More fun....more fall

 Ashley has apparently regained her confidence and is again contemplating the car jumps. 

 Sugar house park, you can not go wrong. 

 AWESOME

Ben regaining his confidence after falling off a thirty foot cliff mountain biking. No big deal right?

Narrated by Ben Pike

Love!

Fall / Winter Camping

You may ask why we decided to go camping during hunting weekend and the first weekend of our first true snow fall in Utah. First why not, second snow and rain who cares, third it is my birthday weekend, fourth it is not that far away, fifth we want to just sit around and play games, sixth we want to be around a fire without getting to hot, and seventh I have never been up the Mirror Lake Highway. 

We may have pulled a true Foster and found this canopy next to the trash. It only was missing one leg for support and the pole in the middle was not attached to the top of the canopy leaving a metal lightning rod sticking out from the top. We were able to fix both and weather the snow and rain storms with this free easy up gratis the Shady Sholl campground. Yes we took it home, or Jace and Lindsey did.  

Fall Fun!

Mid Mountain Trail Park City

This last week was my fall break. We decided to stay in SLC to enjoy the sun, fall weather, and some amazing local mountain bike trails. The more we explore the great Salt Lake area the more we fall in love with it and the more we see our selves staying here. We both never saw ourselves living here but it may just happen. 

We both don't let a little snow get us down...nor some good mud.

Big Water

On Monday, Ashley had her first good day mountain biking down the bobsled just above the capitol. By a good day, I mean that she finally felt comfortable and fast with all the turns, rocks, and jumps since the infamous day when her face met a tree. 

We also had another successful Thompson Family Home Evening up Millcreek that included great weather, good friends, lots of hot dogs, spliting brauts over the fire, wood chopping 101, and Buddy.

 On Thursday we went to the Mid Mountain Trail up at Park City. It took a while to find but it was so worth it. It is a smooth rolling trail that just makes you want to keep on going. The fall leaves were out in full color also which made the trail just that much better. We did our longest recorded bike ride at 18 miles and we didn't even complete the whole trail.   

I love this pic of Ash 

On Friday we did the Wasatch Crest Trail.

 The spine

Saturday we went up American Fork Canyon and it did not let us down. Jared joined us and helped me fix my bike. My freewheel suddenly stopped working half way through due to a piece of plastic which took all of our hands to fix. Yet we were victorious!

 All this mountain biking did not come without a cost. Yes I desperately need new tires and a good nap. 

Happenings

 My parents came to town for a week after their Yellowstone trip just in time to go on the last full moon ride at Sundance.

  My uncle and aunt gave us a pine table. We decided to re-stain it. Actually I decided to for a little man project. It has been a while since a man project was performed. Luckily, my dad and I did a lot of projects. I call them man projects. My dad would call them honey dos. Take your pick. 

 This is me sanding the top of the table. My uncle and my dad said it would be easy to get the wax finish off the top. Just go buy some stuff to remove and it and just rub it off...easy as that. Turns out that no one in SLC knows how to remove finishing wax off a wood table, but they all sell the wax...go figure. So I ended up going to a janitor store to see what they had. They at least had a suggestion, but it didn't work. So I told my neighbor/landlord my dilemma. Come to find out his handy painter man told me the trick. Lacker thinner ended up doing the job. Yeahhhhh and finally I could sand the table. 

We had another Thompson FHE. We went leaf peeping with Josh and Becca and had taco soup. 

Copper & Poppers

We went to the mine and learned that copper is more easily recyclable than aluminum. That the ore in the mine only consists of 1% copper but that in a day 900,000 tons of copper are removed. The whole is 2 and 3/4 of a mile wide. Yea amazing. Overall the trip was very informative but the only regret is that we forgot our unnoculars.

 Also after our trip we had a few Jalapeño poppers. Quite tasty but as you can see from Ashley's smile they can be hot.

Vikingman Triathlon

Who wouldn't want to spend their Saturday in Burley Idaho swimming down the snake, riding on a bumpy road, and running around an airport? We would and you should join us next year. This was our first tri but not our last. We both placed in our age division with Ashley placing second in her age and fifth overall. I placed first in my age and seventh overall. Yea for a piece of granite.

The best thing about a triathlon are the numbers!

I just got back from the windy city...

Labor Day weekend was an adventure.  I decided sometime between the hours of 11pm and 4am that I was going to go to the Wind Rivers with Brent rather than meet up with my family in Island Park.  I would say that the adventure started quickly as Randy, Brent and I were driving up to Park City to meet Billy.  We were in Randy's new Subaru with Buddy in the back. (Buddy is a 1 yr. old chocolate lab for those of you who don't know). Buddy was a bit excited though and despite the task seeming to be impossible with the amount of packs blocking the trunk to the front of the car, Buddy decided he wanted into the drivers seat.  So there we are going 80 mph up Parley's Canyon while a large dog is crawling over seats, packs, and more seats to muscle his way to Randy's lap and the driver's seat.  I certainly couldn't stop him because A. I don't like to touch dogs at all and B. I was laughing so hard I was about to pee my pants.  Eventually Brent was able to pull Buddy onto his lap. Below is a picture of the end result that gives no justice to the previous events. I know that what a long story that isn't that good since you weren't there but just try to picture it in your head and you will be happy.

Our plan was to camp around the trail head to the Cirque of the Towers Saturday night, hike 9 miles to the cirque, camp up there Sunday night, and hike back down on Monday.  Despite finding a great little camp site the first night, things first started looking a little sketchy when we realized we only had one tent.  Billy had a mosquito net and Randy had nothing since he thought that if Billy was married he would have at least a two man tent. Wrong.  What really stunk (other than Buddy's tooting) is that we had another perfectly good 2 man backpacking tent at home in the closet.  The next morning we woke up to a lovely day and a not so lovely flat tire.  Luckily a flat tire isn't too hard to change.  Eventually we got started on our hike.  The first 5 miles were flat, easy, and lovely.  Then we started up Jackass Pass and the adventure really started.  I'll sum up the rest of the trip for you. 

steep inclines. large boulders. scrambling. incredible views. 40-60 mph winds. sunglasses blown off brent's head. sunglasses found. miracle. hat blown off brent's head. hat found. miracle.  me being blown off rocks. brent catching me. miracle. incredible views. 40-60 mph winds. only 1 tent with cold and wind. hiking back down. 18 miles. high winds. full packs for no reason. large boulders. steep inclines. one day. 47 degrees at the car.  billy and randy starving and freezing. billy's one liners. burger king in rock springs - never tasted so good.  arriving home at 2 am. 

Despite the summary, it was a great trip.  The pictures are the only way to describe the beauty. Billy had some great ones too.