My trip to California

Check out my other blog, which has pictures of my trip to Nor Cal last week.

Day 1/2

Day 3

Day 4/5

Week in pictures

I had a pretty busy week. I started of the week heading up to Idaho Falls for work. We recently aquired a failing bank that included 7 branches. I was part of a group that went around to inspect the buildings and evaluate their condition. I'll still be taking other trips to this area over the course of the next 6 months to set up contractor work on the maintenance and repairs for these properties, evaluating the existing lease contracts, etc.

I arrived at Idaho Falls on Monday night and met up that morning with another property manager from Boise and the project manager out of Minnnesota. We drove out to branches at Victor and Driggs, Idaho. Both branches were spectacular and from what our project manager said, the most beautiful branches we now own. They spared no expense at every detail (which is likely a part of the reason they went under). We then went over the Teton mountains (which were beautiful) and into Jackson, Wyoming to inspect another beautiful branch. From there we headed back to Idaho Falls and I high-tailed it back to SLC that evening.

On Wednesday afternoon I drove down to Grand Junction, Colorado. I am taking over 10 additional properties along the Colorado western slope from Grand Junction down to Telluride. I met up with my boss and the out-going property manager Thursday morning and we did a tour of 7 of my properties on the way down to Telluride. We ate dinner in Telluride and then got a hotel about 15 miles outside the town. This hotel was VERY nice and cheap considering the area ($105/night). The next day we went back into Telluride to tour 2 branches, then headed out in the middle of nowhere to Norwood to tour the last branch. My boss brought me back to Grand Junction to get my rental car and I sped on back to Utah.

Along the way I stopped at a cool "ghost town" called Thompson Springs, UT. I use the term Ghost town loosely because there were still residents there (mostly in random trailers), but the town itself was either boarded up, or vandalized. The town itself once sat on the old Highway 50, which was the main road on your way from Utah to Colorado. Then I-70 was built and this town obviously died off from lack of business. It kind of reminded me of the cartoon "Cars", however this was a much scarier place as the locals obviously stared at me, an outsider, with a bit of bitter curiosity.

Below are some pictures from my trip. I don't really have much from the Idaho trip.

This is one of my branches in Grand Junction (my largest as it's over 50k sf). I liked it because of how the mirrored exterior reflects the sky so well. In fact, it's so good that we have common issues with birds flying into the building.



Driving toward Telluride



At the end of Telluride is a road that switches back up to the peak of this mountain and drops down into another highway. It's a single-lane road for half the way up to the top, however it's a two-way road up to Tesla's old power plant (which is now a wedding/reception castle).



Close up of the castle



Close up of a water fall



Looking back toward Telluride



Notice I didn't get any pictures of the actual town. I was in a hurry :-).

Thompson Springs, UT

Old Highway 50 with I-70 running parallel (look on the right for some faint vehicles) looking East



Looking West



Thompson Springs Motel. This place must have been the place to stay at one point. All the rooms had doors kicked in and they were all destroyed.





Across the street you have these 3 dead buildings



An old railroad stop??



The only active business around

The Moab half marathon

Alene ran in the "almost half-half marathon" which was a 5 mile run. She did great, finishing better than she expected at 43:44 (that's 8:45 average over the 5 miles).

She finished in 50th place out of 479. She finished # 9 in her age group and number 138 combined men/women (out of 786).

Bailey and I parked on 100 S. in moab and walked the 5 blocks up to the park where the finish line is to wait for her. I was so proud seeing her running across the finish line.

Here are some pictures:

Bailey and I walking to the park where the finish line is




The finish line



Bailey wasn't sure about the swing



Bailey got really happy when I told her mommy was almost there



Alene crossing the finish line




She was thirsty





Bailey was tired and fell asleep in the Kelty pack as we walked to the car. Alene carried her the rest of the way.



This guy liked dancing

Places I want to see/hike

This is going to be a constantly updated list I'll add to and check off when I do it. I'm going to post the link to the right under my profile. This is going to be a quick list off the top of my head, so watch for stuff to be added later.

