What a weekend! I managed to pull out of town with the camp trailer in tow shortly after work on Wednesday and arrived at campsite #6 at the Wedge just over an hour later. I set up camp and stayed there the entire evening. I grilled up some dinner and sat around a campfire for a while, then went to bed early. The next morning I set out on my ATV to find some geocaches in Buckhorn Wash. The first two took me a long time to find, but the third was pretty easy. After returning to camp for some lunch, I went for another ride closer to camp. Shortly after I got back Traci showed up with the kids, then the Hunts arrived a little after dark. We spent the evening enjoying each other's company around the campfire.

The next morning after breakfast, Cortney, Cody, and I set out on our ATVs and found some geocaches. Actually, they found them and I just tagged along since I either placed them or had already found them. When we got back to camp, Utah Jean was there, and later in the evening a few others showed up and completed the usual lineup of suspects who normally show up at these events.

On Saturday, the only thing I had planned for the event was a hike during the day and a potluck dinner in the evening. Chris was the only one who wanted to hike with me, and we set out for my geocache Tip O' the Wedge. Mark and I placed that cache almost four years ago and at that time I'd thought it was as far as one could proceed toward the southeastern tip of the Wedge without climbing gear. This time Chris and I made it another quarter of a mile closer as the crow flies, but all of the scrambling and dead-ends added 1.4 miles to the round-trip hiking distance just to get that quarter-mile closer. The only thing that stopped us from going farther was my fear of downclimbing some sketchy sections. Chris had climbed up some ledges that, once at the top, probably would have allowed us to go another half a mile or more closer to the tip. I just didn't dare to go up because coming down would have been tricky for me. We've decided to go back later with some rope to help with the downclimbs, and we'll see if we can push it even farther.

We got back to camp just in time to start getting food ready for the potluck. Several other people showed up for the potluck, and we had fun visiting while everybody prepared their dishes. While we did so, the weather got windy and eventually it started raining, and by the time we were ready to eat it was coming down hard. We ended up serving out of my trailer, and at one point we had 20 people in there dishing up their meals. Quite a few stayed in there to eat while some others went to their trailers or vehicles to eat. It was fun and quite amusing, but it wasn't the first time we'd done something similar during an outdoor potluck. After finishing dinner the weather cleared up, though it got quite cold and the rain froze on everything. We threw a lot of wood on the fire and tried to make the best of the weather, and it turned out to be a great evening.

The next morning Traci and I slept in until after 10:00, and after breakfast everybody slowly started getting ready to head home. I was the last one to leave, though it was still early enough in the day that I had time to stop in Lawrence to find a new geocache. After hitting the RV dump and heading home, Traci and I unloaded the fridge and a few essentials from the trailer and we relaxed the rest of the evening. I took today off work so I could finish unloading the trailer, but I didn't actually do much of anything today. It was nice to relax after a long, fun, and busy weekend. I uploaded some photos here, though once again I was often too busy having fun to get the camera out. :)

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. I've been meaning to, and even started typing something a couple of times, but nothing came out. With Traci still recovering from her surgery, things have been pretty laid back at home. I did manage to get out for a 4-wheeler ride two weekends ago in the Mounds/Price River area, but for some reason it wasn't much fun and I kept looking for an excuse to turn around and head home. I eventually came upon a steep downhill section with a ledge across the trail that reminded me a lot of the drop I lost my previous ATV on, and that was a good enough excuse for me. I may go back to that place someday to see if the trail connects to another trail I was trying to get to, but not without somebody with me to keep me out of trouble. The following day I did some hiking/geocaching with the kids up Coal Creek in the Book Cliffs and had more fun there than I'd had on my ATV the day before. It helped redeem the weekend and make things a little less dull.

This past weekend was pretty nice. As soon as I got off work on Friday, the family loaded up into the truck and we drove out to the Wedge to place some geocaches. I already had several places in mind where I'd already been before, so we made quick work of the first four caches that we placed, all of them being just off a dirt road somewhere within five miles of where we're planning on camping next weekend. After placing those four, we parked at campsite #6 at the Wedge and started a campfire and ate a dinner consisting of ham, turkey, and cheese wraps. Sam and Mark and their kids joined us right as we finished up dinner, then Mark and I headed off in the dark to place the fifth and final geocache of the evening. It's supposed to be a night cache, meaning that it can only be found at night by using a flashlight to follow a trail of reflectors placed in trees. It took us more than two hours to place all the reflectors, and we only covered a quarter of a mile. It felt like a fruitful day, and hopefully everyone who comes to the geocaching event this weekend enjoys the caches.

I spent Saturday at the North Spring shooting range with Jorge, Joe, Ty, and Brent. It's been years since I saw most of them, and it was a lot of fun just hanging out like in old times. After shooting for several hours, I departed early to go find a couple of geocaches nearby. One was at Star Point on Gentry Mountain, and the dirt road going up there was insanely steep. It was opening weekend of the deer hunt, and I'm lucky that I didn't run into any opposing traffic on the road since it's narrow enough in most places to necessitate somebody having to back up. I needed 4-low to get up and down, but it was worth it just to say I'd done it. On Sunday, I did a bit of packing for the camping trip this week. I also cut and gathered some firewood, and now my arms are extremely sore from trying to start my damned chainsaw and from swinging an axe to split some of the wood. I did some more getting ready for the camping trip this evening, and tomorrow will be my last day to get ready because I'm leaving as soon as I get off work on Wednesday. I have Thursday through Monday off, and I plan on enjoying every second of it.

Traci's surgery went well yesterday. Her check-in time at the surgical center was 7:30 in the morning, and we had to get up at 5:00 in order to get there on time. Just before 9:00 they wheeled her off to the operating room, and at about 10:15 the surgeon came to talk to me and let me know that everything went well and that Traci would be out of the recovery room shortly. They finally wheeled her back to her room an hour later and she was still out of it. It took a while for her to come-to, but pretty quickly she was eating and drinking a little and ready to get up and walk. She was well enough by 1:30 that they released her and we were able to head home. Here's a photo of her gallbladder and stones:

Hopefully this weekend is all she needs to recover. It would be nice if, by next weekend, the whole family can get out to enjoy this cool fall weather.