountain Summit, the
Cascade Springs Interpretive Trails (some of them), Crystal Lake Area Hikes, the
Currant Creek Nature Trail, and the Provo River Waterfalls.

Some comments on the hikes mentioned above. The Bald Mountain hike is one of the most spectacular hikes in Utah when you factor in how easy it is to do. Within just an hour or so from the trailhead, you are treated to an amazing view of the many surrounding lakes and peaks of the High Uinta country. Incidentally, you can also join my "High Uinta Lovers" page on Facebook. Here's the link: Clickety-click

Another one in the high Uintas are the various trails that can be taken via the Crystal Lake Trailhead area, just off the road that heads to Trial Lake. I've gone on the trail that heads over to Weir, Duck, Fire, Beaver, and other lakes, as well as the other trailhead from the same parking lot that heads over toward "the Notch", Lovenia Lake, and other spectacular lakes. Amazing scenery along any of these trails, but if you can make it as far as Fire Lake, you're really in for a treat.

A short one, just off Highway 150, is the Provo River Waterfalls Trail. If you are short on time, this is an enjoyable short hike that basically parallels the highway.

The Cascades Springs Trails are nice shaded trails past, of course, Cascade Springs. You won't get a lot of exertion out of this one, but you will enjoy the peaceful nature of the trail. And it's beautiful in the fall. Great for adults and young children.

The Currant Creek Nature Trail winds its way up from the Currant Creek Campground facility, through aspens and then some evergreens to top out with a great view of the reservoir below and the surrounding countryside. This too is great for both adults and young children.

Another great hike is Mt. Timpanogos from the Aspen Grove Trailhead. On this hike, you can go all the way to the top, or do a shorter hike up to the waterfalls. To get to the trailhead, drive out of Heber down Provo Canyon to the turn-off to Sundance Ski Resort and the Alpine Loop Road. Just up past Sundance and a bunch of cabins, you will find the trailhead. Here's a link to a good description of the hike: Mt. Timpanogos, and a map that shows the route to the trailhead: Route: Heber City to Aspen Grove Trailhead

Remember, that most of the high country in Utah has a lot of mosquitoes, until about mid-August when the colder nights of approaching autumn seems to get them on the run. Take bug spray with you for sure if you're going earlier in the season.

Finally, for the real adventurous, and you're going to need a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle to even make it to the trailhead, there's Pittsburg Lake, up American Fork Canyon. Here's a description of the trail, written by yours truly: Pittsburg Lake Trail. This is a very cool place. On second thought, I will be your guide. I'm always up for a hike to Pittsburg Lake. Then again, I'm always wanting to go to any of these places. Utah is just amazing.

Saying what you mean

Have you ever finished a conversation and then minutes after hanging up the phone (I still say that, but who hangs up a cell?) thought of some things you wanted to say, but couldn't think of at the time?


I think all of us have. We have all been part of a two-way conversation in which not all is said that one would want to say, and it is only later that we think of something we wished we'd said, but didn't think of at the time—and then the moment is gone.


We often cannot go back and fill in what we left out.


It's kind of like when you drive past a place that holds memories for you. You can't go back and physically be there again to relive that time in reality. But God gave us memories for a reason. We remember the bad as well as the good, and luckily for me, I remember the good a whole lot better and more frequently than I remember the bad.


There are places I go that trigger a sudden memory of something good. Physically, I'm still in the present, but mentally—my mind can recall my favorite times with amazing clarity. That my friends, is called a blessing.


The same thing holds true for a good conversation with a good friend. And, you never know. You may get a chance to say the things you wanted to say and forgot to say. Not all conversations end permanently.


We've all heard the sad stories of people who wish they'd have told a loved one how much they loved them, and then that person dies and that moment is lost for good.


Most times though, we reunite with those very people with whom we wanted to say more. The moment may be gone forever for saying certain things, but the chance to talk again nearly always happens. And then again, you may find the right moment to say what you should have said, in a conversation minutes, days, or even years before. If you get that chance, take it. If you get the chance to tell someone you love them, take it. It too is a blessing.