UTAH

Escalante
- Coyote Gulch
- Hole in the Rock (I want to drive to the end and hike through it to Powell)
- Brimstone Canyon
- Egypt 3 Canyon

San Rafael Swell
- Eardley canyon (the whole thing, not just a portion of it)
- Lower Eardley Canyon potholes (tech rappel)
- Little Wild Horse/Bell Canyon loop
- Crack/Chute Canyon loop
- Dang Canyon (Did Ding already, so I want to go up Dang and complete the loop)
- ATV the behind the reef road
- Upper Chute Canyon/Lower Baptist Draw (tech rappel)
- Lower & Upper Black Box Canyon
- Segers Hole (tech rappel)
- Miners Hollow/Quandry Canyon (tech rappel)
- North Fork Iron Wash (tech rappel)

Zions/WAY Southern UT (not sure what to call this area)
- Buckskin gulch
- Zions Narrows
- North Rim Zions to Grotto area

Cedar Mesa
- Don't know enough of it specifically, but I'll post more later once I start the research

Canyonlands
- Island in the Sky
- The Maze
- Needles

Capital Reef
-

Bryce Canyon
-

Western Uintas
-

Eastern Uintas
-

Wasatch Front
-

Trip Report: Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park

Alene and I needed to get out of town, so at the last minute (well, Thursday night), we decided to head down to the southern desert and visit a place I've never been before and Alene had not been since her field trip to Escalante (2001?).

Despite many warnings about the weather from everyone we knew that was familiar with the area, we decided to chance it, with a couple of back-up plans with going to Arches, or the other side of Canyonlands, both of which have paved roads running through them.

We left around 8:30am on Saturday and headed straight down to the Western side of Canyonlands (it's actually separate from the main park). We arrived at the main turn-off about noon and headed down the dirt road we were most worried about (the weather is still wet down there and the road is 30 miles to the trailhead and all dirt road, which can be really muddy and force us to turn around). Well, we lucked out. No wet weather, the road was actually REALLY dry, except for a couple of parts that were muddy for about 20', but we just gained speed in the subaru, and headed straight through it and out the other side. We were fine.

The hike was AMAZING. We were the only ones in the canyon. This canyon has one of the most oldest and largest gallery's of ancient art petroglyphs. The hike we did went about 1.5 miles down hill into the canyon, then extended another 2 miles to the main Gallery of art. Along the way we were able to see a couple of other areas of art, which were all very impressive. Some of the cool things were the fact that we had the canyon to ourselves. Also, your voice echos like crazy from some spots. The last thing that was cool was Alene bringing to my attention the fact that this is the canyon that Aron Ralston was found (well, he found the people that helped him as he hiked some 30 miles up the canyon).

The weather conditions were PERFECT, not too hot, not too cold. The only mis-hap was as we were leaving. We had already done about 1.5 miles back and were looking at another rock art panel, when we heard a VERY loud roar from the canyon (back where we were). It didn't sound like any sort of a cat or dog, but like a bears roar. Bears don't live out there, so we have no idea what it was. All I know is we picked up the pace and high-tailed it out of there.

After the hike, we drove on back, again lucky it never rained on our road (no rain in the immediate area, but there were plenty of clouds in the distance). We drove back to Green river where we had reserved a hotel room at a Comfort Inn (the nicest hotel in Green River). We ate a good burger at Ray's Tavern, then went back to crash and sleep away the hike.

Here are some pictures and videos of the trip:



The sign at the entrance of the dirt road into the canyon



The road going into the canyon



The trailhead into the canyon



Dinosaur print on the way down



Looking down into Horseshoe Canyon


Frozen part of Barrier Creek (which is the creek that runs through the canyon; the canyon was once called Barrier Canyon before it was engulfed by Canyonlands Natl. Park)


High Gallery, which is the first panel of art we see


Wind on the Sand


Cougar prints???


The Alcove Gallery


Looking away from the Alcove Gallery. It was almost in a natural half dome area.


The Great Gallery


Tyler by the Great Gallery's "Great Ghost"


Alene by the Great Gallery's "Great Ghost"


Ancient Hunters


Tyler & Alene at the Great Gallery panel


Leaving the canyon


The Road out...


The Alcove (with echo)


The Great Gallery (with echo)



Speeding down Robbers Roost Road



You can see a slideshow of all our photos here:

Horseshoe canyon slide show

Back from Cancun

I'm going to do my best to give MY report on the place and I think I'll do it in the form of a log (as if I was doing it at the end of every day).

FYI - Here is a link to all the pictures from the trip

http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/tyler_root/Cancun2007/

I hope you enjoy.

Cancun: Day 6 (Monday)

It was our last day and we had until around noon to have a little fun. We decided to not mess around and head right for the beach. I rented a boogie board. Again, the dang dis-honest lifeguard tried to charge me $10 and I knew it was $6. When I walked away back to Alene, he followed me all the way over and told me $6. What an idiot.

