Sunday, November 8, 2009

Last race of the year..

3rd Place!

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 was the last race of the year! It was a National Hare & Hound, in Jericho, put on by the Sage Riders. Jericho is about 25 miles north of Delta. This was Royal's 3rd race here. It's an awesome area and I definitely want to come back and ride it sometime.

We left Friday after work and got to the pits about 7:00. We decided to camp out there, instead of get a hotel room. (Yeah I'm kind of cheap) Everyone warned me that we'd freeze our butts off but it wasn't too bad.

We woke up about 6:30 Saturday morning and went and got signed up and tech inspected. The race started at 8:00 sharp! So we headed over to the starting line to check out the start.

Getting ready at the starting line.

After the rider's meeting we lined back up to the start. The 80's took off first, and then it was the 65's. The banner dropped and off they went! Here's a video I took.



Royal got a really good start. There was a bad crash in front of him but he was able to go around it.

After the start I went and grabbed his gas can and headed over to the mini pits. The course was about 12 miles (I think?) so I had about half hour before he came through the pits. After waiting what seemed like forever, he finally came through running in 2nd place. But he had #24a right behind him!! So we gassed him up really quickly and he took off again with the 24a nipping at his heels. It was very exciting! About 20 minutes later the leader came through and they closed the loop off and brought out the checkered flags. I ran up to the finish line to cheer him on as he came through. The first 65 came through, and then #24a, and the Royal right behind him. He had gotten passed but put up a good fight! They were both smiles from ear to ear. What an awesome race!


Comin in through the checkered flags


Royal and this kid battled it out for over 20 miles!!


We stuck around to watch the big bikes race and I snapped a few pics. These guys go so fast it's ridiculous.







I found this crazy bug, a Jerusalem cricket. He looked pretty mad when I scooped him up to take his picture, but don't worry, I let him go. :)

Wth??


This was the last race of the year, but you bet he'll be back racing in February! The first race is in Mesquite so stay tuned! He had a lot of fun this year racing and while it's kind of expensive it's definitely worth it. We made some awesome memories and made some awesome new friends.

See you all in Mesquite!!!

Monday, September 21, 2009

It's all fun and games until someone gets bitten by a rattlesnake..


Some friends from work told me about this place out by Kanab and I had been dying to check it out. So Saturday, September 19th, Royal, Yoshi, and I loaded up the Toyota and headed out. (Kira was at Grandma's)

I really had no clue where to go, as I didn't bother getting a map from my friends at work. But eventually we found the right place. (I hope?)

It's a vast, open area, with lots to explore. One of the first places we stopped we found this:

Pictographs


Close up of pictographs


Fire pit


Another fire pit


Grinding stone


Close up of grinding stone


We hiked around a bit more and found this guy! Royal almost stepped on him! Yikes! That wouldn't have been a good situation. The snake was hiding very well inside a large outcropping of rock. He was just hanging out in the cool sand in the shade of the rock.




Lots of cool things to snap pics of in this area







We hiked around this area a bit and then decided to drive up the road a little ways. We took off down a side road and stopped near a large rock formation. On both sides of the roads there were small stone lined pits (pit houses???) all over the place. There were pottery shards and arrowhead chippings everywhere. Here's some pics of just a few of the pits:











This must have been a village or something. They were everywhere.








After hiking and driving around for a few hours we decided to head back. It was only about 4pm so on the way back I decided to cut from Highway 59 over to Sr9 and head up to Kolob. Took a few pictures too.







Wild turkeys. (Camera was on mega-zoom sorry about quality)




Dummy Yoshi decided to jump in the lake, I don't think he realized how cold it would be. Not to mention it was about 55 degrees out with wind, and there was a massive storm blowing in. He was shivering so I wrapped him up in Kira's sweater. The look on his face makes me think he isn't a fan of pink..



It was a super fun day. Royal had a blast with his dad, and I had a blast with him!!!!

Riding!!



The kids were bugging me to riding the weekend after they got back. It was their last weekend before school started. We loaded up their bikes and headed out to Warner Valley south of Hurricane. They had a blast as usual! It was fun seeing Kira ride around following her brother rather than just riding in circles around the truck. They had a lot of fun!



Moto Girl!








Future Pro!

The Right Coast



August 4th, I flew to Portland, Maine to pick up my kids. I had not seen them in over a month and a half!! I was pretty excited to say the least!! It was a pretty fun trip, and it was fun being somewhere I had never been. I was a long ways from home!! There are so many trees, (huge trees!!) It's a lot cooler but a lot more humid. The Atlantic is beautiful. But really cold! I ended up taking a bunch of pictures, but I'm only gonna post a few..











The kids had fun at their mom's but were glad to come home. :) I only stayed 2 days but it was a fun trip. Next time I'll be sure to stay longer and see more.

Pioneer Day Weekend


The weekend of July 24, I had some family in town and we decided to have some outdoor fun while they were here. On Friday the 24th, we loaded up my Toyota and my Uncle's Jeep and headed out toward Sand Hollow to brave the heat. We headed south of town and toward the east side of Sand Mountain. The kid's were still at their mom's so it was just me, my mom, uncle, and cousin. Oh yeah and Yoshi too. :)

We headed up the east rim trail toward the backside of the sand dunes. This area is very awesome (as seen in an earlier one of my blog posts) Here are a couple pics I snapped along the way:







We stopped a few times to look around, and eventually ended up near the backside around 11am. It was an overcast day so luckily it wasn't too hot!!















After hiking around and driving over a few rocks we decided to head back down through the sand dunes. Well, we tried to head back down, the sand was very soft and we didn't make it very far. We ended up cutting over to the west rim trail and following it home.


The next day
we went up to Zion and over to Bryce Canyon. On the way to Zion we stopped off at Grafton ghost town. Grafton is one of the most famous and photographed ghost towns in the west. It was also one of the filming locations of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. For more info on Graton, click HERE.

Here are a few pics I took of Grafton, and the Grafton cemetery:











After Grafton we headed up to Zion. What can I really say about Zion? I love it. Oddly enough though I only took these two pictures..





After Zion we headed to Bryce Canyon to spend the rest of the day. This was my first time being there since I was a kid; it was great. It was nice to be out of the heat too. :p I took about a hundred pictures, here's a few:











After Bryce Canyon we headed over to the over-priced Subway to get some dinner. We ended up getting home about 11pm that night. What a fun weekend hanging out with the family, can't wait to do it again!!