Another jam packed weekend

I feel like with the end of summer and the short fall we have around here we need to pack alot of activities into a short period of time. This weekend was no exception.
Saturday schedule:
I had to work a bit in the morning, so we packed the family and came into town, so we could leave right after I was done. After I was done in the office, we headed out for a hike in town.
After the hike, we had lunch and headed for Ogden. In Ogden, we hit up the Air Force Museum and then the Eccles Dinosaur Park. After the park, we hit the Harvest Festival in downtown Ogden where I had a bike race (last of the season). I raced (the kids slept) and then we hit the Rooster's Brew Pub with some friends for dinner after the race. Whew!!!

We slept in on Sunday morning. I woke up a little bit earlier and got in a couple hour mountain bike ride. After lunch, I took the kids and headed up to the mountains to do a hike and see the changing aspen leaves. We got back home and I hit the golf course for 9 holes. We were going to go into town to the last Park Silly Market which was going to 10pm. We just didn't have the energy. Colleen and I opened a beer a sat down to watch TV.

The shorter days can't stop us!!

With the days getting shorter, it's getting tougher to play golf, hike, ride, etc after I get home from work. So Dekker and I haven't hiked in a few days. On Tuesday night, he asked if he could go hiking at night and see the stars. I said, "Sure." So around 8pm, Dekker and I headed to Pinebrook. It's our old neighborhood and has some of Dekker's favorite trails. The trails are also densely forested and have a large moose population (with bear and a mountain lion or two). But off we go. I don't mind seeing moose during the day, but spooking one (or having it spook me) at night is a different story. I was a bit more scared than Dekker. We talked allot and very loudly. Anyways, we headed out with our head lamps on and did a little hike. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of stars. We saw the Milky Way and a falling star. He wanted to do it again tonight, but I opted to hit a trail down the street from the house. It still has a fair amount of moose and elk, but its south facing and is all sage brush (ie. not thick forest). Much less chance of getting spooked (or spooking.) Dekker loves it and I'm sure we will do more this fall.

Lions fans rejoice!!!!

Matt Millen is fired. What a glorious day!!!!!!!!!!! I think I might take a vacation day today to celebrate.

Great weekend but too short

We put together a last minute trip to Moab and Telluride. After Dekker's school on Thursday, the family met me at work and we headed out across the Utah desert to Moab. We went to hike up to some dinosaur tracks and did a bit of hiking in Arches National Park and spent the night at my friends condo. The kids loved the "red rock tunnels" in Arches. We got some great photos.
We all woke up early on Friday and did the 2.5 hour drive to Telluride. It's always great to get back to our old stomping grounds. When we first drove through Main St, it felt like a scene from "The Truman Show." It was the same characters walking the street that were there when we left 8 years ago. I really can't believe it's been 8 years. All of our friends are doing great and we had a great time. The kids loved the free Gondola and if we still lived their, I think it would be a bit irritating to have to take trips on it all the time to satisfy the kids. Dekker could have ridden it all day long.
On Sunday, we stopped in Moab again. We stopped for a little lunch next to the Colorado river and some big red rock cliffs and headed back to Arches for some more hiking. What a great place!
The downer of the weekend, was the speeding ticket I got in the middle of the desert. I don't know why they even patrol there. Does it really matter if I was driving 84 in a 65 in the middle of nowhere. I think we drove a total of around 800 miles roundtrip. Between Park City and Moab, you pass only 3 towns with a total popluation of about 10,000 people. Moab to Telluride is another 130 miles with 3 more towns with a total population
of about 1,000 people.

You have got to be $%&# kidding me!!!!!!!!!

The football season is truly over. How can you (the Lions) be winning by one point with 7:00 minutes left in the 4th quarter and lose by 23!!! I hereby declare a personal boycott of all things Detroit until Matt Millen is fired. No domestic car, no coney dogs, no mullet, no Vernor's, no Faygo, no boating,no hockey, no dominoes or Little Ceaser's, no Mackinac fudge.....
I hope all of you in Michigan appreciate the difficultly it's going to be living in the mountains of Utah without these essentials. For $@&*% sake, will someone do a drive by of Millen's house.

Glad I'm not a UofM fan or I might just be a bit suicidal. They truly suck.

