I was out today scouting for a place to put a new geocache in town, since there are only two within the city limits, and I accidentally dropped the cache container in the canal. Luckily, it was going to be a micro, and I hadn't yet painted the container or put anything inside, but I was still really bummed when it happened. I felt like a kid whose balloon just floated away. =)

For a few days there, I thought summer was going to come early, and I'm still not entirely convinced that's not the case. It was sunny and getting up around 50° last week, and this week we've had just a bit of rain, but it's still not January cold. At this rate, I can't wait for February!

I've been neglecting this site pretty badly lately. I've got entries on my main page that go back two months, but if I'd been updating regularly, it should only be two weeks.

This weekend felt long because we crammed a lot into two days. We spent Friday and Saturday in Lehi and went geocaching with some friends. It was foggy up there pretty much all the time, which strangely made things interesting and boring at the same time. Boring, because I didn't see any scenery as we drove around, but interesting because I relied heavily on my GPS to guide me around. We found eight caches near Lehi, then drove up to West Valley to visit Mike for a bit, then found a cache just a couple of blocks away from his house at the Hunter Library.

Sunday, I had a fun time (well, not really) digging my Mazda out of the front yard. Since we had the sewer line replaced in February of last year, the ground wasn't compacted where I had parked the Mazda, and it sunk down quite a bit after being there for a few months. On top of that, there was ice puddled up around the rear tires, and it took a sledge hammer and shovel to get it unstuck. Both my truck and Mazda need to be washed, but I don't dare bring either to the car wash since they're not registered or insured. I'm going to put ads in the Thrifty Nickel this week in the hopes that I can sell both of them in time to buy a new truck before camping season.

I had a grueling weekend. I tried finding two geocaches, one at the Gordon Creek waterfall, and the other in the San Rafael Swell, but I ended up finding neither.

I rode out to Gordon Creek with my sister and her family on Saturday, but since the road to the falls was too snow-covered, we had to hike from the main road (near the railroad bridge) to the waterfall. I don't remember how long it took us--probably more than an hour--but by the time we got there, everybody was exhausted (and one of the kids frozen). It turned out that the cache was on the middle level of the falls, which I could have easily gotten to, but I could never have gotten back up without special equipment. The falls were frozen over, and on top of the ice was 12" of snow--no way I could climb 10' back up to the top level. So we hiked back, all bummed about working that hard for nothing. It was only a 2.4-mile hike round trip, but the deep snow made it pretty difficult.

Yesterday, I set out fairly early in the morning to find my 100th cache, on a formation called The Wickiup in the Swell (pictures are here). I found a few easy caches along the way, just to get my count up to 99, then I parked near the Sinbad exit on I-70 and started hiking the 2.4 miles to The Wickiup. The hike itself wasn't bad, especially since the ground was still frozen--my feet didn't sink into the mud much. Once I got there, about 1.5 hours later, it did't take me long to realize that there was no way I would be able to reach the cache. There were a couple of vertical sections in my way, but they were all loose dirt and shale, so with as moist as the ground was, it just wasn't safe. Early summer would have been a much better time of year to go. So, after giving up, I hiked back to the bottom of The Wickiup and prepared lunch, then hiked back to the car. The hike back was awful--the frozen mud had melted, and my feet were sinking in two or three inches. I didn't stop to rest on the way back, so I was just about dead by the time I reached the car, but I was so relieved to be back that I didn't care.

During the drive back home, I saw what is probably one of the strangest things I've ever seen:


This truck was driving eastbound on I-70, escorted by three Green River Fire Department trucks and two UHP cars. I caught the tail-end of the convoy about eight miles west of Green River. The two UHP cars were hanging back, each with their lights flashing, so none of the other cars on the road were sure whether or not they should pass. Eventually, one of the cars in front of me passed the tailing UHP car, and everyone else followed. I could see billowing smoke more than a mile ahead, but not much else. Then, at a bend in the highway ahead of me, I could see that there was a semi, ON FIRE, driving down the road. As I got closer, I could see smoldering chunks of foam, cardboard, and paper tumbling and flittering behind the truck. Just after the Price exit to US-6, the truck slowed down and started pulling off to the shoulder--I stayed on I-70 just so I could see what the hell was going on. The truck had barely stopped when I caught up to it, and the driver swung out the door and was looking back at his trailer--it was still smoldering and had buckled from the heat. It looked like it was about to crumple completely and break in half.

