Moab Easter Jeep Safari

The weekend before Easter, I drove down to Moab with a couple friends to meet up with some other friends who'd been down there all week for the annual Jeep Safari.  My friends Kelly and Jason (aka "Chops") go down nearly every year, and I'd always wanted to go down and check it out.  This year it finally worked out to go.

We got down there late Thursday night and set up a tent by flashlight and went to bed.  Woke up in the morning and found out that Kelly's Jeep was broken (seems to be a recurring theme) and needed repairs.


Kelly's Jeep

Also in the morning, a big group of jeeps was preparing to head up the Moab Rim Trail, just a few hundred yards down the road from where we were camping. So I wandered over there to see what it was all about. There were 2 main tricky spots that were there on the climb up to the ridge, and I guess during Jeep Safari week, you can sign up to go on these trails with guides who will help you through the trouble spots. I was well entertained for quite a while, just hanging out and watching people work their way through.


Jeeps lined up waiting.


Heading up to "The Devil's Crack"


You can see the crack there by the rear wheel of this Jeep.


I can't remember whether this was a bad approach or a good one. Sometimes it was hard to tell.


Here's a nice scenic shot of the Jeeps and the river. Our campsite is off in the distance there if you look closely.


This is not the stock suspension on a Cherokee, I don't think.


Their tires are inflated to really low pressures for better grip. And for nice squishy pictures like this.


This itty bitty Jeep had some serious issues.  Don't ask me to climb under there and pile up rocks.


Maybe he'll make it up...


Or maybe not so much.  As Jerry Seinfeld would put it, "I got it, I got it. I'm using my ARM!" He actually did make it up in the end somehow.


The 2nd tricky section was called "The Z-Turn". It had a couple of steps to climb, followed by a turn and then some more steps.


Amazingly this guy didn't tip over.


Evidence of Jeep Safari

After I was done watching the Jeeps, I walked back down and founded that Chops had taken his Jeep off on a trail, and Kelly was planning on spending the day working on his broken axle.  I had a good time cruising around town looking for parts and watching people do auto-repair kinds of things.  I got a nap in as well, I think.


Kelly working on replacing an axle.

That night, after all-you-can-eat pizza dinner at Zax (I think that was the only constant between this trip to Moab and my other trip a few years ago), we loaded up the Jeeps and headed out on a trail in the dark.  I think it was Flatiron Mesa, but I could be wrong. It was kind of hard to see. :)


Getting ready to head out

It was actually pretty fun, even in the dark. I rode in Chops' Jeep, and even though there were times I got a little nervous ("I can tell it's steep, because I can't seen the ground"), because he wasn't too worried, then I wasn't too worried.  There was only one kind of tough spot where we had to bounce it a few times to get up a hill, and one of the other Jeeps with us had to get winched up, but otherwise it was good times.  Also somehow while following the trail, we ended up doing a circle and coming back out where we had started. Guess there are worse ways to be lost.


Playing around with my new camera at night

Saturday morning I got up again and went over to watch the Jeeps go up the Moab Rim Trail.


Several of the drivers had their dogs riding shotgun.


Here's the guide saying "You got BUMP it!"


Here's the driver doing his interpretation of "BUMP it".  He broke something (an axle was the speculation).

The Jeeps filled up Saturday for a day drive with people who hadn't been able to go the day before, so I ended up hanging out at camp with Kelly and Amber and a few others and helping to break down camp.  I did take a little time to read and some time to wander around and take a few pictures

Fun Times at Uncle Jake's

While George and fam were in town, I also was able to convince them to come over to my new place one night for pizza and root beer floats and playing Kinect games on the XBox.  The kids all got prizes from the prize box (gotta make sure they want to come back, right?), and had some fun playing.

We mostly did Kinect Adventures, but toward the end we tried Kinect Party and that was probably more silly fun for the younger kids. Less structured.


Cole didn't really play, but enjoyed watching intently


Maybe this counts as Cole playing?


