Snow, Hikes , Math references, and Rocks... Intrigued? No wait! Come Back!!!

Yes it's true.  Snow will slow down a good hike in a big way.  I mean who can possibly go post-holing through hip deep snow and keep the same pace as one would during summer?  Well, while this first statement is completely true, it's not what happened to us.  We only had an epic amount of 4 inches of snow to deal with, but I'll maintain that our hike was slow-motion-ified even by this minute amount of white.

How could such a short and fun hike be so slow? 

Well, there were a couple of important factors which I will outline in one of the most important mathematical equations seen in years.  If you discount little ones like Relativity and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem...

Children from the deep south + Snow = snail like progress and constant mischief

The sound of the kids yelling "POW POW Freshies!!!" echoed through the forest whenever they found untracked snow in a clearing.  As to the Pow Pow Freshies joke, you would understand if you watched loads of stupid snowboarding shows featuring overpaid 19-year-olds skiing impossible lines off cliff faces and speaking some form of ski-bum slang that I find amusing.

The kids stopped as often as dogs on a walk.  Picking up and throwing snow at each other was the real order of the day, so we were moving at about a mile an hour.  (that's a generous speed estimate there...)

Here is Brenna with her patient face on.  This was required because every few steps Aiden, without looking, would just chuck a snowball over his head toward anyone behind him.  You had to be paying attention or you were going to have it on your head.  He thought this was the funniest thing he had come up with...EVER.

We also discovered Aiden was putting the snowballs in his pockets to save them.  He was soaked pretty quickly but seemed completely immune to the chill.  There is something about kids and snow that makes them not notice temperature.

An example of the sneak attack snowball.

Notice that Ansley was not in any of the fight pictures. She wisely avoided her brothers to avoid becoming collateral damage.



As the snowball fights raged on, we were actually on a hike.  The idea, at least, was that we were heading up to Arch Rock in the Smoky Mountain National Park.

The hike followed a stream up to the arch which had been carved out of the limestone and shale over millions of years. It was very different than the examples we had seen in Utah's sandstone.  The rocks that made up the arch had a thin layered sedimentary look to it rather than looking like the arch was carved out of a more uniform piece of rock.  Each layer was .5-1 inch thick and looked really jagged where softer stone had been eroded away leaving the harder layers exposed.

We had to cross the creek we were following a few times and the kids loved the log bridges that we had to use.  I was just happy I didn't have to pluck a soggy child out of the creek...

We found the trail actually passed through the arch itself and we had to climb a wet and slippery series of stone steps to reach the other side. The arch is almost hidden from view by trees so there wasn't a good spot to actually get a photograph of the entire structure.  Here is Ansley descending back through the arch.

It was a 3 mile hike and took us just under 3 hours to complete, and I think with all the smiles that it was exactly the right speed.

Christmas - New Years and SNOW!

We did things a little differently this year...well not the part about being nearly killed by the avalanche of presents Christmas morning.  In the line of thought from the rapidly approaching ski trip, I might recommend the adoption of a Christmas Present Mountain Avalanche Rating/Warning System for the next Christmas season.  We wouldn't want anyone hurt or lost on such a festive occasion.  We could even practice Rescue and Recovery techniques prior to Christmas morning just in case.  You never know, and you just can't be too safe, Right?

Wow...now just look at that digression in all its brilliant glory.

Now for a few photos to move the story along...or perhaps this post is going to turn into a slideshow rather than having much of a "story".  whatever...

Opa reading The Night Before Christmas to the eager and attention span challenged children...

The stack of presents was phenomenal...  Hence my commentary on needing avalanche rescue training...

To keep the focus on the fact that it was Christmas and that we were there to celebrate the birth of Jesus, there was a Nativity play that the kids starred in.  No theater nerves among this crowd...

And no...the Nativity didn't include Iron Man...  No matter how much Aiden may have wanted it to...

We did things a little differently this year.  Normally will gather for Christmas in Atlanta, and have a great time hanging around with the family and extended family.  The unusual part was that we didn't head to play a ton of golf in Myrtle Beach or Florida.  We opted to head for the mountains instead!

