Pre-ride, Honors, Rock Climb, Foothill Ride

Yet another catch-up post, but this is stuff I wanted to log.


Tuesday I rode the Draper race course (the race is tomorrow) with Jolene and Kendra. It had rained earlier in the day producing excellent riding conditions - cooler air and tacky trails with no dust.

I TT'ed Clark's and got under 15 minutes (14:53) to beat my old time - still not fast, but good enough for now.

We had a good ride, especially rolling down Ghost Falls.


(thanks for the photo, Kendra)


Thursday was honors recognition at the high school. Our daughter, Jamie, received gold cords to wear at graduation for being in the top 25 of her class. She has worked diligently all four years and has straight A's except for one A-. What's most amazing to us is that she's managed her class-work and time herself. She's taken some AP classes and also participated in choir, one year of volleyball and a year of track. And worked part-time the last two years. Obviously we're pleased with her accomplishments and feel lucky to have her as our oldest child. We can't believe she will be graduating this Thursday - she can't be that old and we can't be that old.


(Jamie is on the left)


Saturday morning I took Jamie and her friend Kristee rock climbing in Rock Canyon. We did three roues on Red Slab: Mr. Cornflakes (5.7), The Mantel Route (5.8), and Red Dwarf (5.9). They climbed and I belayed. The wildflowers were still going strong so on the way down I snapped photos.








Check out the weird bug perched on the flower.


This sure looks like a Yellow Salsify that Alex talked about it on his blog.


A snapdragon?


hey, I know this flower. It's a Tufted Evening Primrose. Because it's on the calendar in my boss' office.

Saturday afternoon Mark and his friend Raul came down and we did a tour of the foothill trails near my house.

We went up the Water Tank road, up Betty, up Lament, up Area 51, down the GWT back to the Altar, down Frank, Down Dragon's Back, west on the Union Aqueduct road, up the Race Course and back up to the Water Tank road, then up Betty again, half way up Crank, then down Ireland and Water Tank road then city streets back to my house. (More info on the trails here)



This route covered 2/3 to 3/4 of the trails in with 2500' climbing in around 2 hours. The trails were in good shape and the scenery was nice as it's still green up there.

Mark took some photos and did a blog post. Here's my favorite photo - the top of Area 51:



P.S. I got so fed up not being able to take photos that I bought a new camera yesterday evening. I picked up a Canon Powershot A470 on clearance at Walmart for $80 - hard to beat that. Seems like a good camera - it will be for biking. So expect more photos from now on.