Happy 7th Anniversary, Tour of Utah

Actually, it wasn’t the Tour’s 7th anniversary, it was Steve’s and mine, but we celebrated it by spectating the Tour of Utah which is a top five (in the USA) professional bike race. What this had to do with our anniversary was nothing except it was the day of our anniversary.

We dropped kids of at Steve’s mom’s house for an afternoon full of cat, jewelry and probably lots of good things to eat. They were in heaven. We headed downtown where the bike race took place.

We headed straight for the Utah State Capitol building where the start and finish line were. We arrived about 15 minutes before the race began.

The first thing we noticed was all the support cars that would follow the riders. Fresh bikes on top, for just in case I guess. What’s inside you ask? Wheels. Also, for just in case. I guess they don’t take flat tires or crashes as a free pass to go to your favorite ice cream shop instead of finishing the ride. Such dedication.

We staked out our spot to watch the beginning. We seemed to be the first ones there. It was sweltering hot and it actually wasn’t very crowded, so we bailed for a minute to see if there was a shady spot to spectate from. Steve found this big board which gave some stats that I don’t claim to understand or care about. I guess when you are a professional cyclist you get points and stuff for each race you do?...I don’t know. Anyway…here’s Steve. His goal for next year is to have his name inserted into the "Most Aggressive Rider" slot.

We turned around to go get our spot back after realizing what we had was the best, and this is what we found. 250,000 people showed up in the two minutes we were gone. Where were all these people before? How did they all just show up at the same minute to over-take our spectating spot? Bummer. I wish the tall people would just let the short people in the front. They could see right over us you know. We…aren’t so fortunate. Oh well.

So here are the pro bikers lining up at the start line. This one apparently works for Bissell. I am in need of a new vacuum, so I was going to ask him for a recommendation, but I had a really hard time getting his attention.

If you think no one cares about pro bike races, you are wrong. There was so many camera guys on motorcycles, in cars, overhead in helicopters. It was crazy. It felt like Paris Hilton was in town or something. It was interesting to see. The motorcycle camera detail includes one driver, and one cameraman standing on the back holding said camera and a mounted pole (so he doesn’t lose his balance and fall off). You can’t believe how close they get to the cyclists either. It seems so dangerous. There are occasional crashes, but it’s a miracle there aren’t a LOT more of these kinds of crashes.

The start line was very exciting. Then 10 seconds later it was all over. The riders all took off for the first of the 11 laps on the eight mile loop they were riding around downtown and the classless University of Utah. Had any of the riders been from Provo, I bet they would have had beer poured on them as they rode past.

We saw this handsome gentleman spectating the start line. Just in case you thought my sparkle skirt was the most embarrassing thing a rider could wear…. He's making me look pretty fly. Love the sweat marks under the back pack. I bet he picked up a lot of women with that get-up.

While we waited for the riders to come back Steve and I visited each of the vendors. We sampled Xango juice which from what I can tell is cranberry juice. Maybe I will start my own multilevel marketing business selling lemonade in a fancy package and tell people it has redeeming health qualities. I’ll probably be a millionaire in less than two months and then I’ll probably get a soccer stadium named after me.

We also picked up some other sweet swag. A t-shirt, water bottles (crappy ones), cow bells, you know…like that.

We saw our neighbor Kevin Olson…again. He was standing on a box. He's not that much taller than us. Oh wait, yes he is. Never mind about the box. We’ve seen him at several bike events this summer. Apparently he has transformed himself over the last year from a regular person into some kind of biking machine. Impressive. He was there volunteering at the start/finish line for the Tour, but somehow didn't offer us any VIP passes or any other kind of perk, some friend.

We made our way to the front of the Capitol Building just in time to see the riders climb the hill and round the corner in front. It was pretty wild to see how close together they all were. I just don’t know how there isn’t more crashing.

After that pass we headed down Capitol Hill on foot to the JSMB to eat at one of my downtown favorites, The Garden. Before we got to the restaurant, the riders were back again for another pass. It was very exciting. Since we had cow bells now, we got to ring them. Very fun.

