We went on another ATV ride yesterday, this time in the Helper/Kenilworth area. I uploaded some pictures from that trip and from our trip two weeks ago to my Picasa account.

We parked the truck near Spring Glen and rode the ATVs along the old railroad grade toward Helper. I had been out there a couple of times before on my mountain bike and in my '79 Ford truck. We rode up Helper Canyon (also known as Kenilworth Wash) on a short but really fun old mining road. We eventually came to a washed-out portion that was covered in boulders and impassible except on foot. We hiked up a couple of the switchbacks on the old road, but Traci and the kids weren't up for such a steep hike, so we hiked back down to the ATVs and rode back to the railroad grade. I'll have to return to the switchbacks alone someday to see what is at the top.

We rode the railroad grade all the way to Kenilworth, stopping a couple of times on the way to look at some interesting old relics, such as a wooden culvert under the grade and some old stone building foundations near Kenilworth. We crossed the pavement on Kenilworth Main Street and stopped for lunch on the north side of town. After lunch we kept going north and rode another rough old mining road in the canyon directly north of town (I believe it's called Bull Hollow). There are three old mines in that canyon, but we only made it about a mile into the canyon before running into snow drifts that were too deep to cross. The first mine was on the hillside directly above the snow drift, but it would take a steep climb up a huge tailings pile to reach the mine entrance, so I'm saving that one for another solo trip later in the year.

We had a good time on the ATVs yesterday and managed to avoid the Easter weekend crowds. We left town around 10:00 a.m. and drove to Farnham Dome, which is only about 12 miles from home. It was colder (and windier!) than it had been the past couple of days, so we immediately got a campfire started, then took turns riding on a couple of trails around the area. We had lunch, did an Easter egg hunt for the kids, and roasted marshmallows. At one point, the wind shifted while Torrey was lying on the ground near the fire, and the flames singed her whiskers and some hair on one side of her face. The poor puppy--I had to cut most of her whiskers off on that side. Our camp was set up just off the main road over Farnham Dome, and we only saw one vehicle drive past the whole time we were there (six or seven hours), plus two ATVs drove past just a few minutes before we left.

We got home early enough for me to finish wiring the new tail lights I put on the camp trailer earlier this week. A couple of weeks ago I had moved the trailer forward in the driveway to allow the snow to melt where it had been shading it, and Traci asked me to back the trailer up as close to the gate as I could get it so that she could still park the car in the driveway. Well, I backed the trailer up as close as I could get it, then went an inch or two closer. :D It broke the right tail light, but I replaced both of them while I was at it because I'd been having problems with them working for the past couple of years.

I took the Christmas lights off my house today. I kept using all the snow on the roof as an excuse not to take the lights down, but the snow melted two or three weeks ago, so my excuse then was just pure laziness. Another couple of months and I might as well have left them up for next Christmas.

After Traci and the kids went to visit her parents later this afternoon, I went for a short ATV ride with Torrey just outside of Price, on the northeast side of town. There really aren't any good places to ride close to town--most of the roads are nice, smooth gravel roads that lead to natural gas wells. I actually think that the next I want to ride close(ish) to town, I'll head back to Farnham Dome. I saw some interesting stuff on the few short rides I took yesterday, like remnants of what appeared to be old drilling rigs, concrete footings, a concrete dam, and several capped off gas wells (CO2, I believe). It would be nice to ride an ATV in (full-sized vehicles are out of the question) and then hike around exploring the area.

Little did I know that, seven years ago, this post of mine would be such a popular place for people to vent on how badly Utah sucks. There are 68 comments on that post, some of which might as well be novels. I think the main reason for the number of comments is because the post comes up among the first few search results when people search for "utah sucks" on Google.

My stance on how badly Utah sucks has mellowed quite a bit in the past seven years. I still think it's the people that give Utah a bad name (the land itself is wonderful), but I've learned to just ignore them and do my own thing. There are some good things about Utah--relatively low crime rates, liberal (hah!) gun laws, endless recreation opportunities, cheap housing (at least in rural Utah), and low cost of living.

