Yesterday wasn't a bad day. I took my family on a short hike at Price Canyon Recreation Area, then we went to my mom's and visited with some of my family who was in town from Washington. Afterwards, I fixed a nice dinner, then we watched Sahara. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful, but relaxing.

Today, it was back to work (ugh). After work, I made two appointments to get some work done on my truck. First I went to Sherry's Paint & Body--the driver's door has been hanging up on the fender lately, so they're going to adjust the hinges so it hangs right. I tried doing it myself, but I didn't have the right tools to reach the bolts, and I didn't have anything to support the door once I got the bolts loosened. The guy I talked to said to bring it in Tuesday morning and they'd be done in about an hour, and it'd probably cost $30.

After I talked to him, I went to Price Autoplex and got an appointment Tuesday afternoon to get the transmission shift linkage fixed or replaced. A couple of weeks ago, we were in the middle of nowhere having a picnic with my sister's family, and when we got ready to leave, my truck wouldn't start. The starter wouldn't even turn over, but I turned the headlights on and made sure I had plenty of battery power. For some reason, I automatically suspected the shift lever, and after jimmying it around for a bit, I got the truck to start. Vehicles with automatic transmissions are designed to start in either Park or Neutral, but my shift lever wouldn't go up far enough to trigger the switch in Park, so now I have to shift all the way down, then go back up to Neutral in order to get it started. I found out this weekend that I can't even get the transmission into 1st gear, and that is what finally forced me to get it fixed. Towing a trailer down steep hills with no trailer brakes and no first gear wasn't fun.

I'd considered going geocaching this weekend, but I think I'll sit this weekend out and save myself some dough. With as expensive as fuel is, I think I'll stick close to home and maybe do some mountain biking.

This weekend couldn't have been much better. We camped at Potter's Ponds, but unfortunately our site was 1,000' from the main group site where all the other geocachers stayed. As a result, we didn't spend as much time with the others as we'd have liked. My sister and her family shared our site, and we had some fun together both there and on the road. We spent a few hours away from camp and went on a wild goose chase and couldn't find any easy caches that our kids could go on, but it was still a good time.

The highlight of the entire weekend was finding the Potters Pond cache (the first one ever in the state of Utah), which was my 200th find. We hiked up as a group after everyone else had left, and we were able to take our time since we had no plans afterwards except to pack up and head home. It was quite a memorable experience, much more so than my 100th find, which was nothing special.

Also quite awesome was the convoy that headed out to find my Fly Canyon Falls cache that I placed a couple of weeks ago. As I was sitting around the campfire Saturday night, Utah Jean sat down next to me, and I asked her where she got all the mud on her Explorer. She told me it was at "Fry Canyon" or something, without even realizing it was my cache she was talking about. It wasn't until I returned home that I realized that a large group of people had gone in search of my cache, and it turned out being Jean's 2,000th find, and Cowboyz' 500th. Though coincidental, it still makes me feel good that they chose my cache for their milestones. I hear that the trip was awesome, and this picture of BunkerDave's Subaru tells it all. I just wish I'd been at camp when they decided to go, because I'd have loved to be a part of it.

Last year, I was so antisocial that I didn't stop in at the Potter's Ponds event, even though I drove right past there after hiking East Mountain. This year, things have changed enough that I came out of my shell a bit and have attended two geocaching events, and have plans to attend a third in October. I'm even going to place a few caches for that one with another cacher from Mount Pleasant who I've only met briefly once. I'm glad to have found a great bunch of people who share the same hobby with me, and on top of that I still get to spend a lot of time with my fambly. Great stuff. :)

Mike and I had a pretty good bike ride along the Green River yesterday. The trail we'd planned on taking ended up being on the wrong side of some private property, so we had to drive up the dirt road on the east side of the river instead. We stopped the truck short about three miles from our destination and rode the rest of the way. It was hot and sunny, and I got sunburned a bit, and my ass hurts--I haven't ridden my bike enough yet this year to be used to it by now. Round trip ended up being nine miles, and I placed the cache just above a huge boulder with some petroglyphs on it, and with a view of the Price River confluence to the west. I also fell in love with the BLM campground. It's situated right where the pavement ends, and it's gorgeous. There are a lot of huge cottonwood trees, and a very big sandy beach. There aren't many sunny, sandy beaches in Utah (go figure), but this one is the best I've seen.