We made our way to the Garden…Yes I ate there for my birthday and yes I ordered that same thing, and it was great and I loved it.

We actually had a really nice lunch and reminisced about all the best parts of the last 7 years of our lives. We’ve had some pretty incredible moments. Some good and some really bad. Mostly good though, at least that’s how I like to remember it.

Steve is a really special man. I am very lucky to be married to him. I thought we were “old” when we got married, but I really feel like we’ve just grown up together. I didn’t know anything before I married him. It was like that’s when my life really became worth living. I’ve been working on a blog post about how we met and how we ended up together. It’s a really fun albeit very long story. Someday I might finish writing about it and then I might post it. But until then…It’s this. I married Steve seven years ago. Each day has been better than the last.

After our scrumptious lunch we headed to the east end of the building where there is a big observation window. Since we were 10 floors up, we had a perfect vantage point to watch the tour. We saw them riding all the way down South Temple then make the turn up State Street.

We headed out of the building and walked back up the street. By the time we made it about two blocks up the hill the riders were back again. They are incredible fast. It really is amazing. The speed that they push themselves up that steep hill was no less than miraculous. If it were me, I’d be weaving my way up the street going so slow I’d constantly be in danger of tipping over. Not these guys though.

The street was lined with cycling enthusiasts on both sides. It was a fun thing even just to see that.

We made our way back toward the finish just in time to see the riders make one more pass and then come in for a finish. Here’s my photo of the winner of the stage. It’s some Columbian guy. He was several minutes (two or three) ahead of the pack of other riders.

We stayed to watch the podium award. Not sure why, it wasn’t all that interesting. The most interesting part was watching the podium girls before they took the stage. Obviously, they were models. I guess I don’t spend much time around models in real life. They were very fascinating to watch. They were so pretty, but fake looking. I couldn’t help but stare at them for like 10 minutes straight. I didn’t even bother trying to look inconspicuous. I figure they are used to being stared at. I was trying to figure out what made them look so different from everyone else. They were human (I think). Their eyelashes were about six inches long. That’s long, take it from me… They had SO much makeup on, they were having a hard time keeping it on in the heat. It was seriously melting off. Their hair was…perfect. Full, long, shiny, bouncy. After my 10 minute stare-fest, they finally did take the stage and they were good at what they did. They truly did help the disoriented riders to where they were supposed to be on the stage. It would have been a disaster without them. Those guys hardly even knew they were standing up at the end of that race. They had left it all on the course. The human-like girls really did save the day.

Believe it or not, this is the bike the winner rode in on the race.

I know, you’d expect it to be more high-tec, but I guess in professional bike races it has more to do with talent.

All in all, we had a great time. We were roasting like toasted cheezers, but we had fun doing it. Happy anniversary Steve and Kristin. Here’s to 60 or 70 more!

Day eight—An archeologist Paradise

Whoops. I forgot to post the last day of our February California vacation. Oops.


After a week long trip filled with rides, walking, running, swimming and exploring we packed it all up and headed back toward home.

Not too long after we headed out we found a lovely traffic jam to participate in. Nothing says smell you later like waiting your turn to leave in a traffic jam. We survived it thanks to Rollo’s and our in-flight entertainment system.

We had previously decided to make a stop at the Calico Early Man site after spotting a sign for it on the way into California. Since we were also stuck in a traffic jam on the way there, Steve spent some time on his smart phone figuring out what the Early Man Site stop was all about.

We pulled of the freeway just after Barstow. The directions indicated that we would travel 2 miles down a graded dirt road to the site. It was a bumpy road, but very do-able as long as you drive slow.

