This has been a pretty laid-back weekend, with (unfortunately) no trips into the desert. I helped Michael with his pinewood derby car (or, rather, he helped me), cleaned the house a bit, and went for a couple of ATV rides. Yesterday I rode alone and placed a couple of geocaches. The first one was at an abandoned Ford truck near Cardinal Wash, and it was the 100th geocache I'd placed. I'd been hoping to have my 100th hide be something special, but the place I wanted to hide it is still mired in snow, and I got impatient and couldn't wait any longer. The other cache I placed was on a hill overlooking Price. I parked my ATV about a mile to the north and followed a mountain bike trail on foot until I reached the overlook.

Today I went for a ride with Traci and the boys. Traci hasn't ridden her 4-wheeler since we rode to Coal Wash with the Hunts two months ago. It makes me question why I continue making monthly payments on it, when it only gets ridden a few times a year lately. Hopefully I can remedy that soon. Anyhow, our ride today was pretty fun, though we covered a lot of the same ground that I rode yesterday. Pretty soon I'll have ridden all of the roads north of town and will have to find somewhere new to ride.

I've actually been on five ATV rides near home in the past week or so. It's nice being able to ride straight from home, through town, to the dirt roads outside of town. I finally went to the police station this week and got a copy of the ATV ordinance so that I could make sure I was legal to ride through town. I get a lot of strange looks riding on the streets (though that could just be from Torrey riding on the front of the ATV), and one neighbor even asked me if it was legal for me to ride on the pavement. I figure that sooner or later somebody is going to seriously question whether I should be riding through the city, and now I'm prepared with a more definitive answer.

Next weekend is going to be insane. We're going to have six or seven friends over for Easter weekend. The Hunts are bringing their ATVs, so I'll have a few extra 4-wheelers parked in the yard, and all the beds, couches, and even the floor will be occupied at night. Hopefully the neighborhood survives the weekend. :D

Here are a few photos from the past week's adventures, plus a few from earlier in the month.

Spring is finally here! Last Wednesday I rode my ATV from home to Coal Creek, hoping again to get all the way to Soldier Creek Road (which leads to Nine Mile Canyon). Instead of being stopped by deep snow like last time, I was turned back by mud. I got more than a mile farther than I did previously, however. After the mud-fest, I returned to the main road and tried getting farther up Coal Creek Road than I'd done last time. I made it past where I got stuck in the snow the previous time, but less than half a mile beyond that was a locked gate. It was a good ride despite not being able to go where I wanted. Most of the roads were dry and a little dusty, which is a big departure from the riding I've done in the past few months. Here are some photos from the ride.

The following day I went geocaching with the whole family. We only found three, though that's a lot for us in a day because we (or I) usually find caches in pretty remote areas. One of the caches we found was near the golf course, and I'd read in somebody's cache log that there were some graves on the actual golf course. So, after finding the cache, the kids and I set out across the golf course to find the graves. They were pretty easy to find, surrounded by a red wooden fence, and right next to a paved golf cart path. It's always nice finding interesting things like that while geocaching.

On Saturday, Michael and I rode my ATV along the Mexican Mountain Road to look for a rumored cabin that's supposed to be in the Lockhart Box/Lockhart Wash area along the San Rafael River. Lockhart Box is a very short, deep canyon that drains into the north side of the San Rafael River, and Lockhart Wash is a long, shallower canyon that drains into the south side of the river directly opposite the Box. My plan was to get as close as I could on the ATV, then hike to the top of some cliffs overlooking the river to look for the cabin. We first hiked along the bottom of Lockhart Box, but we quickly ran into a huge dryfall that couldn't be climbed down. We hiked out of the canyon to the west and then followed the rim the rest of the way to the river overlook. The river gorge's walls were so steep and there was so little dry land in the bottom of the canyon that there was no way a cabin would be near there. If it exists, it must be up-river where the terrain is more level. I had originally planned on ATVing around to the south side of the river to look there, but it would have been a long ride and I just didn't feel like spending that much time in the saddle. Instead, we rode to the end of the Mexican Mountain Road and found a geocache there, then headed home. Here are the photos from Saturday.

Sunday was a gorgeous day, and I spent it doing some work around the house and yard. I also went for a couple of short ATV rides north of town, with each of the kids taking turns as a passenger. This afternoon I gathered some pinyon pine for firewood on Wood Hill, where somebody (presumably a utility company) had cut down a bunch of trees under some power lines. I loaded up several hundred pounds of wood, returned home and unloaded it, then cut some of it to size with the chainsaw and split some of the larger logs. I also raked the front grass to get the last of the fall leaves and dead grass. Between the raking and firewood lifting, cutting, and splitting, my whole upper body is sore. It felt good, however, to work outside, and to top off a fine spring day, I enjoyed my first glass of iced tea of the year. Yes, I think I'm digging this change in the weather.

Yesterday I took the kids to Goblin Valley. It's been about five years since the last time they were there, and since Bradley was only two years old at the time, we didn't explore very far from the parking lot. This time we hiked about three miles through the goblins and up a couple of short canyons on the east side of the park. Conditions were completely opposite from what they were three weeks ago. The ground was mostly dry, it was relatively warm, and there were a lot more people. Toward the end of our visit the wind picked up and was blowing a lot of dust around. Instead of eating lunch at Goblin Valley as planned, we drove to Temple Wash and hoped to find a more sheltered place at which to eat. The wind was still blowing there, but at least it wasn't kicking up dust. By the time we finished eating, it was getting much colder and some very dark clouds were rolling in from the west.