My favorite song about the moon

We had a full moon this week, and it was beautiful. Here is my favorite song that includes the word "moon". Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

Great songs are part of my life

Music is very much a part of my life. I use it to express my feelings, to lift my mood, to pump me up. While there are some great songs out there, I put In My Life  by the Beatles very high on my own personal list. Enjoy!

Snowshoeing and life

There are times when I feel guilty just for being healthy. This morning, I left my wife, Ann, to go snowshoeing. For the past few days she's been having a terrible time with her RA flareups and extremely dry eyes, both at the same time. “I can deal with one,” she said, “but not both at the same time.”

I offered to stay home with her. “No,” she said. “There's no reason you should stay home and be miserable, just because I am.”

The thing is, she's right—and she's wrong. While there's really nothing I can do to help her—for me, I hate feeling helpless to help--there's something to be said for staying home for the sake of sympathy.

I was gone for five hours. I traveled through some beautiful scenic countryside, up the road to Guardsman's Pass in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I got a lot of good exercise and breathed in a lot of clean air. My blood was pumping and my sweat glands were working proficiently. My legs began to burn as I pushed on toward the pass, but I finally made it. I stood there taking in the view for a few minutes, talked to a couple of snowmobilers who had made their way up to join me, then headed back down.

The rest of the afternoon I've been there for Ann. I'm still trying to figure out how to help the eye situation—I did call her eye doctor and arranged an appointment for next week—and I massaged the area in her neck that's been giving her fits through this flareup. She needed help with her shower and lotion put on afterward. I was happy to do it. Sometimes the strong can only do so much to help the weak and suffering, and the rest must be left up to God and time.

It can be a frustrating experience being unable to help someone you love through their trials. There's something I need to learn from this, and maybe it's just that I can't make everything all better. And maybe it's that even though I can't make things better, I can be a support and a help through the trials. When it comes right down to it, the help we give or don't give in the times of need is what makes us good people or indifferent people. I hope I'm never indifferent to the suffering of my loved ones. That would be a tragedy indeed.

When idiocy reigns

We are ruled by a collection of idiots. The latest, Marie Harf's bizarre suggestion that all ISIS needs to calm down is employment. Those of you who believe such nonsense have such a warped sense of good and evil in the world that it's nearly laughable. Harf's amusing if not so dangerous statement is just the tip of the iceberg of the downright stupidity of the Obama administration. From Eric Holder's statements on the recent ruling on Obama's governmental fiat on amnesty for illegals, to the President himself refusing to call a terrorist a terrorist and using moral relativistic remarks during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, we are heading down a dark path from which, if cooler heads do not prevail, we are going to rue the day we took such a path. For a more realistic view of what's transpiring in the world, here's an excellent essay by Graeme Wood: clickety-click

Great day skiing at Alta

I went skiing with my brother, Mike at Alta today. It was awesome! We had a few inches of fresh snow, and the sun was shining, and I only dumped it once.  Here's the pic he took:

One thing I believe in is love...

I just saw this great video about the love Irish Poet, Thomas Moore had for his wife. I love and appreciate great stories of love and wonderful music. Here it is combined in one amazing video: Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms

Share this with those you love on Valentine's Day!

Character lines

“Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.”- Will Rogers

Turning back the clock. It isn't easy, nor is it really necessary. I love the Will Rogers quote above. People should wear with honor the lines, scars, or whatever they've earned or even just acquired in their lives. These are the signs that someone has made it through, and often the signs of how tough it was to do so. Is there ever really a finish line? I don't think so. There are always new challenges, new adventures, new highways to travel, and while we're on them, the old ones we've already bested, or that for a short time, bested us, travel with us.

Another quote I've always like is this one by Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” 

Amen!

Dreams

I woke up about 3 am this morning and tried to go back to sleep because I had gone to be late. I was up for about an hour and finally fell asleep. While asleep I dreamed that I was out walking by a pond and saw some small frogs swimming in the water. I hadn't seen a live frog in years in nature, and I wanted to catch one. I reached in the water and caught one on my first attempt. I scooped it up and put it in a container, then decided to go for one more. I really wanted my grandkids to see the frogs. There were other strange portions of the dream. I really don't know if dreams have meanings, but it seems awfully interesting that I was trying to catch a frog and that I hadn't seen one in years in my wakeful state.
Maybe it's just telling me that there's a goal out there that needs to be achieved, or maybe someone that I haven't seen in a long time that I'd like to see. Or maybe I just wish I could be a kid again and catch frogs.