WE found it completely unbelievable how remote it felt just one mile off the interstate. It was silent, and it was desolate. We were smack-dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

We entered the gate to the site and found a very small compound of Tuff Sheds and a few cars. We parked our van and got out. Some old man seemed excited to see some visitors. We approached the “Visitor Center” also a Tuff Shed. It was locked, but we noticed a desert fellow approaching us. He was the site director. He let us into the “facility” and gave us the pre-programs schpill about the history of the site. It sounded like he had given that same schpill about one million times before. Turns out this guy who was probably in his mid 60’s had been there since he was a boy. His mother, a gemologist had brought him there since the area was rich in precious stones. Who knew the middle of the Mojave would be full of gem stones.

According the site director, a million billion years ago (20,000-50,000 years ago to be exact) there were primitive people who lived here. Then, the landscape was very different. It was lush and green and there was a massive lake and rivers. There was also mountain rich with rocks that the people used to make tools to build stuff. That’s why they were there.

The tools they used still exist. The uncover them there at the site every day. While we were there, archeologists were hard at work. We were able to take a self-guided tour of the dig site. It was interesting to see how they do it. It isn’t nearly as glamorous as my Jr. High science teacher described. We did see a few lizards running around though so that was pretty cool/gross.


We were a bit surprised that the archeologist weren’t young college interns like we that thought. Instead, they were old men and even an old woman. We thought they’d be happy to talk to us and tell us all about it, but they did their very best to ignore us.

The group breaked for lunch while we were there so we approached the group with some specific questions, to which no one responded. I think they were hoping that if no one talked, we’d get back in our van and leave. The didn’t know that the Vocal Sokol always expects answers and that we are not frightened by awkward pauses. So, finally one of the men came over and talked to us answered out questions and showed us some stuff including a big pile of what he called junk rocks. To our kids they may as well have been a pile of pirate treasure. We found this pretty sparkly rock laced with pink gemstone. The archeologist told us we could keep it along with several other rocks we became quite fond of.

So we checked out of the site and headed back to the roadway with our treasures in tow. In all we are glad we stopped. I tell you what though, I wouldn’t want to stop there on a hot day. It was about 70 degrees and it felt like an inferno. I guess they don’t get many visitors to the site, just a couple a week. When it gets hot though he said it usually just people who crawl in looking for water.

It was really hard to believe that once this was a lush lake and wooded area. It just goes to show you that climate change has been happening for tens of thousands, probably millions of years. It’s not just because all of us are big, fat, ugly, jerks to the environment. Apparently there is some evidence to support the theory that the earth just changes on its own. Hmm. Maybe Owl Gore (I prefer to call him Owl rather than Al)should consider this. It might be new information to him.

After boarding our van and heading down the interstate I came down with a crazy headache and spent the trip to Baker trying to shake it. We stopped at Baker and ate our vacation favorite Jack-in-the-Box 2 tacos. We saw this awesome car.

It was a really long trip back to St. George. I slept a lot of the time trying to rid myself of the headache. The kids watched movies and Steve drove like a champ. I really appreciate him being at the wheel 80 percent of the trip.

We finally spilled into St. George at around 7:30. I spent the last 45 minutes trying to distract Sunny from going ballistic after being in the car way too long. It was a real relief to get out of the car.

We settled in back at the vacation house where my parents, bother, and his in-laws were. We ate some more of our pre-prepared vacation food. We were so tired and exhausted we didn’t care what we ate. We took a nice shower and crashed until morning.

Is it worth it to drive to California instead of fly. We figure we saved about $500 once you look at the extra expenses we incurred, probably worth it, but it is very taxing.

The next morning we drove home. The end.

Kindergarten the Kid

Ever since Alyssa was two-years-old she’s been telling us… “When I get five, I’ll go to school!”

Well…she’s five now, has been since last October, and now, finally…All her dreams are coming true!

She is the Kindergarten kid. On the first day of school she woke up at 7:00 a.m. took a shower almost independently, got dressed, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast and got taken to school.

Her sister wasn't sure what was happening, but she knew it must be good. Everyone was up early and very excited.

Steve and I actually took her on the first day. She usually rides in a carpool with one of her best little neighborhood friends Xan.