I tried once again to fix the plumbing in my trailer, this time going all-out in an attempt to do the job 100% right. I bought a roll of 5/8" flexible copper tubing, a tubing cutter, a flaring tool, a large roll of solder, a new shutoff valve, and a couple of fittings. The flaring tool ended up being a piece of shit--instead of flaring the copper tubing, it pushed it back down through the hole that was supposed to hold in in place, and it gouged the crap out of the sides of the tubing. I ended up taking everything back to Sutherland's for a refund. They didn't have any of the stuff I need to try my hand at running braided vinyl tubing, so I'll try CJ's tomorrow.

I hate plumbing. Every time I've had to fix something that involves pipes, it's turned into a big ordeal, and the water leak in my camp trailer is no exception. One of the joints on a "T" fitting corroded enough for water to leak out, but I tried fixing it with metallic epoxy putty at first, which lasted for only one camping trip. After that, I tried just adding more solder to the existing fitting, but it wouldn't stick. Then I completely removed the pipe, cleaned the outside of it and the inside of the fitting until they were both shiny, fluxed everything up all good, and tried soldering it. The solder still wouldn't go into the joint. Today, I bought a new "T" fitting that already had solder inside of it, so all I had to do was clean and flux everything, install the "T" and heat it up. It still didn't work!

I'm probably going to call Action Motors & RV tomorrow to see if they even do that kind of work. If so, I'll be shelling out some serious cash to have them take care of the damned thing. If I can't find somebody around here who can fix it, I'll be stuck with my ghetto solution--rig up a 5-gallon plastic water jug, place it on the roof of the trailer, and run a garden hose inside for running water. Nice, eh?

Wow...another whirlwind day of driving on dirt roads and placing/finding caches. I took the day off from work today so I could get the remaining three caches placed before Saturday's bike excursion along the Green River to place the eighth. My first stop was just south of Mounds, on a somewhat long and very poor dirt road that dead-ended on a ridge above the Price River. It was absolutely gorgeous--definitely the best in the series. I'll be returning to that area for sure to do some additional hiking and exploring.

After that was the one I've been dreading--a very, very long drive across Humbug Flats, from Chimney Rock Road to the dead-end at the Price River. The road wasn't as bad as I expected, but still bad enough to almost necessitate 4WD even when dry. It was about 30 miles round-trip (not counting Chimney Rock Road), and it took a few hours to complete. There were a lot of awesome sights along the way, mostly just cool rock formations.

The last cache I placed was easy--a relatively short drive on a decent road, and I left the cache just 140' from the road. I suspect that some of these caches are going to sit for a LONG time before anybody finds them. That's fine by me, since these are the types of caches I like to go after myself.

I really need to get a new cachemobile. My truck gets better fuel mileage than most gasoline-engine trucks, but diesel is much more expensive--I paid $2.69/gallon today. I've been on several road trips in the past two weeks, and I've probably spent hundreds of dollars on fuel alone in that time. I've also been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly, so I suppose it evens out. :)

It was yet another very long day today--in a good way this time. We drove about 150 miles in over 10 hours, from the top of Huntington Canyon to Joe's Valley along Miller Flat Road, with a few detours along the way. My sister and her family followed us in their Bronco, and we found a few caches together, and even placed two new ones specifically for people coming to the Potter's Ponds campout in two weeks.

Yesterday was a long day--I called around and found one of the bearings I needed in order to fix my swamp cooler, in Castle Dale of all places. It was only a 30 minute drive (one way), but Michael and I took a little side trip along the road to Buckhorn Wash to get FTF on a geocache out there. We got back into Price after 6:00pm, and I started fixing the cooler then. I got done late (had to clean it, change the pads, bearing, and belt, then oiled the motor and bearings), then spent the rest of the night watching Stargate and getting ready for today's adventures.

I sold my '79 F-150 this week. I only got $1,000 for it, but considering that, including my original purchase price, I had $6,500 wrapped up in that truck, it wasn't nearly what I was hoping to get. The Mazda is still up for sale, and has been for nearly a year. The registration for it expires at the end of the month, and if it doesn't sell by then, I don't know what I'm going to do. I placed an ad in AutoTrader, but I've only gotten one damn phone call from it (worthless piece of shit).