After I passed the semi and the fire trucks that had pulled over, I hauled ass to the first Green River exit and got back on I-70 going westbound. From the start of the on-ramp at Green River to the off-ramp for US-6, I had the gas pedal pushed all the way to the floor, doing about 105 MPH (hey, all the cops in the area were occupied). I exited I-70 directly opposite of the burning trailer, and stopped to take a few pictures and videos of it. After a couple of minutes, it looked like they were going to park the semi and leave it there, so I got back in the car and started driving off. Right as I started moving, the semi driver got back in and took off again, going towards Green River.

I just can't, for the life of me, figure out why the fire department and UHP not only allowed the driver to keep going, but apparently encouraged him to do so. If that trailer had crumpled any more, it would have crashed to the ground, scattering burning cargo all over the interstate. If that happened while I or another motorist was passing it, it could have been disastrous. I'm hoping that the Emery County newspaper will have an article explaining what the hell was going on, but I shouldn't be counting on it.

Well, my house survived the night last night. I woke up this morning and it hadn't gotten any worse--in fact, the water that had been seeping in had stopped.

Last night, I tore out several sections of drywall so I could see the concrete behind it. It's all framed with 2X4s, and behind the 2X4 footer there was a one-inch wide channel that was about two inches below the surface of the floor. That channel was full of water, and when I would use the Shop-Vac to suck it all out, more water would take its place within a couple of seconds. When I went to bed at midnight, the water was still flowing through, but I did't care.

This morning, however, the standing water was gone from the channel, which meant it wasn't spilling over into the carpet anymore. In fact, it looked as though it had stopped as soon as I went to bed, because the carpet wasn't any more soaked. Traci and I spent some time today vacuuming the water out of the carpet, so now it's merely damp (hopefully we won't have problems with mildew now).

I think I know where the water is coming from now. My neighbor to the north of me has a huge front lawn that runs the entire length of my house. The warm weather and rain melted the snow in their yard quickly, which then saturated the ground and worked its way through my foundation.

I think, when warmer weather is here and the ground dries out, I'm going to rip out the drywall and 2X4 studs all along that wall, waterproof the concrete (including the floor), then install new studs and drywall. Sounds like a big job for me, but at least when we sell this shithole I can (honestly) tell prospective buyers that there are no problems with it.

Right after we moved into our house, in February of 2000, we had a problem with groundwater seeping through the foundation and soaking the carpet in the basement. Well, it's doing it again. Traci and I have been trying to keep up with the water flow, which isn't terribly fast, but we can't stay up all night doing this shit. I borrowed my mom's carpet cleaner, then I ran out and bought a Shop-Vac, and we've been keeping at it for a couple of hours now.

We're too exhausted to care anymore, so we moved everything up off the floor, and I, for one, plan on sleeping soundly tonight. I already filed a claim with my insurance company, even though I doubt they'll cover any of the damages or repairs. This time, I swear I'm moving out as soon as possible.

I fired up the barbecue this evening and grilled some hamburgers in the rain. We had salad for dinner as well--I sure miss summer. =) It snowed steadily most of the weekend, and today it's been raining a bit, so most of the snow accumulation will probably be gone soon.

With the weather like this, I've gotten a chance to read a bit lately. I just finished a Clive Cussler book (Trojan Odyssey--not his best work), and am currently working on Alas, Babylon. I recall having to read that book for an English class in junior high, but I only read part of it. I was good at not doing my assignments but still passing my classes. Anyway, I remember getting bored with the book back then, but now it's not so bad.

It's looking like the weather doesn't exactly complement my plans to go hiking this weekend. There's currently a heavy snow warning in effect until Wednesday, and snow is forecast for the entire upcoming week. Short of taking an exploratory drive down to I-70 to check the weather conditions in the Swell, I have no way of knowing if it's snowing down there as well.

I'm not quite sure if I'm gonna let that stop me, but if not, I might get down there on Sunday and realize that I won't be able to hike any of the steep stuff that I have planned. If that's the case, it should make for beautiful photo opportunities, but only what can be seen from the paved roads.