Admittedly, I was a bit unsure of going to try to find snow in the deep south in December.  Normally, we bundle up with our heaviest coats for the two days that might be considered remotely winter-ish elsewhere in the country, so snow doesn't normally even cross our minds.  We took off for Gatlinburg Tennessee at the base of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (Which turned out to be a place that I am definitely going to return to for some summer hiking.)

Look out Floridian drivers on ice...there should have been some warning flares or something...

I kept laughing to myself about our retired "Floridians" on the trip when they encountered snow.  Perhaps, I wasn't laughing to myself, because Brenna kept punching me in the shoulder saying, "Hey, That's my Dad!"

But we all know the story about when Bill put our van into orbit in Mexico on the speed bumps there,

so who knows what might have come to pass on that snowy road.  

Yep, that joke is still funny...and I'm probably not getting invited back anytime soon!

Lo and behold the morning was cold and the peaks of the pass we had to cross had been hit with a storm that put down about 5 inches of snow the night before.  

Who would have thought!  

And you would have thought the kids had died and gone to heaven.  We had to stop the car and got out to let the kids experience this interesting white stuff that they see so infrequently because they were trying to gnaw their way out through the car door panels, and my orthodontic bills are going to be high enough in the coming years.  I didn't want to find out how much fixing the car upholstery would be on top of straightening their teeth too.

You can imagine that it took about exactly .000267 seconds before someone began chucking snowballs...

Here is Bryce trying to decide if the repercussions of pegging me with a snowball were worth it...he didn't think long before pounding me with it and running!

Par for the course.  Family portrait with only one of the kids even remotely paying attention.

The house we stayed at was a cool place perched on the side of the mountain overlooking Gatlinburg.  I could really see that we would have had some trouble getting there if the roads had iced at all, but we were OK there closer to town.  The snow line was probably above 4 thousand feet, so the white coated the tops of the mountains around us, but not the roads we had to navigate.

The kids loved the fact they had to walk through snow that stayed on the porch to get to the hot tub.  Livin' large...

 I loved the view from the back porch and spent quite a bit of time just looking over the rail at the town and the Smokies.

I'll pause here in an effort to keep this somewhat short enough.  I'll post up the account of our snowy hike out to Arch Rock next, but I needed to get writing on this before it faded from memory and I ran headlong into the rest of the year.

There is some real beauty in this country surprisingly close to my house...

I hope you all had a great holiday season!

Hey That Looks Sour!

Bryce was at a friend's birthday party, and afterwards, as is the custom it seems these days, everyone got a goodie bag.  This bag happened to have candy in it, and Bryce picked out one small green or blue candy and looked to me and said, "That looks sour!  I should try it."  My response was something like, "You bet you should, but let me get my camera out first."

Here, my friends are the results of that piece of candy represented in three photos.  The progression is pretty funny.

Anticipation:

2: Oh!  Now what have I done???

3: AAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKK!

That's my boy.  I'm sure he will eat more of those things in the future, but perhaps it will be a while if he sees these pictures.

The Leaves

Every fall the trees around my house conspire to hide my lawn from me and to create a whole bunch of work.  The question is how do I make this entertaining?  Because it's not...  No matter what your Dad told you about raking being good for you.

One thing about our years in Florida is that I never had to rake anything.  The odd palm frond would fall, but that's about it.  A single 10lb frond is much easier to manage when compared to an endless supply of biomass falling from the old oaks around our house.

Well, in an attempt to entertain myself, goof off with the kids, AND rake this year, I decided to make a video.  We discovered the joys of back-yard bobsledding with a kids scooter toy a while back, and coupling that with a leaf pile seemed like a fine idea.

As a side note, me falling down in the leaves is not graceful, but hardly something that I wouldn't post.  In slow-motion no less.  Because, that's what this blog is about; entertaining my friends and family.  Of course, the reality is that my audience is probably getting smaller after my inconsistent posting and silly videos.

Aiden-isms

My youngest has been a wealth of laughs in his 4 years, and I wanted to put a post together to share some of his top comments.

• Upon seeing a small tree with a cage around it to stop deer from eating it he came up to me and with a completely sincere face said, "Look Dad!  They caught that one!" and then ran off to continue playing.

