Well, I haven't had much desire to go hiking lately, so I stayed at home nearly all weekend. I of course went to Thanksgiving at my mom's, and I went for a very short drive to find a geocache yesterday morning, but other than that I haven't stepped outside of the house for the past four days. That's really how the entire past week has been, I think mostly because I don't have much money to spend on fuel to get me places.

The coming month will probably bring more of the same. The only solid plans that I have are for a trip up north for work and my company's xmas party. It's looking like we might get a few inches of snow in the next couple of days, and that will definitely break up the monotony. I foresee a trip to my favorite sledding hill out near Farnham Dome. A little snow, a camp stove, and some hot chocolate would cheer me up immensely.

I think my handgun saved my life today. I'll never know for sure what would have happened if I hadn't been carrying it, but I'm certainly glad that I carry it with me everywhere I go. Bear with me folks, this is gonna be a long story.

This morning, I took Michael and Bradley out for a little hike near the base of the Book Cliffs about 3.5 miles northeast of Woodside, where I had been thinking about placing a geocache. We had driven about three miles from the highway on a rough dirt road, and parked where the road ended. We were in the middle of nowhere. From the point where the road ends, there is an old pack trail that winds back and forth to the east all the way to the top of the Book Cliffs. The trail climbs about 1,000 vertical feet in a very short horizontal distance, and we hiked about 1/4 of the way up the trail before it became too steep and rugged for the kids. A few minutes after we'd turned around and were heading back to the truck, I noticed that somebody was standing next to the truck, and we were still about 0.4 miles away. There were no other vehicles in sight, so I assumed that the guy was on foot, and I couldn't figure out what in the hell he was doing in the middle of nowhere on foot. I could barely see what he was doing, but he was snooping around the truck and he even climbed into the truck bed. I was really freaked out, and I yelled down and told him to get the hell away from my truck. I'm not sure if he could even understand me, but I'm sure that he heard me.

He ducked out of sight behind the truck for a minute--I think he was in the truck bed again--then he reappeared and was walking around the side of the truck. I yelled at him again, and he stopped to look up toward me for a few seconds, then went on looking into my truck (luckily, it was locked). At that point I knew that we were in trouble, because if some guy knows that I'm nearby and he continues messing with my truck, he's probably crazy. My voice commands to leave the truck alone went unheeded, so I pulled my handgun out of its holster, told the kids to plug their ears, and fired a round into the ground in the opposite direction from the guy at the truck. I certainly got his attention, but he still didn't leave immediately. He did stop to look up at me again, but then I saw his arm come down in a sweeping motion toward the right-rear tire, and I could hear the air suddenly escaping. He walked to the other side of the truck and slashed the left-rear tire, then he walked off heading south.

I knew then that I was in a world of shit, in the middle of nowhere with my two young sons with me, some crazy man at the bottom of the mountain near my truck, and two slashed tires. I picked Bradley up and told Michael to get moving down the mountain. We were heading west, and the crazy man was heading south still. By the time we had gotten about halfway back down the trail, the guy had disappeared from my sight in the bottom of a wash. Not long after that, he reappeared on the other side of the wash, but he was now wearing a large light-colored backpack. I can only assume that he was a transient and had been camping there, and I roused his interest when I drove up.

As he climbed out of the bottom of the wash, he turned east for a short distance, and then he turned northeast and headed almost straight toward us. At that point, I was nearly certain that I was going to have to shoot him. He was about 1/4 mile away and closing in, so me and the boys hauled ass northwest and tried to put some distance between him and us. Northwest was the only safe direction that we could travel, because any other direction would have taken us either closer to the crazy man, or farther up the mountain where we'd have been cornered on the steep trail.

Much to my relief, he continued walking northeast and we were able to put even more distance between him and us. When I finally felt like he was going to continue and not turn back toward us, I stopped and dialed 911. Thankfully I had excellent reception on my cell phone, and I got the Emery County dispatcher. I explained to him what had happened, and he said that his closest unit was in Green River and that it would be awhile before he'd be able to reach us. Crazy Man continued along the trail that we'd just been on, and I didn't dare turn my back on him no matter how far away he was, so we waited there for the police to arrive while I watched him climb the mountain.

After nearly an hour, and a couple of phone calls from dispatch to verify my location, a sheriff's deputy arrived driving a Dodge Durango. He asked me to shortly recap what had happened, and after ensuring that the kids and I would be ok there alone for a bit longer, he grabbed his shotgun and taser and started up the trail. A little while after that, two UHP troopers arrived in their Crown Victorias--I can hardly believe they made it up that road. They also grabbed a shotgun and a rifle and started up the trail to give the sheriff's deputy some backup. As they were leaving, I noticed that there was diesel fuel leaking from my truck near the tailgate--Crazy Man had also cut holes in the two 5-gallon cans of fuel that I always carry in the truck bed.

