After shopping around town and online for new tires for the truck, I settled on the Nitto Terra Grappler All Terrain tire. I purchased them online today, and even after the $100 shipping cost I'll still save about $100 over buying them locally. I really wanted BFG All-Terrains, but after considering the cost and my reasons for wanting them, my practical side won out. I can only think of three or four occasions in the time I've owned my truck that I would have truly benefited from having better tires on it, and even then just moderately better tires would have sufficed. I only put about 5,000 miles on the truck each year, and so tread life wasn't much of an issue. I doubt that in five years I'll even own that truck, so this will likely be the last set of tires I put on it. I probably won't make a special trip out into the desert just to test these tires out after I get them mounted, so it'll be a while before I know how much better they are than my current tires.

Traci went to Orem on Friday and spent all day and night there scrapbooking with some of her family members, so I decided to head out after work with Michael and Bradley to do some camping in Buckhorn Wash. The drive only took an hour, so by 5:00 p.m. we had already arrived and started setting up camp. We stayed right across from the mouth of Little Holes Canyon. It was a decent place to camp, but the ground was hard packed and rocky and not nearly as nice as the soft sand at the place farther down-canyon where I'd camped two weeks ago. One very interesting similarity to my last outing is that we had a visit from a desert bighorn sheep, again peeking out from the top of the cliffs above camp to check us out. There must be a lot of bighorn up on the flats on either side of Buckhorn Wash, and apparently they're curious animals.

I had let the kids help prepare meals and wrap them in foil at home, and at camp we threw them on the fire to cook. We hiked around for a short while as our food cooked, then sat down to a good dinner when we got back from the hike. After dinner I made s'mores for the boys and a drink (rum and cola) for myself, and we spent the rest of the evening around the campfire. We turned in at around 11:00 p.m., which is earlier than we normally would have gone to bed at home, and slept fitfully throughout the night. It was pretty cramped in the tent with me, two kids, and the dog. It didn't help that it was warm and relatively humid.

At 6:30 a.m. I was wide awake and decided to stop trying to sleep. I let the dog out of the tent and started getting things ready for breakfast while the kids continued sleeping. We had bagels and orange juice, and I also had a cup of coffee. After breakfast I broke down camp and loaded everything up into the car, then we set out on a hike into the cliffs surrounding camp. Two weeks ago I saw a cave that was high up in those cliffs, but it didn't quite look accessible from the bottom of the cliffs. We set out to determine whether we could get there from the bottom, and after scrambling around for about an hour, we decided it couldn't be done. Through binoculars I could see some initials carved in the rock next to the cave, so I know it's accessible somehow, but I think the nearest access from the top would require at least a one mile hike. It will be worth trying to hike to this fall or winter because it's deeper than any other natural cave I've seen in the Navajo Sandstone in this area.

After finishing our hike and getting back to the car, we took the Green River Cutoff Road east with the intention of finding the Stone Saloon geocache out that way. I'd done absolutely no advance scouting of the area in Google Earth, which is very unusual for me, so I was relying solely on the compass arrow on my GPS to get us to the cache. I drove seven miles north on the road to Humbug Flats in my Taurus, which in itself is quite a feat, but I wasn't able to find the correct road leading east to the cache. The closest to the geocache that I could get on the main road was within 1.5 miles, and that was too far for the kids to hike in that heat. We turned around and drove seven rough miles back to the Green River Cutoff Road, then continued east to US-6 and on to home.

Tent camping with the kids is considerably more work than going alone, but I think they had a better time than if we'd stayed home. Our next camping trip will be in the camp trailer at Potter's Ponds in a few weeks. I've got that Friday and Monday off work, and I'm looking forward to taking it easy that weekend.

Despite wishing I was elsewhere doing something outdoorsy, I've hardly left home in the last week and a half. I spent Saturday at home watching some movies that were on television. Dawn of the Dead was much better than I expected. It started out fast and hard, and didn't let up much. I was hoping for a happy ending, but, well, it is a zombie movie. Brokeback Mountain wasn't as good as I'd been led to believe. It was worth watching, but it just didn't live up to the hype.

