Labor Day Weekend

We had a good Labor Day weekend.

Saturday morning Jolene and I joined Steve and Derek for a mountain bike ride up American Fork Canyon.

As we drove up the canyon around 7:30 we passed Mark, Elden, Sam and Doug on their road bikes. Unfortunately for them, and us, the drizzling rain started coming down in earnest. We sat in the van at Salamander Flat for 15-20 minutes until the worst had passed.

We rode up Pine Hollow and out the Ridge a ways and then a few miles on some new trail that looks promising, but is still very soft and rough. I got a stick in my rear derailer that knocked it out of whack and my shifting is still not right even with some adjustments.

American Fork Canyon has some eye-pleasing vistas.


The new trail.


After the ride we went to the new Lindon Aquatics Center. It's very nice. They have a big lazy river, a small water slide, a good-sized hot tub, a nice splash pool, a separate lap pool, and a FlowRider. The pool bottoms are a textured rubber with some padding - it's soft and doesn't chew up your feet. There was very little chlorine in the water - they may be using a salt sanitation system - it was nice to not have irritated eyes or smell like chlorine.

Kade and I on the suspension bridge over the lazy river.


Kade and Kara on the raft.


We had a good parenting moment. Kade was afraid to go down the slide. We knew he'd love it if he just go once. We cajoled and pleaded. Then I told him I'd stop bugging him if he'd just go once with me. He said he'd think about it - progress. Then we told him we'd get pizza for dinner if he'd go (we were getting pizza anyway - yes, sneaky) and finally he gave the OK. We went up and he sat on my lap as we slid down. Then he went by himself, and then did 10+ laps on the slide.



Monday we borrowed my Dad's canoe and went up to Payson Lakes. The weather was nice and we had a good time canoeing, picnicing, wading, cloud-gazing and simply enjoying the outdoors.

The kids canoeing.


A water gun salute.


This evening I watched a rebroadcast of the BYU - OU game - some pretty good football there.

I also watched stage 9 of La Vuelta. A nasty climb at the end with a peak grade of 20%! (And I thought the Butterfield 16% grade was brutal.) Those guys suffered up that climb. There was a break of 7 with a 6 minute lead and I thought they were gone, but the strong climbers from the pack caught a few - amazing.

Now it's back to work, but Moab is coming this weekend!