I paid off the balance of the loan on my truck yesterday. What's nice is that I got such a good deal on the truck that it's worth the same today as I paid for it three years ago. Now I've just gotta figure out what I want to do with the "extra" money I'll have each month. I can either dump it into my other debts (car, credit card, house), or play with it a little. ;)

It's finally looking like there's enough of a break in the weather for some of this snow to melt. I pushed a foot of snow off my camp trailer today so that the roof wouldn't leak when it melted. I also dug a lot of snow and ice away from the curb in front of the house so that I can park the truck there again, instead of in the driveway where it's been all winter.

I got a phone call from Dewayne (of DeViDe) the other day asking if I would head down into the Swell to find a camp spot for this spring's geocaching event. By this weekend the roads will have had a week to dry out, and I'm sure I would have spent some time down there anyway, so Traci and I are planning on taking the kids down for a sightseeing trip and hopefully a little hiking.

I am just beginning to get over (at least I hope I'm getting over) what feels like bronchitis. I slept so poorly Sunday night and woke up Monday morning with such a splitting headache and sore throat that I called in sick to work. I felt quite a bit better this morning, but if it worsens I will probably pay a visit to the doctor.

This image represents two years and more than 10,000 miles of GPS track logs:

I've saved every track log and waypoint since I bought my Garmin GPS 60, and today I imported all those files (saved in .GPX format) into Google Earth. I would someday like to do the same with the tracks from my old GPS, which is another 2.5 years and almost 10,000 miles, but it's a time-consuming process, and I'd have to be pretty bored to do it.

I went down to Buckhorn Wash this Saturday with Jason and his brother James. There was significantly more snow--maybe six inches more--than there was last weekend, even though we only got about an inch in Price over the last week. They showed me some rock art that I'd never seen (much of it surprisingly close to the main road), and I showed them some that they hadn't seen. We saw some bighorn sheep, which was very exciting. It was the first time I'd seen them in Buckhorn, and only the second time I've seen them in my entire life (the first was in Saddle Horse Canyon). I just about got my truck stuck in 12" of snow on a not-well-traveled road west of Cedar Mountain, just northeast of Buckhorn Reservoir, but I was able to dig it out with a shovel.

There is probably a lot more rock art in Buckhorn Wash that I don't know about. I think this year, when I've got nothing better to do, I will spend my time walking the canyon bottom looking for more. I have largely ignored Buckhorn because it seems like such a touristy place, but there is so much more to see when you go just a short distance from the main road, and relatively few people leave the main road to see it.

After work on Friday, I was trying to figure out a place I could go the following day to do some hiking. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, and I wasn't very optimistic about finding somewhere that would be fun. I somehow ended up browsing the images at SanRafaelSwell.org, and I ran across a picture of Ruin Arch. I had seen that picture a couple of years ago, but at the time I didn't recognize the area where it was taken. When I saw the picture again on Friday, I immediately recognized it as being near the head of Buckhorn Wash, and I knew exactly what I would be doing on Saturday. :) I called my sister and made plans to head out with her and her family the next morning.

Our first stop was a cliff across the canyon from the arch. I had been told by Jason that there were some petroglyphs there. Mark and I spent quite a while walking slowly along the base of the cliff, but all we saw were some very faint red markings that appeared to be pictographs, and some modern carvings/graffiti. After we reached the west end of the cliff, we turned around and went back toward the road, but this time we spotted a lot of petroglyphs. I guess the sunlight had to be reflecting back to us at just the right angle in order for us to make them out.

After taking a lot of pictures of the rock art there, we drove a couple hundred yards down the road and parked again. We headed out on foot across the flat, snow-covered canyon bottom to the cliffs on the south side. The hillside was steep and covered in 6-8" of snow. The arch was no more than a couple hundred feet up, and it took some scrambling on all fours to make it to the top. It was amazing up there, and well-worth the trouble of climbing up. There were some awesome patterns eroded into the sandstone, and a few petroglyphs--some in an alcove near the arch, and some on the arch itself. I assume the arch is called Ruin Arch because of the ruined rock wall built up in front of one of the many alcoves near the arch, but to my untrained eye the rocks appear to have been stacked by gringos and not injuns. We stayed up near the arch for a long time, and I took about 80 pictures while I was there.

Getting down from the arch went very quickly--I just took a lot of big lumbering steps and let the deep snow break my momentum. After reaching our trucks, we drove about a half-mile down the canyon and parked just around the corner from the dinosaur footprint. Jason had told me about some more petroglyphs here, and they were much easier to find than the previous ones. Not only that, but they were magnificent. Unfortunately, my pictures didn't turn out well. The petroglyphs are about 10' high on a cliff, and the cliff is angled back about 45°. When holding my camera above my head, I couldn't see my viewscreen well enough to tell if I had the rock art in focus or even fully within the camera's view.

It was late by the time we were finished up at that panel, so we drove farther down the canyon to find a picnic spot. We should have pulled over at the nearest camp spot and just sat on our tailgates, but I wanted to eat at a picnic table, the nearest of which was at the campground near the San Rafael River bridge. There was a cold breeze in that area, so we just quickly ate lunch and then hit the road for home.

I am growing weary of shoveling snow from the sidewalks and driveway. Actually, I am beyond weary. This winter has seen a normal amount of snowfall, but it's been concentrated into a relatively short period of time. I'm sure I've complained about the weather at least a couple of times already this season, but I'm really tired of it. :D I was hoping to take the kids out hiking tomorrow, but they don't fare so well hiking in deep snow. Traci will be gone most of the day, and finding entertainment for the kids and myself while being trapped in the house is difficult at best. There are only so many words a 4- and 6-year-old can come up with on the Scrabble board.