I'd also planned on going to Crystal Geyser and the White Wash sand dunes, but with the storm coming in, I decided not to take the car on any more dirt roads and risk getting stuck if it rained. During the drive home it started raining, and by the time we reached Wellington it was a full-blown blizzard. Price only received about an inch of snow, most of which has already melted today. It felt so good early yesterday with the spring-like weather, only for the evening to bring more depressing snow. Mother Nature is such a tease.

---

Goblin Valley Photo Gallery

The past weekend was a great escape from the great white north. I took half a day off work Friday and we got the kids out of school a bit early, then headed down to St. George. The drive was long, with the usual "Are we there yet?" emanating from the back seat. I was a little worried at all the snow still on the ground as we drove south. Approaching Salina there wasn't much snow on the ground, but closer to Cedar City there was still quite a bit. However, upon arriving in St. George, there wasn't a single bit of snow--it was t-shirt weather. We checked into our hotel and unpacked the car, then set out in search of something fun to do while we waited for some friends to arrive in town. We decided to go to Cottonwood Cove Park, which had some really unique playground equipment, a climbing wall, and a walking path that followed the Santa Clara River. After we spent a while there, Chris and the DeSart family arrived in town, and we met them at Ruby Tuesday for a late dinner. I was hesitant to eat at a sit-down place because, well, my kids behave poorly. Ben kept them occupied with a game called "Coma," where they pretend to be in a coma. I didn't think the boys were that gullible, but they played along, and the adults were able to carry on with some nice conversation while my kids held still and were quiet. Traci said to Ben, "You're hired!"

On Saturday, we woke up early and met a large group of geocachers at Golden Corral for breakfast. We did this same thing four years ago, but didn't have quite as good a time then. With the kids being older now, it wasn't as big an ordeal. After breakfast, a few groups went out on different geocaching adventures, but I chose to go it alone. Traci took the kids swimming at the hotel while I did some hiking.

I hiked to Johnson Canyon, which is in Snow Canyon State Park but just outside the fee area, then drove to Ivins and did a few short hikes at the base of Red Mountain. For lunch, I picked up Traci and the boys and we hit Arctic Circle for some halibut and fries. I would have preferred Long John Silver's, but the nearest one was in Vegas. We hit Cottonwood Cove Park again so the kids could have their fun, then found a few geocaches near the motel. While caching, we ran across some natural springs coming from the cliffs above St. George Boulevard. I didn't expect to find anything so interesting in town, and I had a great time hiking with my family. We met up with Chris and the DeSarts again for dinner, this time at Brick Oven. After dinner, we hit Nielsen's for some frozen custard. It was raining when we left there, and it rained heavily throughout the night, but the next morning it was relatively dry and clear.

Sunday was our last day in the area, and we spent most of it at Snow Canyon State Park. After the continental breakfast at the hotel, we loaded up the car, checked out, and drove to Snow Canyon. I'd done some poking around in Google Earth, and looked at the photos on Panoramio, so I knew where I wanted to go in the park. We did the short hike to Jenny's Canyon first. The canyon slots up pretty quickly and ends at a box canyon. Our next stop was the sand dunes, which unfortunately were wet from the night's rain and not as much fun to play on as they are when dry. After letting the kids run around and make castles out of the wet sand, we drove a bit farther up the road until it crossed a big wash. We parked there and hiked up the wash to find the official state park geocache. The wash was very interesting, as it cut through the edge of a lava flow, so the canyon walls were formed by basalt on one side, and sandstone on the other.

The next attraction was the petrified dunes. The petrified dunes are simply Navajo Sandstone like we have in the Swell, but it's more red and more interestingly sculpted. After scrambling around on the slickrock, we hiked the Butterfly Trail until we reached the lava tubes. They don't advertise the lava tubes anywhere, but we asked the park attendant at the entrance and she told us how to get there. We checked out a couple of the lava tubes using my meager headlamp, but due to time constraints we didn't explore much farther. After returning home and seeing more photos, it's apparent that we missed some of the more interesting lava tubes. That's yet another reason to return next year. When we got back to the car, we drove to the northern entrance of the park, then turned around and drove back through and exited at the southern end.

We hit St. George and grabbed some snacks at a grocery store, then started the long drive home. We stopped to visit our good friends, the Hunts, in Sigurd. It was nice to see them again, and it helped to break up the trip home. We got home a little after 7:00PM, and after dropping Traci and the boys off at home, I immediately drove to my mom's to pick up my puppy, who I'd been without all weekend. It felt good to be home, but the one thing I didn't miss was the cold and the snow on the ground.

I've now only been to two of the geocaching events in St. George, but I think it will become a yearly tradition for my family. It's not worth it for the event alone, but getting away from winter for a few short days is well worth it.

---

Photo Gallery

I've really been enjoying the weather we've had lately. It's been an unusually harsh winter, but the past weekend it was gorgeous, though I spent that time at home instead of out enjoying the melting snow and the mud. About half of the snow has melted from my yard. Most south-facing slopes are free of snow, but the northern slopes still have nearly a foot. I'm hoping that another couple of weeks of warm temperatures will be enough to melt off the rest and return things to relatively normal.

This weekend I'm going to where the sun is shining and there's no snow (and the ground is dry!). I still don't have any solid plans yet, other than to enjoy myself as much as possible while I'm there. I think that, with a little break from the snow, I can tough out the rest of winter and maintain enough sanity to make it to spring.