My sister invited us to drive up onto Wood Hill with her family and watch the ISS fly overhead. What should have been a five minute drive turned into 15 minutes as we detoured around a newly-paved section of 900 North. Still, it's nice to be able to drive such a short distance and be out of town and away from others. We started a campfire, then sat in our camp chairs and bull-shitted while waiting for 8:55 p.m. The sky was still relatively light since the sun had set not long before then, but the space station was very bright and easy to spot. After watching it for about two minutes before it disappeared into the Earth's shadow, we stuck around until after full dark and roasted some marshmallows and ate s'mores.

I think I'll step outside this evening to watch the ISS again. It won't be as bright as it was yesterday, but it will appear 20 minutes later so the sky will be darker. This is the last time it will be so easily visible for the remainder of the month. I'll be keeping an eye on the satellite flyby tracker for other interesting night sky objects in the future.

Last Wednesday when I got home from dropping Traci off at her family reunion, I noticed some small, thin pieces of tire rubber in the driveway. They were in the spots where I'd cranked the front wheels on the truck in order to get lined up with the camp trailer when I was hitching on. I had left the truck with Traci and drove the car home, so I made a mental note to check the truck's tires when I went to pick her up on Sunday. I had actually forgotten all about it by yesterday when I went back to get her, but just before I was about to pull out of the campground with the trailer in tow, Traci noticed a chunk of rubber about 3/4" in diameter missing from the tread of the right-front tire. Inside the small crater was a crack that extended deeper into the tire, and it scared the shit out of me that I'd towed the trailer doing 70 MPH with a tire in that condition last week. I decided that instead of using the spare tire, I'd just take it really slow on the 30-mile drive home--I'm sure I pissed off more than a few drivers who got stuck behind me on the highway.

I bought those tires right after I bought the truck, and paid about $100 each brand-new. I replaced the two rear tires a couple of years ago, but the front tires are the original ones I put on in 2005. They were cheapest tires I could find, and the sticker that came affixed to them said, "Not for off-road use." Hah, yeah right. Those tires probably had more time off the pavement than on it. I think the reason they're failing so badly now is because of the drive up Alrad Canyon a few weeks ago. The road was very rocky, and I didn't take it easy at all.

I'm just going to replace all four tires, and I'm dreading it. I'd like to get some BFG All-Terrains, but those will probably be in the neighborhood of $800. I've got Touring T/As on my car and I've been very happy with them--in fact, those perform better off-road than what I've got on my truck now (just don't tell my wife that). :D

I really didn't think I would be motivated enough to go camping this weekend, but I surprised myself Thursday evening by gathering up my camping gear and getting everything ready for an overnighter. As soon as I got off work on Friday, I loaded all the last-minute items into the car and set off for Buckhorn Wash. I'd already used Google Earth to pick out my camping spot, and during the drive I kept hoping that nobody had taken it yet. After turning off of the pavement near Castle Dale and hitting the gravel road, I only saw three other vehicles the entire night, and they appeared to just be passing through--I had the whole place to myself.

The place where I wanted to camp had a lot of red ants right where I would have pitched my tent, so I went to the next spot just 400 feet down the road. It was smaller, but there was still plenty of room for my car, tent, and a campfire, and the ground was much softer. The first thing I did there was prepare a fire pit and throw some wood in it. As I was doing that, I just happened to look up and noticed a desert bighorn sheep staring down from a cliff 300' above me. I got out my binoculars and stared back for a few minutes, then got back to work on the fire pit. When it was finished, I set out on a short hike along the ledges above camp. Shortly after I started, I found an Indian granary that was built into a small alcove 20' up a cliff. I tried climbing up to the granary, but the cliff was nearly vertical and the hand- and footholds were too few, so I pressed on and scrambled higher up some more ledges. After about an hour of hiking, I returned to camp, lit the fire, and set up my tent. By the time I had camp all set up, the coals in the fire were ready for cooking. I had prepared some potatoes and fish in separate foil pouches, and I just set them on the coals and then started in on a six pack of beer while dinner cooked. The sun set just as I was beginning to eat, so by the time I was finished it was starting to get dark. I got a little bored after that, but I just relaxed in my chair and finished off the six pack while I enjoyed the evening. I went to bed at 11:30 p.m. and slept fitfully most of the night.

