Brown Spots on My Hand by Hoo Frung Pu

I had to leave for Blackfoot, Idaho early on Monday morning to check into my apartment and tour the new hospital I would be working at. Jeff, his son Michael and I got up even earlier so that we could go on a bike ride on the Providence Canyon skyline trail. As you can see from the darkness of the photo the sun had not yet graced us with its presence.

This is a good shot of the trail and the wild sunflowers that covered the side of the mountain.

More sunflowers.

Jeff and Michael at the end of the trail, or at least where our ride ended.

  

A view of Cache Valley

Another view of Cache Valley and the Logan temple.

Michael and I at the end of the road. Right after this picture was taken I ran my hand under my nose and got a whiff of something foul. I looked around for evidence of a rotting corpse somewhere but could not find a source for the smell. I mounted my bike and prepared to start riding when I noticed a brown blob on one of my fingers. I did not have to examine it closely to figure out that it was dog poo. I figured that as I was following one of my companions they had unknowingly charged through the offending pile of poo and sent it flying on to my unsuspecting hand. We inspected the other bikes and discovered that Michael had hit the pile but had sprayed himself as well as me with the stinky slime.

The mysterious stinkyness.

The face of innocence

Poop on the shorts and on the bike. Oh well at least it had not gotten on the mouthpiece of my camelback.

A Tale of Two Old Trees

My brother Jeff and I went on a bike ride  up Logan canyon. This trail is a must ride classic called Jardine Juniper from the utahmountainbiking.com website. The ride climbs 1800 feet over almost six miles and ends at a 1500 year old juniper tree.

The Spring runoff was in full force and there were several places where you had to either ford a stream for carry your bike over it.

This is just a funny picture of my brother. He looks like one of those Far Side characters.

More runoff

Even though there was A LOT of uphill the trail was very picturesque. The first couple of miles I thought I was going to die which was confirmed to me when I started to taste blood in my mouth but that eventually went away.

With 0.7 miles to our destination our progress was hampered by huge snow drifts that were impassible on a bike. We stashed our bikes in some trees and hiked the rest of the way on foot.

This is why mountain biking is superior to road biking. My wife and I argue about the merits of both sports but the picture speaks for itself.

This is a photo of me and the ancient tree.

My oh so happy bro.

I told my brother that I wanted to get a picture of the two old trees together and he gave me the stink eye.

The "Oh no you di' nt" look. Once we got back to our bikes we had an incredible ride down the 1800 feet we had climbed. By the end we were covered with mud but it was a blast.

Connor vs. The Toilet

The other day I came home and found the kitchen floor to be exceedingly sticky. I asked the kids about it and Connor said that he had made some lemonade and had not noticed that the sports bottle he had mixed it up in was leaking. Upon further inspection it became evident that the offending leak was pretty extensive and had filled the entire top shelf of the refrigerator, the kitchen table, nearly every counter in the kitchen and evidence was even found in the master bathroom. I told Connor that he needed to clean up the lemonade mess where ever it was found. He did a good job cleaning the fridge and the counters in both the kitchen and bathroom but he could not seem to motivate himself to put forth the same effort on the kitchen floor. After I had inspected his job for the 4th or 5th time I told him that if he called me to check it again without it being done than I has going to give him and extra job and that the extra job would be to use a pumice stone to clean out the hard water stains in one of the toilets. Since this post is entitled "Connor vs. the toilet" you know what happened. Cami often comments on the harshness of some of the consequences I dish out to the kids. She is probably right but I find that the benefits of good hard work never go amiss. So after checking the floor another 3-4 times Connor started the toilet job. Connor is a bit of a germiphobe and so he procrastinated actually doing the job as long as possible as evidenced by his position in the photo above.  

Connor with the pumice stone

Connor with a smile of satisfaction at a job well done.