Comment winner

I have forgotten to say who won the contest in the comment section for my post last week. It is a piece of sandstone, but I think Brenda gets the award. If you watch the office you will know that Michael thought that a nipple looks like a one eyed squid, and I thought that it sure looked like a nipple to me.

A Great Thanksgiving Weekend

We left for an unconventional thanksgiving on last Tuesday night. We drove to Vegas for the night and in the morning were off into the great outdoors. We first drove to Zion National Park. This was a great time and we really hit this area at the right time of year. During the summer months there are huge crowds and it is very hot, but on thanksgiving weekend there were v very few people and the temperatures were brisk. During the day the highs were about 65 and at night the temp got down to 30F or so. This is perfect camping weather.




Angels rest hike is very cool.
Great views
A sunset from out campsite. There is nothing better than camping.


Eggs and sausage in the morning is a great start to the day.



On Thursday morning we drove to Bryce Canyon National Park and it was a bit different there. (On our way we stopped off at Cedar breaks national monument and it is well worth the trip). The crowds were still non-existent, but the temperature had dropped dramatically. On the way there it seems that our water bottle leaked a little on the tent and we noticed it was wet when we began to set it up. It was so cold outside that the tent froze before we could get it all of the way up. We still were able to put it up, but the thought that it was going to dry out had vanished from our minds. We went on two hikes here and were able to see wonderful views of the Hoodoo’s and the ancient Bristlecone Pine trees. These trees can be over four thousand years old! We spent the night here and had a great big Whiteman fire to keep us warm (to no avail). We had a dusting of snow and Brenda noted that her water bottle in the tent next to her head was frozen solid in the morning. That morning we went to the visitor center (to warm up) and were off to our next destination.
High: 40F
Low: 8F

Wall Street hike through a slot canyonGreat arch in Bryce.

We went on some backroads and startled a herd of pronghorn. they began to run across the road and I knew that I could beat a few of them so the race was on. I was just about to cut them off from the rest of the herd when Brenda started to scream and thought we were driving to fast and going to hit them. We almost had pronghorn for Thanksgiving dinner.
Sunset on Bryce

Very nice sunset walk is a great way to remind us to be thankful.

On our way to Capitol Reef national Park we drove through the Escalante national monument. It is 2 million acres and to big to explore it a lifetime. There is an out of the way road into Capitol Reef that a ranger told us about so we took it. It turned out to be dirt/snow for about 40miles and very beautiful, but we only saw four other vehicles on the whole drive. These vehicles were high clearance SUV’s and trucks (not one Ford T-Bird was seen…I wonder why). We finally arrived at the visitor center after bottoming out only three times. We had not heard much about Capitol Reef, but after our visit we cannot figure out why. This is a very beautiful park that deserves to have much more recognition than it is given. There are so many beautiful aspects of this park and the pictures cannot begin to describe the beauty. We stayed the night in a national forest campground nearby. There were only 7 sites and no other campers. When we pulled up there were a few trucks out on a hill and they were having target practice with semi-autos (my kind of people). We did not see any wood so we went into town to get some. It is 6pm on a Friday night and everything was closed. I went into the only open building in town and found a three toothed woman who ran the motel/video rental store who told me that her x-husband that lived 15 miles away had firewood (thanks but no thanks woman). We passed the town she was talking about and it was not a town. Eventually we game up and found a dead tree to get wood from. Again this night was very cold and was at the limit of our new sleeping bag capabilities.
High: 45F
Low: 0F

Notice the snow. The T-Bird was not intimidated.


Arch hike above Fremont river.

Check out these petroglyphs.
Capitol Reef is a great place to visit.

The next day we drove to Great Basin National Park. It is the only National park in Nevada and it very cool. There is a great cave tour for about 1.5hrs and several great hikes that everyone should see. That night we ate at a café along Hwy50 (known as the loneliest highway in American because there are regular intervals of 70+ miles without any other roads/buildings/towns/or people). We go in and were helped by a local with…well she was a local. Soon after another young couple came it and they were obviously not from around there. The guy thought that he recognized me and asked if I was driving a red T-Bird. Of course I was and he said he recognized me from Capitol Reef where he saw me trying in vain to close the crammed trunk of my car. We invited them to our table and had a great dinner in the middle of nowhere with strangers.

That night we stayed in a hotel by Reno and drove home the next day. On the way home I saw a sign for a Cabelas that just opened in Reno. We stopped by and I had a hard time not buying everything in site.

This post is already to long so I will end it here. You must call to get all of the details.

The great cave exploration we got to take.
A "shield" is a formation and is found in very few places on earth.