Lately, whenever a comment comes through on that post and the person commenting mentions how happy they are to be leaving or to have left Utah, I just sit back in my chair and grin. They don't know how good they had it. ;)

After we bought the ATVs last week, Traci and I kept trying to plan a day when we could take them out and get the engines through their break-in period. The weather was supposed to have been bad all weekend, so we had resigned ourselves to waiting another week before we could go for a ride. However, the weather on Friday actually turned out to be halfway decent, despite the forecast, so late Friday night we decided to see how the weather looks in the morning and make a decision on whether or not to go on Saturday. It was somewhat clear on Saturday morning, and the heavier clouds were hovering over the top of the Wasatch Plateau to the west and the Book Cliffs to the north and east, but nothing was spilling over into the valleys below. We decided to risk it and just go.

We went to the Grassy Trail Creek/Price River area (centered roughly in this area) because it was fairly close to home and the roads were good but not too good. The Honda recommended break-in guidelines call for slower acceleration and varied RPM operation for the first 15 miles, so we took it really easy and drove on a variety of road surfaces, but nothing too rough or steep. It took us several hours to get in enough mileage to consider the engines "broken in," and while the odometer on the ATV read about 18 miles, my GPS showed that we'd gone closer to 20. I tend to trust the GPS over the ATV because I've got years of experience with it and it's never once been wrong.

We got back to the truck and loaded up the ATVs just as the wind really picked up and a tiny bit of snow started falling. We didn't see any more snow during the drive home, but as soon as I got the ATVs unloaded and put back in the garage, the snow really started falling, and we got almost an inch overnight. I guess our luck held out perfectly as far as the weather went.

Now that the ATVs are broken in, I think the plan for this coming weekend is to head out with my sister and her family to do some riding. Since we'll be sharing two machines among 10 people, it's not worth driving a really long distance just to do some short rides on the ATVs, so we'll have to pick a place close to home, but hopefully far from the huge crowds of people that tend to converge on the desert on Easter weekend.

My website has been messed up most of the weekend. I haven't been able to get Movable Type to load so that I can post until just now--it has given me an error message each time. Trying to post a comment results in the same error message. My e-mail is also not working--when I check it, the server doesn't respond most of the time, and when it does I don't get any e-mail (not even spam), so I'm assuming that most incoming mail isn't reaching the server as well. I'll post again when everything is working again.

Edit: Everything seems to be working normally now. Shortly after I posted the above message, the spam started flowing again and Movable Type has been consistently working. Comments are also now working.

I talked to my insurance agent to insure the new ATVs today, and when the agent called me back with a quote, he informed me that my driving record showed that my driver's license was expired. I was really confused because I was sure it wouldn't have expired without me knowing about it, so I pulled out my license to check. Sure enough, it expired on my birthday, six and a half months ago! I guess I'm lucky that I didn't find out about it the hard way.

The lady at the driver's license office told me that they do normally send out renewal notices, but I sure didn't get one. I was also technically required to take a written driving test because it had been more than six months since my license expired, but I sweet-talked her out of it. I had a nice smile on my last license--a certain friend's mom who worked there wouldn't let me get away without smiling--but my new license picture looks more like a mugshot.

This isn't the first time the driver's license division failed to notify me about something important. When I moved to Provo to go to college in 1998, I sent them a written change of address as required. The address got entered into their system, but apparently they omitted the apartment number. Several months later I got a speeding ticket (one of many that I'd gotten as a teenager), and my license was suspended for three months. However, the suspension notice never reached me, and I didn't find out until about six months later when I got pulled over and ticketed yet again. For some reason, and luckily for me, the ticketing officer didn't run my information through dispatch (possibly due to the remote location in Spanish Fork Canyon). Upon returning home, I called the driver's license division to see how that ticket would affect my record, and it was only then that I was informed that my license had not only been suspended, but that the three months were up and I could get it reinstated that same day!

I spent this afternoon spending money that I don't have. I bought a matching pair of 2008 Honda Rancher 4x4 ATVs. They're actually not identical--Traci got the ES model (electric shift), and I got the manual shift. I haven't driven mine much except to load and unload it from the truck, plus I ran a couple of laps around the back yard. We're gonna buy some helmets tomorrow, and this weekend we should be ready for a little bit of riding. We'll probably stick close to home this weekend, but I'm sure it won't be long before we go way off the beaten path. There a lot of places that I've wanted to go but just couldn't get there in my beast of a truck, but now those places are within easy reach. All I need to do now is figure out how to carry my dog with me on the ATV.