Thoughts on vacationing

Now, here's my first post vacation blog entry. I think that overall the vacation did both of us a lot of good and we did some fun things, ate too much rich food, and had a lot of time to talk to each other, which is always a plus. We were actually sad to come back to real life, and I'm having a hard time getting back into working...laziness breeds laziness.

On the other hand, I'd have much rather spent a lot more time hiking on my trip than driving. Driving is hard on Ann, but hiking is much harder. Because of the severity of her rheumatoid arthritis, she can't really hike at all, but she still enjoys seeing the beauty of nature. Long rides though are not good for her either. It's really best if we can get to a place where she can stay put, go out for short drives, have something to do when she sends me out to do my thing, and be comfortable. Cheap motels are generally not possible anymore, because the chairs just don't work. When we went to Kingman, Arizona last year, we ended up having to switch hotels after the first night because the one we had scheduled just didn't cut it for her comfort. Thank goodness that the original motel was willing to give us a refund. Ofcourse, I promised to give them a good review on Trip Advisor. On that trip we moved to a Best Western and it was plush, more expensive, but worth it to make sure she was okay.

We have another vacation scheduled down in southern Colorado in August and I'm hoping that their furniture is good enough that she can be comfortable. This usually requires an arm chair that has a high back, or a recliner that is higher off the ground than some of them are, so that she can get out of it if her knees are flaring up. I will check into this as far as possible before we go so that we can take measures to ensure she has something comfortable to sit in.

That's what we really have to look for in vacation planning now. If she's going to be miserable, it just isn't worth going, for her, or for me.

Day 9

Sometimes there are unexpected adventures in life. Day nine of our trip, our journey home, included one such journey. But first, we got up and kind of leisurely got ready to leave our motel in Kanab. We stayed at the Victorian Inn as I had mentioned in an earlier post, and when we left, our first stop was to go and collect some large slabs of sandstone for future use in yard decorating. I had collected two earlier in the week and Ann wanted two more, so we drove down into Arizona, past Freedonia, turning off highway 89A and onto highway 22, back to approximately where I had collected the previous slabs. We found a couple more and headed on our way. Our plan was to take a scenic route, up Johnson Canyon that we had driven up the previous day, and then take a 31 mile dirt road called Skutumpah Road. Skutumpah was rated a 1 on the easiness scale for dirt road travel, and that's as easy as it gets. Two-thirds of the way in, we were in for an unexpected surprise when suddenly the road was wet--mud, then snow and ice. It looked dangerous as the road rounded a hairpin turn and headed down a shelf, covered in snow. We didn't want to turn back at that point as that would add hours to our travel time. This part of the drive takes people into breathtaking vistas on mountainsides. On the downhill side of the road in many cases there was a foot-wide berm, also made of mud, that if we happened to slide into wasn't going to stop us from going off the edge. But in many cases, going to close to the uphill side would create a situation where we might slide into a ditch and get high centered. It was a bit nerve-wracking, especially once we were on the ice. Fun though. It's the kind of road that shows you what your vehicle and tires are made of, and if you have the skills necessary to complete the drive. What a rush!

The snow on the road got to be at least six inches deep in places. This photo shows a bit of the snow and mud.

This steep section included an ice flow. I nearly fell on my head trying to get to the back of the Yota to take the shot.

Once we negotiated the last ten miles, we were treated to vistas like this one:

Looking north from Stutumpah Road

The book had rated the scenic beauty as a 9 out of 10, but until we dared to drive that last third of the road, we didn't see anything like this. Since I'm writing this, we obviously made it. There were no further surprises on the trip, and we pulled into the driveway at around 6:45pm. All told, it was a pretty good trip.