It didn't take long before there were a lot more law enforcement vehicles there. I think I counted nine of them total at one point, not counting the airplane they'd sent up to help find Crazy Man. The boys and I just hung out for awhile, waiting to see if the officers who went up the mountain would catch the guy. He had a big head start on the police, and I didn't think they had much of a chance of catching him. The sheriff's deputy got close enough to yell at the guy to stop, and Crazy Man yelled back, apparently taunting him and the other officers. Once Crazy Man got to the top of the Book Cliffs, he was off the narrow trail and could go off in any direction, and I think that's how he was able to elude capture.

After an officer had come to take pictures of the damage to the tires and the footprints in the dirt around the truck, I called Traci's dad and asked him to bring out a spare tire that would fit my truck. Between that and the spare tire that I already had, we were able to get the truck on the road and go home. The sun had set by that time, and the police called it quits on the search.

I spent about seven hours out there total, about five of which was spent just waiting around with a few other police officers. I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't been armed. I'm not even sure I would have dared to yell down at the guy after I saw him near my truck, but if I had done so without being armed I'm not sure how he would have reacted. He never did get back into the bed of the truck after I'd fired the warning shot, so that means he cut the holes in the fuel cans just because I hollered down at him. I think my only option, had I been unarmed, would have been to sit quietly and hope he goes away, but that would certainly have been a more terrifying experience.

I have mixed feelings on whether or not I hope the police catch the guy. If they catch him, he'll have to go to court and I'll have to testify against him--and then he'll know who I am. If they don't catch him, I'll likely never be bothered by him again because he has no idea who I am, but he'll still be out there to cause trouble for some other unsuspecting victims. I'm just glad that my sons I are at home, safe for the moment, and that my sons didn't have to witness me killing a crazy man.

I've still got a lot of vacation time saved up, so I've decided to take every Friday off work for the rest of the year, and starting December 21, I'm taking the rest of the year off. That'll be 12 days off in a row--should be nice!

Since I didn't have much else to do today, I worked on my '87 Subaru for a few hours. It's been sitting around for the last 21 months because I haven't felt like trying to figure out what was wrong with it. All I knew is that it didn't run well, and I couldn't get the engine to turn any higher than about 3,000 RPMs. From the way it sounded, I figured it was an air/fuel problem, probably the carburetor. When I started this morning, the first thing I tried was to adjust the carburetor, but since I didn't really know what I was doing, it didn't help at all. I replaced the spark pug wires with the ones from my '88 Subaru, since I know they were working well enough when I blew the engine in that car. I fixed a vacuum line that had a leak, and I also banged on the fuel filter just in case it was clogged, but nothing worked. The last thing I could think of was to adjust the timing. I loosened up the distributor and turned it a little clockwise, and it seemed to help. The car ran a little better and I could get the RPMs up to about 3,800 with the gas pedal mashed to the floor. Then I advanced the timing as far as it would go, and it ran even better. I still can't get the tachometer to redline, but I actually drove the car around my mom's back yard for a bit and it seems plenty powerful.

I think the distributor drive gear is off by one tooth, so I'll have to get the engine set to top dead center, then pull the distributor and replace it with the matchmarks lined up like they should be. After that, I think all I'll have to do is bleed the brakes and the car will be roadworthy. As much as I'd like to register it and drive it for awhile, I think I'm just going to get the title transferred to my name, then immediately put it up for sale. Otherwise I'd have to pay all the back property taxes on it since it hasn't been registered for several years. I can probably get about $800 for the car, and I think we'll use it to pay for a badly needed vacation for the family.

God, I love where I live. It was a little bit cold today, but the hike was fairly strenuous, so it was easy to keep warm unless I stopped moving. It was so overcast that it was difficult to tell what time of day it was--I don't think I ever saw the sun. A couple of hours into the hike, sometime after noon, it still felt like early morning because it was so dreary. Luckily it didn't rain or snow on us, but it looks like it's been snowing up in the mountains most of the day.

Mark and I were supposed to meet Chris near the trailhead down by the Reef, but we ran into him on the side of the road not too far outside of Price. He had camped out near Elmo, of all places, and was stopped at a geocache at the Sunnyside Junction. He followed us down in his car, we parked just off of I-70 and hiked all day long. We had a few minor problems with routefinding and backtracking, and that only helped add to the more than seven miles we hiked.