• Riding in the car home from a camping trip.  The kids were playing a spelling game.  Aiden had to spell some simple word that has slipped my mind.  His answer?  K...uh...R...uh...ZERO!!!  *Laugh's hysterically*  Ah, I hope he gets a good education...

• Holding an empty box of waffles up to his face and looking into it.  (He does enjoy a good frozen waffle.)  I said that looking into the empty box won't may any more appear in there, and he said, "That's ok.  I'm invisible!!!"

• The kids and I were scrambling down the stairs to the car so I could take them to school.  (Just like every other day)  We found that Aiden had already climbed in and buckled himself.  His hair was sticking up in all directions, he was wearing his backpack (while being buckled) and still had on his fuzzy pajamas, but he was ready to go to the Big Kids school.

• A friend gave us a box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.  (A friend that doesn't care about our dietary health it would seem, or was trying to save themselves from the call of the junk food.)  er....  Either way, we had doughnuts and Aiden spotted them, grabbed the box, set it on the table in front of him, and asked, ever so politely, "Dad, can I ONLY have two?" before I had a chance to even say anything.  Only two?  Odd phrasing, but I guess it's better than just licking them all and saying, "Oops, I guess I'll just have to eat everything. 

Parenting.  It's good stuff

A Fuzzy New Family Member Arrives

Mema's cat has come to live with us.  It's a great cat and has integrated fairly well with the family.  Well, it's integrated about as well as anyone that came from a sedate assisted living home to a household with 3 kids and wild activity all the time possibly could.  It's amazing to me that it has ever come out from under the bed considering the shock of the change in environment.

I thought about something kind of funny when, I believe it was Joyce, mentioned a small detail about Kitty Poo (Mema picked the name not us).

This is actually Kitty Poo 2.

The cat has the same black and white markings as the original, and it never dawned on me that enough time had passed since the original Kitty Poo arrived as a kitten in Mema's living room that it had achieved old age and passed on thus requiring a "clone" Kitty Poo replacement.

What must have gone through Mema's mind when Kitty Poo 2 came home for the first time?  To set the scene, I don't believe that Joyce told Mema that this was a new cat.  Mema probably looked at it and noticed that it seemed much younger and active than it did before it went to the vet.  "Hey, what's that vet treating those old cats with?


Anyway, the cat is a loved member of the household now, and hopefully it doesn't go insane from the constant jet engine equivalent noise levels and kids trying to find it and "pet" it at all hours.

There is also the fun little bit of retribution for all cat-dom.  Kitty Poo is allergic to something in my house and reacts much the same way I have around cats for all my years of cat ownership.  (No, I'm not all that bright I guess.)  The cat's sneezing and watery eyes make me think...HA TAKE THAT FUZZBALL!  

Space Camp

Bryce finally got his birthday present, and he has been really patient in waiting for it.  It was a trip to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama.  The testing grounds and construction site for the Saturn V rocket that took us to the moon.  The U.S. Space and Rocket Center has one of the Saturn V’s upright and on display out front and the scale is really astonishing.  However did we get something so large, wildly explosive and complex to work at all?  It’s beyond me and my feeble mathematical skills to comprehend what it took to design and get the vehicle off the ground.  

Like they say…  “Hey, it’s not like its Rocket Science.  Oh wait…yes it is.”

Bryce had an absolute ball at the center.  We were housed in bunk rooms that were designed so that they would fit into the Shuttle cargo bay to further give the sense of how small the spaces are that are required for space travel.  

Each one of the tubes in the background had an entire floor of rooms in it.  

We are so spoiled here on Earth with our expansive land and easy access to anything and everything.  All space crews exist in are little tubes (even on the relatively massive ISS) and the overlap of items required to stay alive makes the entire layout look like something out of an episode of hoarders.  Laptops, wires, clothes, food, several people, life support, and science equipment are everywhere.  Actually it kind of looks like my office a bit. Hmmm…time to clean up perhaps.

There were several simulators that the astronauts used to learn how to move and operate various pieces of machinery in space, and we got to play on them.  You can see them in action...poorly on my part...at the end of this post.

1/6^th chair:  Since the human body only weighs 1/6^th it’s Earthly weight on the moon, somebody had to practice how to move around, and this is what they used.  Even so, if you are used to a 170lb body here, it’s a bit awkward when you find yourself only weighing in at 28lbs.  Every push with a foot launches you 4 feet in the air and spinning.  