Day 8

This was our last full day of our vacation. Tomorrow we will be heading home. We had decided to schedule an extra day in Kanab so that we could relax and do some things around that area that are fun and interesting to do. Ann wasn't feeling well in the morning so she said she'd be fine if I just took off and did some four-wheeling, which I did. I chose a route called John R. Flat Road, which was supposed to have a rating of 5 in difficulty if I started from the west, and if I started from the east it would be a 4. I decided to start from the east, and then if that went well, to try and climb the hill from the west--that had a 5 rating. Fives require high clearance four wheel drive vehicles, and usually have some rocks that are at least 9 inches high in the road that need to be negotiated. The rest of the road was driving through sand, so I had to take some air out of my tires. Though there were some nice views along the way (this route is near the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument), most of it was sandy roads through junipers.

Most of the way was a sandy road through sagebrush and junipers.

After driving through the sand for nine miles, with no problems, I finally got to the west end where the hard part was. Going down it was a piece of cake. There were two routes, both were supposed to be equally hard, but the route on the right looked easier, so I tried that first. There were some ledges, but I easily negotiated this road and made it to the bottom without trouble. I went back up the same route with no trouble. Then I decided to try the left route that looked tougher. It was tougher, with a couple of ledges that were pretty high that I needed to drop from, one right after the other. When I tried to go back up, I got stuck in the deep sand at the bottom of the ledges and had to back up. I found that I had accidentally shifted back into two-wheel drive. No wonder I bogged down! I shifted into low-range four-wheel drive, second gear, and made it up without a problem. I came down the same way once again. It sure was fun!
After that, Ann and I went to lunch, then went on a drive up Johnson Canyon Road, which skirted the western edge of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It was pretty along that edge for a few miles, and then we left the Monument area and were once again driving through junipers.
We went back, played backgammon (which we were both relearning because it had been years since we'd played), then I took a nap. We each had a salad for dinner.
When dinner was done, I went out into the darkness and experimented with taking some pics of the stars. Here is my best one:

That's it. I didn't have my best tripod, so I was wedging the camera with a jacket trying to get pics of the Milky Way. It didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped, but for my first real attempt, I was fairly pleased. They say also that the best time to take pics of the Milky Way is in the summer, because it "rises" in the wee hours of the morning in the winter. I will give it another try in the summer for sure.

Day 7...

It was time to be on the road and headed home. Since we had stayed up so late the night before, we got off to a late start and didn't leave Tom's until after nine. We had been seeing this little restaurant called "Hoosiers Cafe" and yesterday when Ann was going to Great Clips to get her hair cut, I noticed that Hoosiers had a sign that said "voted best breakfast in Mesa". I told Ann that we should try that on our way out of town and she agreed. So this morning we stopped there. It was as good as they claimed. I had the shrimp omelet and it came with fried potatoes and a biscuit with gravy. The omelet was amazing and came with fresh salsa. I gave it a 9 out of 10. The rest of the food was good too, and we ordered a couple of their cinnamon rolls for eating later on the road. I actually gave them lower marks at 5 out of 10.

We actually didn't get out on the road until almost 11 and our first stop would be at Jerome, which is a small mining town that has become an artsy, touristy, restauranty place. We had been there years ago with the kids and I wanted to see it again. I made the mistake of stopping in the museum...Ann stayed in the car and wrote in her journal. The museum had a $5 charge to get in and was pretty much a typical mining history museum. I would have enjoyed it if Ann would have felt like coming in, but as it was, I worried about her waiting outside the entire time I was in there, and so I just rushed through it, certainly not getting my five bucks worth. Another thing is, if you've seen one mining museum, you've pretty much seen them all, except the names of the mine owners change. For what it's worth, it's better to read up about a place you intend on visiting before you go, and then spend the extra time actually walking the streets. Ann couldn't walk the streets either, so I walked up and down both sides of the street, quickly, looking through windows, wishing I could spend more time--I think I could've spent at least three hours there--and then after I ran up a flight of thirty or so concrete stairs, bought some fudge and we headed out of town. I'll say this, Jerome is certainly worth a visit and I will try and go back some day.

We decided to take the route north that would take us through Sedona. We'd been through there years ago, but I had forgotten how beautiful it was. We stopped and took a few pictures and headed on our way. We would be stopping at Kanab for the night and knew that if we didn't get moving, we'd get to our motel after check-in hours were over. We made it at a little after nine to our motel, the Victorian Inn in Kanab. And finally, daily internet access!