It's been a month since I rode my ATV, and it's been two since Traci rode hers, so yesterday we decided to go for a short ride. We rode out straight from the house, which is only the second time I've ridden through town on my ATV. Both times now I've gotten a lot of strange looks from people when riding on the pavement. We took the well-maintained (boring) gravel roads up to the Book Cliffs and rode up Alrad Canyon near Kenilworth. The last time I was in Alrad Canyon was last year in late June, and there was a nice waterfall near the end of the canyon. I was hoping there would still be some runoff this late in the year, but the waterfall was dry when we got there yesterday. That's as far as we went, though the trail goes a bit farther up the mountain and eventually turns into nothing more than a cattle trail that leads to the top of the Book Cliffs. We headed home after a quick snack at the dry waterfall and made it back just in time to start dinner. The ride was only 25 miles and took less than three hours, but it was a nice getaway. It was also nice to get all the dried mud off my tires from last month's ride. :)

Bradley was spending some time at Traci's parent's house today while the rest of the family was here at home. When Traci called over there to let them know she was coming to pick him up, she learned that he had just barely fallen while going up the stairs and had cut his chin open pretty badly. They were getting the blood cleaned up while Traci drove over to pick him up, and when she came home she left him in the car and asked me to come outside to look at him. There was a small gaping hole in his chin that obviously needed stitches in order to heal well, so she ran him to the emergency room while I finished fixing dinner. I was pretty surprised when they got back home just as I was finishing my dinner--normally E.R. trips take about three hours for us. He got four stitches, which is a far cry from the 28 stitches I got when I cut my chin when I was about a year or two older than he is. This is only Bradley's second time getting stitches, so he's got some catching up to do if he ever wants to pass me up, and with the way that kid is I'm sure he'll do it eventually.

Last Sunday I spent the day driving from Joe's Valley to Huntington Canyon along Miller Flat Road, and geocaching the entire way. There are a lot of easy caches just off the road, probably due mostly in part to the annual geocaching get-together each August that draws people from all over the state. There was only one cache that I had to do some real hiking to get to, and it's one of the oldest caches in Emery County. I'd attempted to get there once before, but there's a lot of bushwhacking involved in getting there and a lot of elevation gain over a very short distance, and at that time I just wasn't up to it and so I decided to save it for another day. It wasn't terribly hot up there last weekend, but it was pretty humid and I was just dripping sweat before I even got halfway to the cache. There was a nice view of Upper Joe's Valley from up there, and it felt like a minor accomplishment finally making it to the cache.

I've been feeling so lazy the past week that I didn't get around to backing the trailer into the driveway until Friday, and it wasn't until today that I finally logged those caches (10 of them) from last weekend. I haven't done anything outdoors all weekend, in part due to the heat (it's been reaching nearly 100° every day) and also because I'm saving the fuel left in the truck for what will hopefully materialize into a camping/ATVing trip next weekend, though I don't have any solid plans for that yet.

I had a decent day, for a weekday. After work I hauled the camp trailer up Huntington Canyon to the Rocky Mountain Power employee's campground in Huntington Canyon, where Traci and the boys will be staying until Sunday. The truck actually couldn't do the speed limit on a few of the hills between Price and Huntington, so the trailer must be a lot heavier than our old one. It's a bit more difficult to set up than our old one too, mostly due to its height off the ground. After backing it into a slightly sloped spot and cranking the jacks down, I wasn't satisfied with it--it was just too wobbly. I moved the trailer to a more level spot, but it was still kinda wobbly there, though not quite as bad as the first place.

I had some problems with the truck while trying to back the trailer into its spot. The engine lugged and nearly stalled each time I put the transmission in reverse and hit the throttle, though it would perk up if I let it idle in reverse for several seconds before getting into the throttle. I've had this happen before on several occasions, but only after towing something heavy during the heat of summer. I think it may be time to get the transmission flushed and filled and have the filter changed. I had the same service done on my car about four years ago when the transmission began slipping, and I haven't had any problems with it since.

After getting the trailer and my family settled down, I headed into the Swell and found a new geocache on Cedar Mountain. The bugs were bad there--lots of little flying critters, though thankfully no biting bugs--but it was a nice place to enjoy the late evening. On my way home, I stopped in Cleveland and replaced a geocache for a friend. I got home pretty late and didn't eat dinner until about 9:30 PM, and I'm just about to hit the hay. G'night. :)

I've been keeping busy doing little odds and ends over the past couple of weeks, though it's been a pretty uneventful time. I enjoyed the 4th of July weekend. We had a barbecue at my mom's, then went to the hill at Westridge to watch the fireworks at the fairgrounds (which were nearly outshined by a lightning storm over the Wasatch Plateau), then went to my sister's house and set off our own fireworks. I spent Sunday doing some yard work, and now I have a wife beater sunburn.

I put the old camp trailer up for sale almost a week ago, and I've gotten several phone calls and a few e-mails about it. Hopefully it sells soon, since we put quite a bit of cash down on the new trailer and it would be nice to put that money back into our savings. I dropped the new trailer off at Tony Basso RV & ATV yesterday evening just before closing, and picked it up today after work, and it's now five inches taller. I had them "flip" the axles, which is really just welding new spring perches onto the tops of the axles and then mounting them to the bottoms of the leaf springs rather than the tops. To accommodate the newly lifted trailer, I had to turn the 2"-drop ball mount upside down and remount the hitch ball (which still isn't quite tall enough), and I also spent quite a bit of time over the past two evenings making blocks out of scrap plywood to go under all five trailer jacks.

Tomorrow after work I'll be hauling the trailer to Huntington Canyon for Traci's family reunion, though I won't be staying. Sitting in the 95° heat doesn't appeal to me, so I'll probably stay home alone most of the weekend, with perhaps a relatively short ATV ride early one morning. It kind of sucks not being there for the "maiden voyage," but their idea of "camping" and mine don't mesh. I can't wait until I can load the ATVs into the trailer and take it out into either the mountains or the desert for some real fun. I could easily live for a week or more in there, which I may actually attempt this fall when I can start using up all the vacation time I've saved up.