A highlight for me was that we got a chance to speak with Robert “Hoot” Gibson who may have the most impressive resume I have ever seen.  

Aeronautical Engineer from Cal Poly, First in his class at the Naval Academy, Top Gun graduate, 14,000 hours of flight time in literally hundreds of different aircraft, 300+ carrier landings, years as a Navy Test pilot, and a 5 time shuttle astronaut.  He was the pilot that docked with the Russian Mir and shook hands in the historic photograph with the Russian Astronaut through the airlock…  Sheesh…

Perhaps this handshake will be equally impressive in years to come...

Mr. Gibson spoke with the group for an hour and answered every question the kids could come up with.  It’s really wonderful to see brilliant people come and speak with kids and motivate them to work hard and study hard to achieve success.  The message was vastly better than ESPN’s version of success, and for most of us, more probable.  

Space Camp was loaded with smart people.  I felt a touch out of my league, but Bryce and I fit in well personality wise.  It’s a place that reveres and promotes unabashed geekdom.  It was unusual.  For instance, when kids were asked "What are you going to be?" they wouldn't just say a race car driver.  They rattled off careers like a Cardio Vascular Surgeon.  (and can pronounce it correctly) You may think that Ocho Cinco, or Dirk Nowitsky are cool, but they can’t do orbital mechanics…

Bryce couldn't wait to fly the MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit) simulator.  Which, by the way, is a nifty little hovercraft contraption that floats across the concrete floor.  It was designed to teach shuttle astronauts how to fly the un-tethered propelled backpack.  (Untethered = Scary at 17,500 mph with no air and that whole fiery death thing)

Oh, you've seen this picture before?  

Guess who took the shot?  

Yep, Capt. Robert Gibson on the STS-41...

In a shuttle Science Mission Specialist simulation.  Bryce was the specialist...I was merely simulating special...

Bryce and I got to go through a few different space shuttle launch, mission and landing simulations, which were remarkably real.  Covering ground control, checking pressures in tanks and O2 supplies, while paying attention to about 20 different indicators, switches and mission clocks was actually somewhat difficult.  I can only imagine when one is dealing with actual launch and landing type conditions.  My hat is off to the men and women that run the programs at NASA.

Our days at Space Camp were filled with activities.  The day started at 6:30am with someone calling wake up from the door and we would work/play until 9:30 at night.  It was very much the way the actual astronauts live with specific timetables, but the benefit of having late nights at the Camp was we had the run of the place for an hour or so, and this included the massive Saturn V building.  

The museum had a full Saturn V rocket split into it's stages horizontally across several football fields of space.  At the end of this monstrous room, was the payload.  The Apollo capsule.  The photograph above is the Apollo 16 capsule that was used a few months before I was born.  April 1972.  We pulled this amazing technological feat off multiple times (including our greatest failure) with a mere 166KB of computing power.  Yep.  Your phone sneezes out more than that when it re-boots...

As to the space program now that the Shuttle program is discontinued, we don’t have a goal anymore.  Or more precisely, we don’t have an achievable goal.  We as a species have reached the end of what we can do practically.  We have learned so much and now are realizing that with our abilities to travel, we may have reached the achievable limits of humankind.  

Going to Mars is an achievable goal, but with the 5 years away from the earth to make the flight there and back plus the time in orbit and on the surface, I have a feeling that this would be a one way mission.  If we got the astronauts back, they would not live long due to radiation exposure in space, muscular atrophy, and bone decalcification in microgravity, never mind the mental impacts of being confined in a small tube for several years.  Anything further out from where we are, when it comes to manned spaceflight, is impossible.  And I mean impossible.  

Even if we find the elusive engine that will propel us 90-95% of light speed we are talking at least hundreds of years of mere travel time in an environment in which it is impossible for us to survive.  A one way trip in other words.  We as a world do not have the money or desire, or need to do something like that.  I say need loosely there.  Of course we have a need to try because, by definition of what we know, our time on this planet is limited.  We have a need to survive, but the attempt will most likely fail due to our frail bodies and our unfortunate lack of understanding.  There is an idea that it may save the species at some point, but we would need many generations of people during the transportation segment of getting to a new world and then the difficulties of setting up a base there would merely extend the human race a short time rather than save it.  


