Cycle Utah!

How I spent my morning in Cedar City!

We're here!  Bright, sunny, hot Southern Utah.  It's so nice to be out of the clouds and rain!  Granted we did have enough sunny days at home to get the garden in and get one fishing trip in. (Dad caught 9, I caught 8, Jack caught 1, but who's keeping track!) I spent quite a bit of the time between trips working on quilts, recuperating from the Texas crash, and working at the school.  I spent one day putting together a camp survival kit for a special friend attending his first MDA camp this summer.  Andriy, if you read this it is a requirement that you use all the tools I supplied you to torment your counselor: I think 202 wacky camp songs and 500 water balloons is a good start.  We also got Scott ready to head to Italy and Greece in 11 days and Matt off to Camp Lejeume to prepare for his tour in Afghanistan.  We had a nice dinner with a long time rider and staff person from the ACA rides: Mr. Gantt I hope your trip in Alaska is going well!  Hope the mosquitos are leaving you alone.  The other great news this week is that Aaron got accepted to grad school at the U in Missoula!  Way to go Aaron!  Oh yes, Jack bought a hole in the water to dump money into.  Actually, he bought my dad's boat!  We hope to spend a lot of time bringing home Dungeness crab and salmon!

This is trip #19 for Cycle Utah!  I did not cater the first tour but have every one since.  The first year we were here was hysterical.  We flew into Vegas, rented a mini van, loaded up at Costco (there was not one here at that time) and drove to St. George.  We transferred to a Uhaul truck and met my parents at the camp ground.  They drove down from Seattle in their motor home with Scott and all of our equipment.  Sysco Food Services dropped our shipment in the parking lot of the camp in 100* heat and we spent hours packing it all into STYRAFOAM coolers with ice.  Needless to say the coolers did not last the trip.  We had over 100 riders plus staff.  They kept us running to keep them supplied in beer.  The liquor store in Panguitch had never had such a busy day!  I can still remember the awe and amazement that I experienced when we rounded a curve to Zion and the canyon opened up before us.  It still takes my breath away!  We had no way to transport the food that we had left over at the end of the trip, so we had a give away at the campground in Cedar City: many happy trailer park residents that day.

We have the A crew this week to help make for a great week.  Daryl and Kim are here from Kentucky: Kevin just finished the Utah Inn to Inn and is mechanic for the week: Jack and his grandson Blake: Marker Bob and Linda on massage and of course Ranger Tommy, our fearless leader!  The weather is projected to be great: cold in Hatch but that's how it always is!  At least it's not under water.  It looks like parts of Montana is: we hope the water goes away before next week.  

(Tonights dinner, by the way, is a tossed green salad with feta cheese, homemade meat lasagna, vegetarian lasagna, orzo with fresh chantrelles & garlic butter, dolmas, garlic bread & homemade cookies.)

Oh, I have one bone to pick with a picky camper: you can complain all you want about not having beer in State Parks: but read the sign at the entrance: Public consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited in all State Parks. That means you can get a nice fat ticket and we can be removed.  Also, we want to be able to use the parks again, so we follow the rules: we don't make the them.

So: follow us on a great trip through the canyons of Utah and see what mischief we can get into!