Here she is outside the school. She had never been more excited. Well…maybe once she was this excited. It was when she was about three at Disneyland. She could see Cinderella but she was still about 30 seconds away from meeting her in person. School, to her, was that exciting.

WE arrived a few minutes early so she got to play outside with the other kids for a few minutes. You could just see it written on her face. "MY TIME HAS ARRIVED!!"


Here she is at her spot on her table. It had her name on it and everything.

We had the opportunity to take her to her classroom and do a few activities with her before we left her in the trusting arms of the Utah Public Education System.

I was expecting to be a blubbering mess and some moms were doing that, but she was just SO excited. I couldn’t bring myself to rain on her parade. It just wouldn’t have been right, plus I didn’t feel much like crying. I just felt… proud.

Steve and I got back in the van together both feeling a great sense of pride and accomplishment.

Baby to Kindergarten lasted about 3 months. I wonder how fast Kindergarten to High School Graduation will go?

Grandeur Peak—The good, the bad and the UGLY!

Steve and I made our first adult hike last Saturday. I don’t mean “adult” in the sense that you may be thinking, just that we left the kids with other people.

We’re making preparations for our September 24 summit of Mount Timpanogos, so we thought we’d better do a few rigorous hikes first. We started out around 4:30 p.m. and set off on the three mile trail to the top of Grandeur Peak. Our book told us it would be a 2.5 to 4 hour journey. We wanted to be more on the 2.5 hour side so we moved quickly up the trail.


It was our first mountain peak climb. Grandeur Peak is between Mount Olympus and Parley's Canyon. We’ve always hiked to lakes or waterfalls in the past. I once hiked Deseret Peak out Grantsville way when I was about 14, but I hardly remember anything besides my legs and lungs burning.
No burning this time. How sad is it that I am in better shape now than when I was 14 years old?

It was a nice trail. Fairly skinny. A little bit of bush whacking, but not bad.
It was pretty shady which was fortunate, because on the parts that were not shady…it was an inferno. We only saw three other people along the trail, so it certainly wasn’t crowded.


The weather was a little warm, but perfect blue skies dotted with a few crisp white clouds.
Really nice weather for hiking. Or so you might think...

We moved up high really fast, and since the trail is basically on the side or ridge of the mountain we had pretty spectacular views most the time.
Before we knew it we had a fairly incredible view of the mountains. We saw a little lizard on the trail. I tried to get his picture, but he was too quick.

After about an hour and twenty minutes on the trail, we were sure we just around the corner. Some lady who was hiking with no water and wearing only a bikini top carrying a smutty romance novel told us we were 10 minutes away. Liar. We were at least 40 minutes away and that was moving at a swift pace.

After we had hiked 20 minutes past her prediction we knew we were just around the corner only to find where the real peak was…still another 20 minutes away. We did get a glimpse of the view from this point and it seemed like it would be worth it.
It was pretty discouraging, because we were tired and very hungry by this time and Steve had drank through all his water. But…we didn’t want to come back and say how we almost made it to the top, so we soldiered on.

I was anxious to make it to the top so I was moving fast when I saw the UGLY thing about this trip. A big fat SNAKE!!! Okay, he was more skinny and long than big and fat but still. The point is he scared me half to death! I don’t think I have ever seen a snake in the wild before.


We watched him slither around for a few minutes in the middle of the trail, but then he moved right down the middle of the trail toward us, so I opted to hop off the trail for a sec and go around him. Yucky, yucky snake. Ewww.

We kept going up and finally made our way to the SUMMIT!
We made it. But we were surprised about what we found at the top. Storm clouds, lots of them. We totally couldn’t see them from the back side of the mountain everything looked perfect.
Just as we reached the top the thunder started to rumble. Perfect. It turned our plans for summiting around a little. I was planning to sit up there and look around for half an hour. I was planning to eat through my little satchel of trail mix (have I mentioned how much I love to eat trail mix?).
Instead all we had time to do was snap a few photos and chat for a few minutes with another hiking group who had also encountered the snake.