That fate coming true or not is up to the smarter kids of future generations that will follow well behind our short years on this planet.  The most amazing and comforting thing to me is that, above and beyond all that we have achieved thus far, it has been proven over and over again, that with determination and need, we humans have made some formerly impossible things...possible.

Enjoy the video.  Bryce's head is going to spin when he sees it... "Where are the light sabers!" he will say...  Heh Heh...

Beware the Land Shark

Brenna was off watching some over hyped pop starlet in Atlanta last night and smartly stayed there overnight.  I, on the other hand, was here holding down the fort.  Which Brenna does a great job of handling every day, so her day/night out to catch a concert was well deserved.

We woke on Sunday morning.  Well, I woke on Sunday, with Aiden poking me in the nose saying, "I want to play with you...after you get me a waffle 'cause I can't reach them." I looked at the clock.

6:13 a.m.

Ugh...

The rest of the kids woke eventually.  By saying that, I mean that Bryce was up shortly after Aiden and Ansley dragged herself out of bed sometime around nine...uh...thirty.  Yep, she is a carbon copy of her Mom as a teen...already.

Once they were all up and semi-functional, I made Sunday morning pancakes, and began thinking, what in the heck am I going to do with these little people?  They were scarfing down the pancakes at an alarming pace, and I was quickly running out of time on my first plan for entertaining them.  Food.  I was going to be chased down with the same enthusiasm as they were eating breakfast, if I didn't come up with something fast.

I shouted over the breakfast time din. (Honestly, does anyone know how kids eat, shout, fight, hurt themselves while sitting in a simple chair, and breathe at the same time?  I don't know, but there must be some scientific study on it by now...I'll google it later.)

Anyhoo...I shouted, let's play a game outside before it gets hot.  Yes, I knew it was already too late for the hot part.  I swear I saw a bird on the bird feeder burst into flame a moment before, but I had to do something though.

What do you want to do?  Play knights, kings and pirates?  "Yeeufff!" they replied with mouths full of jelly covered pancakes, and then Aiden said, "and there should be a shark!"

Ok...why not!

They gathered up their shoes, put on swimsuits and got some ideas together on what to do.  Bryce said something about sliding away out of a castle on the zip line and crashing into a wall or something.  I figured, what better than to smash stuff while on a zip line.  Yes, I am a guy and assuredly my poor wife's 4th child.  The next 20 minutes were spent finding capes, swords and a shark costume...naturally.  We also spent a few minutes gathering up all the plastic blocks in the basement that we could load into the wagon in order to build a target...uh...castle.

When I saw how excited they were, I pulled out the GoPro.  Nothing that silly and playful should go undocumented.  Not with today's technology.  Right?

Well whether you agree or not that we should, as a society, spend lots of our time making dumb movies with GoPro cameras, we did it anyway.  And we had a blast!

Enjoy and happy Sunday!

Angel's Landing

As the prophets of old would go to high places to confer with their various gods, they would have done well to climb up to this place.  


Angels Landing.  


The name extends from a story of a minister that said that the outcropping at the end of a fin of rock high above the canyon floor was so inaccessible that “only angels could land there.”  

Fortunately for those of us who as yet are without wings and halos, the park service in Zion National Park found a path, and over years, built a path to get us - mere mortals - to this rocky outcrop.


We stopped for some early evening pictures at one of the lower outlooks of the trail not knowing if we would really have time to get to the top before the light faded.

We had been riding bikes all morning and into the afternoon, so we were somewhat tired, but didn’t want to waste a moment of time since we had only a finite number of days with which to enjoy the beauty of Zion.  




The guide books called the hike “strenuous”, and that it would take us 4-5 hours to complete.  We gauged that the sun would set around 7:30pm and that we would just have enough time to make the ascent before sunset.  


We could then watch sunset, but would have to make our way back across the treacherous fin and onto the relative safety of the switchbacks before it became too dark to see.  I threw a headlamp into my pack, just in case things went poorly and we didn’t make it down before it was pitch black.  

