We had a little bit of a crisis at home today. I was out geocaching with the kids when Traci called me and frantically told me that "the house is flooding again." I automatically assumed that the city's sewer main was backing up again, but then she said something about the upstairs bathroom sink and I relaxed considerably. Apparently, while I was outside starting up the truck so that we could go caching, Bradley had gone to the bathroom and washed his hands, but he didn't turn the water off. After I'd moved the truck into the driveway, I popped my head in the front door and told the kids to come outside and get into the truck, then we left.

The sink drain has been running a little slow for the last week or so, and it couldn't keep up with the running water so it eventually flowed out onto the floor. It ran into a heat vent and a cold air return vent, and from there it ran downstairs and leaked out through the seams in the ducts. Luckily Traci came home from church less than 30 minutes after we'd left, so the damage wasn't too bad. She cleaned up all the water upstairs while I raced home doing about 100 MPH down Airport Road--apparently the truck is governed at 100 MPH, 'cause I couldn't get it go any faster. By the time I got home, there was just a little bit of water dripping from the ceiling in the basement, but the carpet was soaked.

I got most of the water out of the carpet using the Shop-Vac, and the rest of the damage is very minor, something that a little paint and joint compound can't fix. As for the 3-year-old, I think we'll be giving him away. :)

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya. There is just nothing happening around here. I think it's time for another road trip, because as much as I need to get out and hike, there's just nothing fun about trudging through the snow that's still hanging around here. I'm thinking that something like this might be in order. There are quite a few new geocaches along I-70 that I could go find, but unfortunately I don't have time to plan for a trip like that before tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll do it next weekend.

This weekend, I'll have to stick closer to home (which means trudging through snow). There's a new cache northeast of Kenilworth that's in my old stomping grounds. I remember riding my bike up that canyon with Daniel Robertson when I was eight or nine years old, and my, how things have changed since then. The road up Cordingly Canyon used to require a 4x4 vehicle, but judging by the new aerial photos on Carbon County's website, it's had some work in the last year or so. The companies drilling new gas wells have probably installed a compressor station there, 'cause you can see a building of some sort in the aerial photos, along with a semi driving down the road. I remember when it used to be difficult to get a bicycle down that road. Anyhow, I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get up the canyon with a minimum of hiking, because that place creeps me out. I always worry about mountain lions sneaking up behind me in that area. There's nothing like the feeling of being on the second rung of the food chain.

Both of the kids have been sick for about a week, and now that they're finally getting over it, Traci and I are starting to come down with something. Between that and the cold cold weather we've had lately (it got down to -1°F last night), it's kept me cooped up in the house for far too long. I've spent most of my time either reading or watching TV. I found out the other day that new episodes of Stargate SG-1 are already airing in the UK (and ridiculously won't air here until mid-April), so I downloaded and watched the first episode of the second half of season 10. It also looks like there are a bunch of new Atlantis episodes floating around out there, so I'll have to get them too.

It looks like the Sid's Mountain hike is on for March 3rd. I'm not sure that I'm 100% up for a 13-mile hike, so I plan on hitting the treadmill several times a week to get at least somewhat used to the exertion. It's been since early November that I did any moderately difficult hiking, but nothing I've done compares to the long slog that's in store for me in a couple of months.

It's been busy lately, but pretty uneventful. I ended up placing that geocache with Mark as I'd planned, and we found another cache and climbed around in some shallow caves near it. We also had a lot of fun dropping rocks off a 200+ foot dropoff at the head of Cow Canyon. The next day, New Year's Eve, Traci and I spent the evening at Ty's house playing with Mike's Wii (that sounds so wrong). Since then, I've been getting back into the swing of things at work after having the past two weeks off. There's been a rash of new geocaches around here, so those have also kept me occupied. One cache in particular has been irritating--it's behind a restaurant which apparently requires all employees to chain-smoke in order to work there, 'cause there's always at least one person (but sometimes three) out back having a smoke break whenever I've tried grabbing the cache.

I spent some time today typing up the event listing for the Sid's Mountain hike that I've got planned for March 3rd. It often takes the reviewers at geocaching.com awhile to review the listings before they're published on the site, but hopefully in the next few days it'll be up there. I'm hoping for dry weather immediately preceding that weekend, otherwise I'll have to push it back another week. I learned last time that even an average 4x4 can't make it over those muddy clay roads. I don't really expect early March weather to be that good, but I can hope.