I shoved a few handfuls of my delicious trail mix down my throat and we decided to split down the mountain for safety. The other group didn’t seem nearly as concerned about the thunder and lightning as we were (I mainly mean me). The other group shouted several warnings to watch for snakes…ha ha ha…..AGRAH!!!!!

Just as we made our way around the first little corner off the summit I found another freaking SNAKE….This one was a RATTLE SNAKE! I sprayed my mouthful of trail mix all over the ground as I quickly turned around and ran back up the trail. The other group was in disbelief, but laughing at my find. It was scary and super gross. I didn’t bother taking a picture of the Rattler which I must admit was a small one, but still. I wish I had now, but I was too scared to face it again then.

The weather was my biggest fear although having another snake encounter was a close second.
I watch the news every day and I know that people get struck by lightning all the time in the mountains. The clouds looked very dark and frightening. No one ever thinks they are going to be struck by lightning, but I sure did. I could already see myself all burned and barely clinging to life. I thought about my girls and I didn’t want them to be motherless, so I decided to forgo the snake fear and just make a dead run to the bottom. It had taken us 1 hour and 54 minutes to get to the top, I was hoping it would be more like 30 minutes to the bottom.

I just couldn’t believe I had gotten myself into this situation. I am usually very careful. I don’t tolerate risk well, and here I am dodging lightning strikes and rattle snakes (this is an exaggeration). Still though…the top of a mountain is not a safe place to be in a lightning storm.

We ran down as fast as we could, which was not fast enough. Another lady who had passed us on her way to the top decided to join us and ran down with us. It didn’t take more than a few minutes when the wind and rain started in. There we were still running for the bottom totally unprepared and inexperienced for any unfavorable circumstances.

I’ll admit that I was really scared, maybe not terrified, but full on scared. I kept thinking about my van at the bottom and being back inside and driving away once we made it back. I was hoping that this WAS going to be in my future today. I feared that we’d have to find someplace to hunker down and wait out the storm and just keep an eye out for passing snakes.

In actuality, it wasn’t that bad or really even that scary. It was just the not knowing for sure what could happen that was the worst part. As we approached the bottom third of the trail the rain really slowed down and finally did stop. We walked for the last quarter of the trail instead of the dead run that we were doing before. The running down was probably the worst thing we could have done. We just as easily could have twisted an ankle or broken an arm in a fall. Luckily we didn’t.

For the last several hundred yards my joints started yelling at me for making them run down a mountain. They throbbed and ached. I was so hashed out. Steve who would never run as fast as me down the trail seemed to be in a lot better shape than me at the bottom. This is how it always is for us. We have almost the same amount of energy to expend, but we distribute it differently. I go full out for as long as I can then crash. He tends to pace himself better. I always want him to hurry it up, but in the end he has enough to not only finish, but carry me with him back to the car.

Speaking of the car, I was delighted to be laying eyes on it again. It was so beautiful all gray with its two super classy bumper stickers. We took off our hiking boots and dirty socks.
Geez Steve take a bath once in a while.
I guess between the dust I kicked up and the rain, Steve got dirty. Really dirty!

We set off down the canyon in our car and found a lovely and clear once more valley. How is it that we timed the storm perfectly? The worst 30 minutes of the week weather-wise was when we were on the top of a mountain. Perfect. By the way, it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get down the mountain.

We stopped at Barbacoa for a big burrito before picking up the kids at Bob and Hana’s. They kindly watched them for us. While at the restaurant we had the pleasure of sitting by a couple on a first date. We very much enjoyed overhearing the awkward conversation. I’m no Casanova, but I’m pretty sure talking about your long term hernia is more of a fourth or fifth date conversation piece. Just saying.

In all, it was worth it, but I guess I need some kind of snake spray for my next hike. Do they make snake spray? Also I will be more diligent at checking the weather.