Normally, guide books are very conservative in their assessments of how difficult or how long a hike can take.  By a factor of 2 usually, but in this case they were right on.  The switchbacks were steep and a good hard effort, but certainly not complicated.  Nathan eschewed them and decided to climb straight up the retaining walls for the last 10 or so switchbacks.  It looked like fun, but to keep from smashing my camera, I declined to follow suit.  

Your Safety is Your Responsibility

At the top of the switchbacks we had gained about 1,000 feet of altitude and then the trail began to work its way out across the rocky fin.  Some sections were pretty wide, 30-40 feet, but in many areas we found ourselves on sand covered stone with drops on either side of hundreds of feet if not sheer cliff faces to the canyon floor.  


Falling from that height would give you a good 8-10 seconds of free-fall to think about things before impact.  In light of the chance to make that plunge, I am strangely pleased to note that there were not guard rails and fences everywhere.  There were only minimal chains mounted to the rock in some of the more exposed areas for you to hold onto if you needed.  


The bus ride out to the trail head featured one of the best lines I have ever heard in our overprotective, anti-self-reliance, and pathetically litigious society.  What amazed me was that it was coming from the government run park service.  The narrative stated that this hike was dangerous, fatalities had occurred on the hike, and that “Your Safety is Your Responsibility.”  


It was satisfying and shocking.


I was sure those words had been outlawed in the U.S.  

Finally, A place where it is encouraged that you make your own decision.  


For example: If the last part of a hike is too scary or you are un-fit, make your decision and don’t do it.  There is more than enough to enjoy at anyone's particular skill level.  Do what you can to enjoy the world, but be smart!  The park service didn’t do the normal pseudo-parental thing and shut down the activity, or put fencing , an escalator and elevator access to these high places.  


They gave good advice and let you, the visitor, make the right decision based on your ability.  By the way, I am in favor of the bus system since the tens of thousands of cars that used to jam the single out and back road in Zion would ruin the experience.  Now you can catch a bus every 7 minutes either direction and not have every moron’s stereo blaring, fight for parking and listen to engines revving during your exploration of the Park.

We reached the saddle of the fin before the final climb up to the landing and found a young lady sitting and enjoying the view.  

You can see the young lady that I referred to...just above Brenna...who is just to the right of my thinning hair. @^$%^;*(*&;^%$#!!!!!!!!

After talking for a moment or two, she said she was scared even where she was and had declined to follow her companions to the top.  She was content to enjoy the heights from right where she was and would wait for them to return.  


Ah, an example of good decisions not determined by lawyers.  

Up we went.  And up it was.  Over rocks and sand dusted stone where you had to really think about where to put your hands and feet.  It was one notch off of really needing to know how to climb.  What an experience!

Nathan ascending -- The blur is caused by moisture on the lens.  The temperature change was dramatic as the sun was setting.  Very cool effect on the shot.

Brenna working her way across the fin of rock.

Only a little exposure to her right.  I see her enjoying things like this...


I am so in love.

Looking back from where the switchbacks end and we started to make our way through the rocks on the fin out to Angel's Landing.

When we reached the top we were rewarded with a view that was fitting with the name of the place.  We stayed at the peak until the sandstone had turned from a red tinged tan to deep reds in the setting sun.  

The view as the sun set and the shadows crept up the eastern cliffs...the silence of the space...the wind gently blowing...nothing else.

Heaven simply heaven...

The Utah crew!

Nathan

Finally the shadows on the canyon wall crept high enough to signal that we needed to get going lest we end up clambering down over the exposed sections of rock in the dark.  I didn’t mind the idea of coming down the established trail of switchbacks in the dark, but I had no intention of using our lamp to guide us down the more narrow sections.

We were completely gassed after the hike.  We made our way slowly down the switchbacks as the bug chasing bats flew disturbingly close to my headlamp, and subsequently my face, we drew up plans for the coming days.  


Next: I’ll figure out how much time I can allocate to video editing.  I may do the Goosebery Mesa story and video or a short post on climbing to the rim of Zion.  i.e. The never ending trail to observation point.


I know that this series of posts has taken forever and I hope you are enjoying the stories as much as I am enjoying writing about the memories of visiting these places.  There is more to my writing than Utah tourism for sure, and the 4th of July lake stories will be coming soon, but for now.  You guys are stuck in the desert with me.