I'm more tired and sore now than I've been in a long time, which surprises me considering that I've done similar hikes the past two weekends in a row. I'll have to take it easy between now and New Year's, and find new ways to be lazy until it's time to start hiking again. January and February are usually pretty good months for me, but this time of year it just gets too busy, and I usually can't afford to put gas in my car this close to Christmas anyway. I think I'll be saving all my energy and money for yet another attempt at Sid's Mountain early next year.

I'm heading into the office tomorrow for a team lunch. We're going to Tucanos on the company's dime, and I'm sure it'll be good times. The last time I ate lunch there I didn't eat anything until breakfast the following day--it's some pretty good (and filling) food. If I'm lucky, I'll have time to find a few caches while I'm up there, and I'm considering placing a new one near work. There's a dead spot there about 2.5 miles in diameter with no caches at all, though I'm still not certain I want to place one in such an urban area. I like all my middle-of-nowhere caches. :)

I've decided for sure to make one last trip to the San Rafael Reef this weekend. The weather forecast is a little iffy right now, but I think I can handle a little rain while I hike. There's a benchmark near the cache that may or may not be possible to reach (it was originally reached/placed by helicopter), but I'm going to try.

Last weekend I wanted to find a few geocaches that I've wanted to do for a long time, but there was so much fun going on at camp that I didn't want to miss out on anything. Today, Mark and I went back to the San Rafael Reef and found those caches. The three I really wanted to do were the last in the Wonders of the Reef series. I found the first three last April, and the fourth one this February. Today's hike was a lot of fun--we basically hiked up the San Rafael Reef along the north rim of Spotted Wolf Canyon. Although it took us three hours to get to the top, it would have been a five-second free-fall back to the interstate. We decided to take the hard way back down, so it took us about an hour. We also found a few caches in Green River and along US-6, and I reached 550 cache finds at our last stop before heading home. There's only one more cache along the San Rafael Reef north of I-70 that I have yet to find, and I think I'm going to go after it soon. I almost got there a couple of years ago, but the hot weather and a lack of water forced me to turn back. The weather right now is perfect for that hike, so possibly even next weekend would be a good time to do it.

I've been meaning to update my website and upload some pictures from last weekend, but this past week has been hectic and I've just now gotten a chance to do so. To start off, we all had a lot of fun last weekend. We piled into the truck as soon as I got off work on Thursday and hauled ass down toward Green River. When we got to the dirt road turnoff from I-70 where we were going to camp, our friends, the Hunts, were already there with their truck and trailer. They'd only been there for a few minutes, and were out of their truck assessing the damage to the road. The heavy rains from a few weeks ago had washed out the road badly in several places, and it didn't look like anything but ATVs had been through since then. The Hunts led the way down the road while we followed. Their camp trailer has more clearance than ours, so they were able to make it through the first wash without doing any damage, but I had to get out my shovel and dig down the corner on the embankment so that I could get over it without ripping out the plumbing on the rear of my camp trailer. The next wash crossing didn't look as bad, but it turned out to be much worse. It was really sandy, and the sand was soft and deep. The Hunts got stuck real good, and it took us about half an hour to dig them out. After that we spent another 10 minutes digging the embankment down on that wash so that I could drag my trailer over it, and I managed to make it across with no problems.

We were the only ones at camp that night, but as Friday wore on, more people came and we ended up digging several of them out of that sandy wash. One guy even had to leave his car on the other side while I ferried him and all his gear to the campsite.

Saturday was the big hike to the Million Dollar View cache. It was about 6.5 miles round trip and probably 5 hours or so, and the view was indeed spectacular. I still haven't seen a penny of that million dollars, though. </gump>

That evening we had a potluck dinner, and I'm sure I would have stayed up 'til the wee hours of the morning around the campfire, but I started feeling sick and went to bed around 10:00. I felt alright Sunday morning, but I still decided to sit out the hike through Moonshine Wash. It got below freezing at night, and Moonshine was sure to be full of water, and I just couldn't bring myself to bear that much discomfort. It sounds like the five guys who went had a lot of fun, but I think I'll just stick to doing Moonshine when it's dry.

It's taken me until today to unload the truck of all our camping gear. This weekend I'll have to drain the water heater and all the water lines on the trailer, then I've got some repairs to make. On our way out of our campsite on Sunday evening, the rear of the trailer dragged down an embankment on one of the washes and tore off the blackwater valve handle. I didn't even notice it until we got to the RV dump--luckily we didn't lose any fluids on the drive home. I'll have to replace the entire valve, which is going to be a dirty-ass job, removing both the blackwater and greywater outlets and re-plumbing everything to the new valve. Well, you know what they say...