Frozen alpine lake. Brenda was very scarred when it started to crack, but the ice was over 2" thick so I assured her it was ok.
You gotta love dead animals
Brenda near the fish tank

Contrast of life

The contrast of my life is between work and home. I am getting more and more stressed at work with the project I am working on and the completion date arriving within the next three weeks. There is a lot of records keeping and organization that I am not used to. Conversely I had a very relaxing weekend in Monterey not doing a bit of work (although I did think about it). Kevin and Lindsay Schenks parents recently acquired a house on 17mile drive and it is wonderful. Kevin, Lindsay, and Ethan met us down there on Friday for the weekend. We got there late, but in time for pizza and a few brewhaha’s (perfect timing if you ask me). In the morning we walked to the shore (only a hop skip and …jump not needed). The waves were huge and Kevin and I brought Ethan down to the water to check out the tide pools and smack giant pieces of kelp on the rocks (man stuff). The girls sat back on the rocks and marveled at our manliness (or made fun of us and wondered what wee were doing). In the afternoon we went to Point Lobos state park and went for a hike. It was perfect weather there with intermittent clouds and ~65F. We had a great dinner and dessert. Brenda must have liked the fresh baked apple pie because she literally ate ¼ of the pie and two scoops of ice cream(and this after chowing down on tri-tip). What a truly amazing woman I am married to.

The Refinery is not always a bad place to work. All the pollution in the Bay Area makes for some great sunrises.

Very nice picture at Point Lobos
Nicer picture? Brenda is a 35 and I am a 30 on the sleep number bed. You can see that I have mine set for 100. This is a feeble attempt to keep Brenda off of my side so I can get some sleep for once.

Nice morning walk
The view form the kitchen of the 17th tee and fairway is very nice.
Man...is that a cute kid... Ethan not Kevin
Doing Man stuff.
I think Ethan must have learned this from his mother? Just kidding Lindsay....Kevin told me to do it.

What does this look like to you. A contest will be held on the comment section. Most original answer gets

Lone Cypress
I am not drunk even though it might appear so.
Quite the pair.

Sunday instead of church our congregation decided to worship by serving others. We combined with another church to work at various service projects in the San Jose area. We worked on cleaning up garbage in the Guadalupe River. It was fun and we got to clean up a large section of the river. There are a large number of homeless camps down there that people use intermittently and some permanently. We met one guy who had a pretty sweet setup and he gave us a tour of the camps nearby and which ones were abandoned and needed cleaning up. You never know what you are going to find at the river, but you can be certain it is not good, sanitary, or reusable.

Golfing with Guns

Joel Rietema came over this week to run in the Silicon Valley half marathon. He was down on Thursday night and since I only worked a half day on Friday we were able to meet up with one of our other friends Drew and got to go out for some good old fashion man time. The amount of man time I have is always of great concern to me. Men hanging out doing manly things can never be done enough. I thought it would be a good time to go trap shooting and it was. We went to this new place I had never been before; it is like a golf course for guns. There are different “tees” where you walk to and then you have this electronic box you insert into the machine at the tee. The box you insert counts how many birds you get and you pay by the bird so you can have as many tries as you want. It was such a good time I think that girls might even like it (although it is nowhere near as exciting as what girls like to do when they get together such as pedicures, sitting around talking, pillow fights…).

Kevin Schenk also came down to run in the race as well so his family stayed over Friday night. Ethan is very cool and is very easy to please.

Ethan looking at his dad and wondering.......
Why did you drink all of the beer? I wanted some.
Brenda and Lyndsay having a good time.
Ice cream and beer anyone.

Joel and Drew looking to shoot something
Joel attempting the double (two clay pigeons released at the same time) on the 12th tee.
There was one spot where the pigeons were released off a 40'tower. We didn't hit any of them.
Gun racks on golf carts...I love this sport, and I am a lot better at it than golf.

A rose by any other name...is Brenda

Once again this week I am up in Richmond working. I am currently in charge of the onsite activities for stabilization tests that we are running on a small scale (2-3 acre section) so we can use those results to stabilize the larger area (60 ac) next year. The work is new to me, but very interesting and I am learning so good stuff I did not previously know.

I had a chance to go rock climbing with some coworkers while I am staying in Richmond. It is a long drive home at night, so I spend the night here most of the time and drive home on the weekends, and one or two other nights during the week. We went to a climbing gym in Berkley and had a great time last week and this week as well. I am usually not the kind of person who pays meticulous attention to detail, so rock climbing is not something I ever got into, but we had a safe fun time.

I know all of the pictures I posted have absolutely nothing to do with the text I have, but they are also other things I did this weekend. This is a rose garden we went to in SJ.

Last week we were house sitting at our friends’ place. We also invited friends to come down from Davis and stay with us because the house is a lot bigger than our home and it is always nice to have a good time with friends. Myron and Andrea had a good time (I think) even though we just sat around and relaxed by watching sports (I am not sure what the girls did for fun because sports were always on and I like sports).

The crew I am working with is from all over the country and is also heading home this weekend. This is great not only because they get to see their family, but because I get to have Friday off. It is a bummer that I have to work the weekend in San Jose, but that is only a couple of hours a day and it will be nice to ride my motorcycle. I usually leave my bike at work because I drive a company truck, and since I have been up in Richmond for the past three weeks, I have not had a chance to ride it in some time. Brenda gave me a new visor (black) for my helmet and it just arrived (2months late because I have a larger helmet….and a giant head) sow I can check that out to.

I know this post is a bunch of crap thrown together, but work is hectic and well not much is going on out here.

enjoy

Junior high league playoffs. They lost but had a excellent coach.
More non-manly pictures.

Brenda in the garden.