Next weekend, Mike is going to try to come down for a little bike ride along the Green River with me. I think we're going to start in the town of Green River and ride north to the Price River confluence, which should be shorter and more scenic (according to somebody I heard from who's actually done it). I can't wait for that, and I'm going to try to place all the other Price River View caches before then (there will be eight total, and two are already in place).

Yesterday, one of the blower shaft bearings froze up on my swamp cooler. I spent my entire lunch break today removing the bearing from the shaft, and after work I drove all over town trying to find a replacement. Not surprisingly, nobody even carries bearings that size (they've all got 1" and 3/4", but not 5/8"). So, in my infinite wisdom, I drove to Provo and Orem and tried to find one, but nobody up there carries them either. Shit.

I can't find them online anywhere, so I've contacted the manufacturer by email to see if I can buy some directly from them. They don't even have a phone number to call, just postal and email addresses. Gaywads.

Today, Mark and I found the cache at Walk-Up Lake that's been sitting for more than three years with zero finds (pictures here). It was surprisingly easy to find, considering that whoever placed it entered the wrong coordinates on the cache page (they were off by 0.12 miles). Considering the size of the boulder field around that lake, we were very lucky to have been in the ballpark, let alone the exact spot. This cache now holds the record in the state of Utah for sitting unfound the longest, though only due to an error by the cache placer.

The hike was strenuous, but stopping to rest wasn't much of an option--if you sat still too long, the mosquitoes would eat you alive. The insect repellent didn't repel very well. Round trip was 5.8 miles, with roughly 900 feet elevation gain on the way up. There was very light rain and a slight breeze on the way down, which thankfully the mosquitoes appeared not to like.

We were both too exhausted to even think about climbing Eccentric Peak, but the lightning striking the top would have kept us from attempting it anyway. After feeling the burn of hiking to Walk-Up Lake, I know that Eccentric would be worse--it's about 1,000 feet higher up.

The drive to and fro sucked ass. Our entire day was almost 12 hours long, but less than four of that was spent hiking. My truck doesn't do well on washboard roads, and the rear-end tends to break loose easily when I attempt anything over 30 MPH. The switchbacks seemed endless, winding 25 miles up the mountain from 6,800 feet to 10,600 feet.

By the time I got home, I had The Worst Headache Ever (I seem to get those a lot--maybe it's a tumor). A short nap and long hot bath helped a little bit with that. I know that I'm going to sleep well tonight, what with my tired body and lack of sleep. Luckily, I took tomorrow off from work, so I can sleep in (at least as long as the kids allow me to).

Things are beginning to return to normal around here finally. I've been trying to scrape enough money together to accomplish all the things I want to do in the next month. Most of that money will be spent on fuel, since most of my plans involve travel.

On Sunday, I'm going hiking with Mark in the Uintas north of Roosevelt. My main goal is to find an elusive geocache up there, but I just realized that Eccentric Peak, the highest point in two counties at around 12,300', is within easy hiking distance as well. If Mark and I feel up to it, I suppose we'll head on over there as well.

I've got seven geocaches I plan on placing soon, each along the Price River somewhere, and that'll take me at least three separate trips. Only one of these caches is going to be physically difficult to place--it'll require a 26-mile round-trip bike ride through some very remote country. In addition to that, I'll have to cross the Price River about 26 times on this ride. I plan on placing it at the confluence of the Price and Green rivers, and though I could easily drive up the east side of the Green River and place it there, or float on a tube across to the west side from there, I think I'd rather take the most challenging route.

A water line sprung a leak in my camp trailer a few months ago, and I repaired it with some copper epoxy, but that crap only lasted one camping trip before giving out. I tried re-soldering the "T" connection that was leaking, but that didn't work--I couldn't get the solder to stick no matter how much or how little flux I used. I'm going to give it another try this weekend, this time with some new pipes and hardware. The trailer's registration is expired, so that's one other thing I've got to spend money on.

I've also got to get the oil changed in my truck before Sunday--I'm pretty sure a lot of diesel fuel got in the oil while that glow plug was missing. That beast takes about 15 quarts of oil, so oil changes don't come cheap.