I did end up taking the kids hiking in Red Canyon yesterday after all. We hiked 3.6 miles round trip, which is the farthest either of the boys has ever hiked in a day. We went up the right fork of the canyon, and the canyon bottom was sandy and flat, which made for an easy hike, albeit an uninteresting one. There were a few places where we left the sandy bottom and climbed around on boulders or hills, just to keep the kids from getting bored. Just above where the canyon forks is the wilderness study area boundary, and there were a lot of tire tracks leading right past the WSA sign. I probably could have driven my car that far, but I can drive anywhere. Hiking is a lot more fun for me. :)

Last weekend in the Swell, I saw a few other vehicles and two camp trailers. This weekend, I saw a lot more vehicles, several camp trailers and tents, and even some mountain bikers along the Mexican Mountain road. It's getting to be the perfect weather to be in the desert, and people are really starting to take advantage of it. DesertWoodrat made a mention of "the crazy Easter weekend" coming up, and Traci and I have been talking about what to do this Easter. Last year's trip into the Swell on Easter weekend was a lot of fun, though there were an awful lot of people, and I think we're going to avoid the area on that weekend. Perhaps we'll stay at home and do traditional holiday activities--like eating candy.

Today was a nice day to work outside. Rather than the cooler temps and cloudiness that was forecast, it was warm and sunny. It was only supposed to get into the lower 40s, but my thermometer read a high of 52°. I cleared all the snow from in front of the storage shed attached to the garage so that I could fully open the doors, then I cleared the shed floor of all the clutter that's been gathering there for the past year. I also cleared most of the snow from the driveway in front of the camp trailer, then pulled the trailer forward about 30'. Hopefully that will be enough to melt all the snow that the trailer has been shading.

It's almost 9:00pm, and I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to take the kids hiking tomorrow. Getting me, the kids, and the dog ready for a hike, and all without any help, is kind of a pain.

All this week I had been considering going on a trip into the Swell (specifically, Red Canyon again) on Saturday (tomorrow), but the weather forecast has gone from good to bad over the past few days. There's now a chance of rain/snow, and while the chance isn't great, the potential consequences of getting my car stuck in the mud could be disastrous. Instead, I'll stay home and clear the snow out of my driveway where the sun still doesn't reach. I've got over a foot of snow in front of my camp trailer, and I'd like to get rid of it because I may need to move that trailer next week. I might end up going to Red Canyon on Sunday instead, but I'd have to bring the kids since Traci will be at church during the middle of the day. Sunday's weather is supposed to be warmer and clear, so if Saturday is dry enough, I may just be able to do some hiking this weekend.

Today was the first day in months that it didn't feel like winter to me. My family and my sister's family set out this morning on a trip through Buckhorn Wash and then down the Mexican Mountain road. We left our trucks at home--I drove the Taurus, and they drove their minivan. We were looking for a campsite where other geocachers could come in their cars, so I figured if I can't get my car into a site, it wouldn't be suitable anyway.

There is still a lot of snow on the ground just south of Price, and as we were leaving town all that snow got me worrying. I worried that there would still be snow on the dirt roads in the Swell, or that the snow would be melting quickly and there would be a lot of mud. My fears were unfounded, because it was gorgeous today. It was t-shirt weather, and the roads were not only dry, but they were smooth and appeared to have been graded somewhat recently. Gotta love the Emery County road department.

We checked out a few campsites along the Mexican Mountain road, and found one in particular that was more than adequate for DeViDe's event. After spending some time at that spot, we drove farther down the road and stopped at Red Canyon for a hike. We hiked along the wide, sandy bottom of Red Canyon for nearly half a mile, but the canyon bottom is so wide that it's uninteresting if you stay in the bottom. We left the bottom and headed cross-country to the east about a quarter-mile and found a fun place to hang out. There were a couple of huge boulders balanced on small mounds of dirt/shale, and an abundance of petrified wood. I placed a geocache right above this boulder that was wedged atop a dryfall, then we hiked back to the vehicles and had a pick-a-nick.

The drive home would normally have been uneventful, but we stopped at the pictograph panel in Buckhorn Wash for a potty break. While the ladies were using the restroom, Mark and I crossed the bottom of the wash and hiked around the sandstone formation on the other side of the canyon. We were only over there for about five minutes or so, but when we got back to the wash, there was flowing water several inches deep and about six feet wide in the bottom! I immediately bolted off downstream to try to find the leading edge of the water. It was just runoff from the snow melting up-canyon, but there was a lot of it. Luckily it was moving slow, and I caught up to it a couple hundred yards down the wash. I took some video (seen here on YouTube) and pictures, and then we returned on our merry way home.