Now that I have that off my chest. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon in Park City. I did the Tour de Sud. It's supposed to be Tour de Suds, but since the line was too long, I only got ONE beer. The race is a mountain bike "race" that starts in town and ends 6 miles later and 2300 feet higher.
I placed a bit of a disappointing 7th (out of 200+), but I was the 1st person to cross the finish line in costume. I guess that's something. I raced as either a school boy or office jockey. Kinda both. I had a oxford on with a tie and khaki shorts with my black work socks pulled up high. It's the first time I've worn a tie in over 5 years. I think the funnest costume was a couple of guys dressed up a Ace and Gary from the Ambiguous Gay Duo on SNL. I think Ace and Gary were hanging out with Alien Hookers. It wasn't too serious of a race.



Todd and John McKone


The Ambiguous Gay Duo and Alien Hookers.
How did they ride which those packages.




Dekker and Haydenne chillin' at the Town Lift.

Glad I went to the Olympic Park instead of Boise

I was thinking of heading up to Boise to see BG play Boise State. Two of my favorite college teams. The heart is still with BG, but I do like the Broncos. I basically like any non-BCS team. The BCS is a bunch of $@&%!!! Anyway, after BG's embarrassment against Minnesota I decided not to make the 4.5 hour trip up to Boise. 4.5 hours use to to seem like a long drive back in Michigan, because I think that put you in the UP or Kentucky. Well, out West, Boise is the next town and its a pretty easy desert drive. But I stuck around PC and Dekker and I hit up the Utah Olympic Park for a couple of hours. The Olympic legacy has left so many things for us to play with. When I die, I want to be reincarnated as my kids. I'm love playing in the mountains with them, be it skiing, hiking, going on chairlifts, fishing, golfing, etc.
We checked out the freestyle ramps and, as luck would have it, the Chinese National Team was in town training. We also went to the top of the K120 (big tower) ski jump as well and came down via the Alpine Slide. Sunday is the Tour de Suds. It's a 6 mile mtn. bike "race" to the top of Guardman's Pass. It hurts, but the Suds means beer. There are kegs of Wasatch beer waiting for us at the finish. Weather should be nice. Last year, this race was run in a blizzard. Yes, a blizzard the second week of Sept. I'm pretty excited about winter and can't seem to stop buying stuff off of tramdock. com.
Here are some photos and video from the Olympic Park.
Ciao!

Dekker staring down the K120 Jump


Dekker watching a flying Chinaman


Playground at the bottom of the jumps


Dekker at the bottom of the jumps

Parent's weekend and the END of the football season

The 'rents are in town, so we been busy keeping everyone occupied.
We stayed around town, played some golf and hit up Main Street and the Park Silly Market for a bit.


You can see in the photo with me and Haydenne, that the parents brought with them Bowling Green and Detroit Lions clothing to help me root for my teams.
Talk about bringing bad luck. Both teams looked horrible. How bad are you to lose to the Atlanta Falcons. BG didn't look much better against Minnesota. Now I don't feel bad about not driving up to see them in Boise next weekend, when they face Boise State or the weekend after that against Wyoming.

5K run and first snow

The family did a 5K run this morning. Woke up to rain and 50 degrees, but the weather held and it was a nice time. There was snow up on top of Jupiter and 9990. Here is a photo of the base of Snowbird this morning:


After the run, there is a Miner's Day Parade and the Running of the Balls. It started pouring rain, so we passed on the Parade and Ball Run. The Running of the Balls is where they close Main St. and you buy tennis balls with a number on it. They release 2000 tennis balls from the top of Main and the first balls down win prizes like ski season passes, dinners, etc. It's been a blast in the past, but it wasn't to be this year.
Here are photos of the 5K:

Here we are getting passed by a Sumo Wrestler:




Here we are getting passed by a bunch of girls tied together:




Here is Dekker and I finishing. We either won by a large margin or lost by a large margin. I'll let you decide....




On a down note, for the second time in 3 years, I drove my car into a garage with my roof box on it. To make this worse, I just bought the box and hadn't even used it. I'm pretty pissed off at myself. I never did this until I bought a Land Rover Discovery. The taller car creates more problems for me than it's worth.

Happy Labor Day (too bad I'm at work!)