At 7:30 a.m. I gave up trying to sleep in. I toasted a bagel over the camp stove, then heated up some coffee that I'd made the day before and brought in a thermos. I quickly ate breakfast, then began another hike that lasted two hours. I covered some of the same ground that I'd hiked the evening before, but this time I was attempting to get to the top of the cliff where the bighorn sheep had been. From below it appeared that I could scramble all the way up, but there was one questionable section near the very top that I wasn't certain about. I took my time getting up, keeping an eye out for rock art (however unlikely it would be in this location) and other ruins, and trying not to break an ankle on the steep and rocky hillside. Upon reaching the questionable section near the top of the cliff, it was apparent that I couldn't make it all the way. The last 10' was purely vertical, and though I think I may have been able to climb up it, getting back down would have been very difficult.

The hike back down went very quickly, and by the time I reached camp the sun had cleared the east canyon rim and was already heating things up quickly. It took me 30 minutes to take down the tent and stow all my gear in the trunk of the car, and by that time I was sweating profusely. The A/C felt good. :) I drove very slowly back through the canyon, stopping many times to look through binoculars at interesting features and possible future hiking locations. Twice I stopped and hiked around areas that I found interesting, including one place right across the canyon from where we had spent an evening early last week. There I saw a small rock wall built in front of a small alcove, with a shallow cave nearby. Even through binoculars it was unclear whether the rock wall was genuinely Injun, or whether it had been built by kids playing around. After a short hike and upon closer inspection, the wall looked poorly built and probably wasn't legit. The cave was interesting, but the bottom was full of rodent droppings and nest material, and the smell alone was enough to dissuade me from entering.

I stopped to look at two other caves on the way home, one of which could easily be climbed to, but the heat was getting to me so I'll leave it for another day. The other cave was up above a cliff and probably can't be reached from the bottom, but after studying a topo map and Google Earth I'm pretty sure I can hike in from the road to the Wedge and reach the cave from the top. That'll be at least a two mile round-trip hike, so it'll have to wait until fall/winter.

Up until now my idea of camping has pretty much always involved a camp trailer with all the comforts of home. Even as a kid, when my family went camping it was always in a trailer (at least as far as I remember). This weekend's trip was at least as fun as trailer camping, but it was considerably less work. The only thing that would have made it better is some company around the fire in the evening, so perhaps next time I'll recruit a friend or two to come along. One thing's for certain--there will be a next time.

Today I dropped off Traci, the kids, and our camp trailer at a campground in Huntington Canyon for Traci's family reunion. I'm now pondering what I should do this weekend while I'm on my own with no family obligations. I'd considered going on a couple of ATV rides to find the two oldest unfound geocaches in Utah, but not only would that be a little pricey, it would also be a lot of work. Now I'm thinking about throwing my camping gear into the car and spending Friday night in Buckhorn Wash, and either doing several short hikes in the area or one long hike. It's entirely likely that I'll stay at home all weekend while doing nothing productive, but I'd like to keep my options open. I may not even decide what I'm doing for the weekend until I get off work on Friday, in which case it's even more likely that I'll do nothing.

Yesterday, we said "Screw it!" to all this heat, and decided to drive down into the San Rafael Swell to do some geocaching. It was over 90° when we left home, but a thunderstorm was brewing and it cooled things off considerably during the drive. It didn't rain much where we were, but apparently it rained quite a bit in Price while we were out of town because everything was wet when we got home. Despite it being a weekday, I saw a fair number of cars in the Swell--maybe eight in all, including one truck that I'm pretty sure was being driven by DesertWoodrat's dad. We went first to Buckhorn Wash and found a few geocaches along the way, then stopped at one of my favorite places in the canyon to eat dinner. I also placed a new geocache there on top of some cliffs above the campsites, while Traci and the kids stayed near the truck and climbed around on some boulders.

After Buckhorn Wash, we drove west then took the road south that follows Red Seep Wash. We found another geocache at the end of the road, and we collected some rocks along the roadside during the drive back to the main road. We made one more stop for a cache in Castle Dale on the way home, and we didn't get back to our house until almost 11:00 pm. It was a nearly perfect evening--the weather couldn't have been better--but getting to bed late sure made it difficult to get up in time for work this morning.