May Happenings

Birthday ride...30 miles around the Gunnison back roads and up on Mayfield Canyon pavement.

Chucking at Chuck-a-Rama on my dad's 75th dinner party with the fam-dam-ly.

I built a shelf for the window so that the shop cat can nap there.

First bike ride on the Vike on the Bike race loop at Black Hill for this year.  After all of that base training.

Lily Tiger and my mom's new dog, Benji.  He is a Dandie Dinmont Terrier.  Pretty dog!

One day I drove to the divide between Fountain Green and Nephi to look at hundreds of wild horses on this pasture.

I drove by them so many times over the winter and always wanted to stop and look at them so I finally did.

More singletrack riding at Kane Valley(back side of Black Hill).

A Sunday hike with Duke along the top part of the Flume Trail, then walked back.

I did a ride from Ephraim to Manti then up Manti Canyon a little ways then back to Ephraim.  A good ride!

Snow in May.  May 17th, 2017.

Pretty

These two animals do this a lot...wait for the grandparents to come home.

First ride on the Flume for this year.  It is better than it was but wait until the flash floods come this summer, then it'll be a rut instead of a trail all the way down.  I enjoyed it when I could.

I went for a drive up to the snowline...to Bluebell.  Lot's of snow this year.

Duke likes the snow.

Yes, I bought a basketball.  One Sunday afternoon I went to play basketball(just shooting hoops) at the elementary school with a basketball I found there.  I kind of missed it because I used to shoot hoops a lot when I was a kid.  I think I am going to do it again to get rid of boredom and use it as another leisure exercise other than biking.

Spring Break and Such

I went camping and hiking with my brother and his family in Caineville, UT during their spring break.

That's the campground, probably the only most uncrowded place in southern Utah during spring break.

My niece, Hannah, and her dog, Deegan.

We did a hike one day to North Caineville Mesa.  This cement truck near the highway is where we started.

Deegan can do this hike!  Easy.

Started hiking up along these weird gray fins.

Then started up this very steepish wall-like mountain.  Yes, a mountain.

The nephews starting writing memoriams just in case we died.

The views were just starting as we got higher and higher.

Beautiful!  Looking east.  The campground is below.  But we are not done yet.

Then we went though a squeeze and a mini slot canyon to get to the very top.

There it is, the top!  Looking west.

Everyone enjoyed the views at the top and we all walked around.

Then we skied down, no...hiked down.  It felt like skiing.

Playing in the cement truck.

After we were done with the hike, we sat around camp for a while then it was time for me to go.  I stopped in Capitol Reef on the way home and I rode my road bike for a little bit.  My mountain bike was broke down so I had my road bike.

I was tired from the hike but I barely had enough energy to go a little more.  I rode on the Capitol Reef Scenic Drive.

It was about 20 something miles....I think.  A good ride.  And beautiful.

Someone suggested me last March that I should do long low-intensity rides until summer, then do short high intensity mountain bike rides in the summer.  So, I try to follow this schedule and see if I can become a better rider.  The plan has been kind of changing a lot because of the rainy weather we have getting this spring.  I don't do any riding on Sunday, just a big one on Saturday.  I've been riding my road bike more on rides that has little climbing.

I bought a heart rate monitor for my Garmin bike computer that I strap around my chest to watch my heart rate to make sure I don't go over about 80% of max heart rate.  But I try to keep it at 70% during the whole ride.  But don't go below 60%.  Then keep it at this pace for 1.5 to 3 hours.  I have been doing quite a few 3 hour rides lately and it feels great.

Here's one ride I did on the weekend after Caineville, while I was at my little sister's to help her do a garden project for the weekend, I did a long 40 mile ride to Plain City and back.  Good ride!

On Easter day, I took Duke on a hike to the waterfall in the west mountains.

I haven't been to this waterfall since I was a kid.  I needed to check it out.  We walked along a wash for a mile to the waterfall.

The water only goes down during early to mid spring as long there is still snow at the top of the west mountains.

Pretty!  Perfect for a Sanpete cowboy to undress and take a shower while camping for the night.  I wanted to get under to cool down but I had hearing aids on and my Garmin Forerunner on my wrist so I didn't want to ruin them and bother to take them off.

Duke liked this hike because there was a lot of water for him to drink during the whole time.

A few more little waterfalls along the hike.

Last night, I went to Supercross in Salt Lake City with my brothers and sister and their families.  It was fun and this was the first time I've been to a dirt bike race.  It was loud.  But it was fun to see Eli Tomac come from 10th spot to beat Ryan Dungey in the finals.  Everybody was cheering.

The next day, which was this morning, I went on another local hike in the west mountains.  I pasted gps coordinates I got from a ksl article from 2008 to find the center of Utah.  I followed a road to this gate and drove more.  Then started hiking up a hill by following cairns.  Some cairns were knocked down so I fixed them.

I went 1/2 mile up the hill and found the marker!  Pretty cool.  I can't believe that we have this in Sanpete.  Fun to see and a very fun activity for the kids if you have them.

It is about 5 miles west of Ephraim.  The center of Utah is not in Levan, UT, where everybody thought where it was.  Levan is "navel" spelled backwards and that's how that town got it's name.  The navel of Utah.  Well, they were wrong.  Thanks to an Eagle Scout from Mount Pleasant from 2008.

Then Duke, Jeri, and I went for a drive later in the afternoon in Ephraim canyon and checked out the snow and the big water in Lake Hill.