So, we spent the morning boogie boarding. When Alene finally wanted to try it, we both got wiped out by the biggest wave I had ever seen down there. I thought she was dead and I came up immediately (as soon as I could really because the water held me down for a bit) and saw her eventually pop up. The waves kept crashing and crashing after that, so she eventually made her way out of the water. I felt so bad for her. She did, however, capture some awesome footage of me tearing up these monster waves



Here are some other pictures of the boogie boarding




After that, Alene went to workout while I swam a bit and read more of my book (Lone Survivor). We said goodbye to the beach by taking one last picture of us. We wanted a closer shot of our faces and the beach behind us, but both people we grabbed to take the photo didn't understand what we wanted, so this was the best we could do. Thank goodness Alene is such a hottie, or the picture would have sucked.



From there, we packed up and headed back to the airport. As predictable Mexican time, our shuttle bus was about 20-30 minutes late in picking us up. On the flight back we watched episodes of Lost season 3 on Alene's laptop and I got some more reading done. On our connection flight in Dallas, we had roughly 1.5 hours to get our luggage, check it through customs, then re-check it and get to our terminal. Luckily our terminal was in the same one as where customs was. We made it with time to spare, so we got something to eat and headed home.

Over-all, the trip was nice. It was so nice to get away and spend time with just Alene. The area was beautiful and truly a paradise. My complaints were mostly the people trying to sell us stuff everywhere we walked. It became really annoying. My other complaint was the food. Rarely did I find something I liked. Understanding that I was in another countries culture and the way they do things, I guess I expected a little more at a resort catering to people from outside their country. However, every time I ate, I realized I should not complain and that I was happy just to find food I could stomach and eat and it kept me alive. Breakfast was often Toast with peanut butter and jam, pineapple, potatoes, and scrambled eggs (although they did not quite look like the eggs we make, I trusted them). I drank a LOT of pepsi and bottled water.

I'd go back to the Caribbean, but likely not Cancun. I didn't hate it, but it's one of those "been there, done that" and there is so much more to see. I really pushed for us to go there, so the next major $$$$ vacation for the two of us will be where she wants to go.

One thing I thought of a lot was how this was the area Jeff spent on his mission. I remember when he first came home, he lived with me and it seemed that EVERYTHING we had, he cherished. When we ate a regular dinner, he stared at it as if it was gold and his last meal. His eyes were so wide when he drank a cup of milk, or watched a TV show with a clear signal. I could not help but think of how grateful I am for what I have here in America. Again, it's not that I'm saying we are better, but I would not want it any other way. I love it here in the good old USA!

Cancun: Day 5 (Sunday)

This was a day I was looking forward to as well because we had purchased (while in Cancun) a jet-boat tour of the rivers that run through the lagoon and out onto the ocean to a reef where we could snorkel. I've never snokeled before, except for when I passed my snorkeling merit badge in a swimming pool. I was stoked to be able to try it in the ocean with an actual reef.

The jet boat tours are these little 2-seater boats you follow your guide in. It's basically like driving a real ski boat, only smaller.

Here is a picture of me driving one


We followed our guide through the lagoon and through these little rivers that run through groves of trees that grow in the lagoon (they called it a jungle tour, but I wouldn't exactly). Still, it was really cool to drive through and see the watter ripple off the boat and up against all the trees growing. Here are a couple of photos of driving through the river






Once we got out onto the ocean, that is where it got interesting. The ocean was VERY choppy and wavey that day. The boat ride just getting out to the reef was pretty rough and by the time we got to the reef, our heads were aching (as were our tummies). The reef was only about 1/2 mile off shore and there were bouys that we tied up to once we got there. Alene and I jumped in and headed out to check out the reef. After a while in, Alene was feeling a bit sick, so she got back in the boat. I stayed out another 15 minutes or so to see what else I could, before I started feeling sick. The waves were rolling me up and down and every now and then I swallowed a small amount of salt water, so my stomach had about had it. We decided to leave, but before going our guide offered to take our picture for us




Here is some video of us riding in the boat. There is another one I could not get to upload, but I really liked it. If I can get it, I'll add it to this blog post.




On the way back, Alene wanted to take a stab at being the Captain of the ship, so we did the old switch-a-roo while driving routine. I told her now that she knows how to drive the boat, she'll have to pull all of us while we waterski this summer.


We got back to the hotel about noon or so and spend the better part of that day again lounging by the pool. The ocean was really acting up, so the lifeguards would not allow anyone to go in. We took a few pictures of the ocean during this time:








On our way back to our room to get changed for dinner, we ran into this little fella. I was scared to death to go near it, but Alene didn't seem to bother at all. It's kind of funny what things will scare us and what won't. Alene freaks out of a spider, which this thing eats, but she's not afraid of it at all.