Grandma Liz even got into the action (Cole and her seem to be playing together)

March Madness! (Yes, I realize it's nearly June)

I realize I've been slacking here on the blog, but I have been posting stuff in other places (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram), so if you're missing me, those are good places to check. :)  In any case, I did finally decide that I should put some stuff here, if for no other reason than that it's a better permanent record than Facebook.



Back in March, we went to see some first round NCAA Tournament games (aka March Madness).  By virtue of our being season ticket holders/Crimson Club members at the U, who was "hosting" the games, even though they were at the Energy Solutions Arena, we were able to buy tickets almost a year in advance.  There were 4 games on Thursday and 2 more on Saturday evening.

It worked out nicely that George happened to be in town that week, so he came Thursday, and we swapped out mom for Natalie halfway through the day.

Thursday we were able to see New Mexico get upset by Harvard, and then on Saturday, Wichita State (who eventually went to the Final Four) upset #1 seed Gonzaga (featuring John Stockton's son!).  Those were probably the two most exciting games we got to see.

Saturday night's games happened to coincide with the Grantsville Old Folks Sociable, so my parents and siblings chose to do that instead, and we found takers for the rest of our tickets.


Opening tip


Wichita played tough D against both Pitt and Gonzaga


Don't know why their fans weren't more excited. Ok...this was actually during the following game. But still. If I were Carol I'd pretend I didn't know them. :)


Not to worry, though, their cowbell player brought enough excitement for everyone


I took this photo between games to show that while there is, in fact, a drinking fountain, it is nowhere near the sign indicating a drinking fountain.  Poor signage, ESA! :)


Gotta hike those shorts up a bit, Stockton


The most famous haircut in Utah basketball history?


#16 seed Southern University gave Gonzaga a run for their money, and definitely came out on top of the weirdest-for-no-clear-reason mascot competition.


This kid hit a bunch of huge 3s in Harvard's win over New Mexico

All in all, it was a fun experience. If I had it to do over again, I might considering selling one of the tickets on Thursday (1 ticket = 2 games), because 4 games in one day was a bit much.

Some photos from the last few months

So apparently I'm in a blogging slump.  Was surprised to see how long it's been since I last posted anything.  Part of it is all the different places where stuff gets posted/shared (Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc), and part of it has just been getting photos up to Flickr so I can share them here. 

So here's a quick recap of things that have happened in the last couple months that I also managed to get photos of:

I had a house-warming/Groundhog Day party, and it was nice to have people over to hang out with me in the new place.


People in the basement


People upstairs


Shayla made these super cute Groundhog pudding cups


Liz, Natalia, and Melissa brought angel food cake for recreating moments from the film

Also in February, I went to Hawaii and helped watch the kids with my mom while Kimi was here in Utah getting started on some house-shopping (yay!)




Mostly family time, but I did make it to the beach one afternoon


I was impressed at how well Austin and Elise played Cut the Rope together on mom's Kindle.  They take turns, but mostly Elise does everything even on Austin's turn. But thankfully, he's usually happy with that.


Elise wanted to show me how high she could climb. And also make sure I could get her down once she was up there. 


Another "Hawaii" thing we (mom, Lucy, and I) did was go on a whale watching excursion.  Didn't really get much whale time, but it was fun to sail out on the ocean.


And we did get to see this whale of a centipede that Lucy happened to discover on her jacket before boarding the ship.


Cole really liked playing Peek-a-Boo


Also, he knows what bears sound like

And apropos of nothing, here's a picture I took out my bedroom window a few weeks ago when it was rainy in the morning.



It was a nice sign that winter is on the way out and spring is on the way in. I was also impressed at how tight the depth of field got when I was zoomed way in on these buds.

Heart-warming music on a cold night

Friday night, in the midst of a chilly snowpacked weekend, I picked up my friend Valery and we headed downtown to see an acoustic show from the band Augustana.  I'd (briefly) seen them in concert many years ago at the U as part of a show with several other bands, and there were some issues with the sound and on the whole they didn't get much of a chance to put on a decent show.

This time it turned out that an acoustic show included just the lead singer (Dan Layus) and another guy (Dave).  From what I've read on Wikipedia since the show, it looks like the original band is not playing together right now and Dan is just out doing his own thing with a few new guys, Dave being one of them.

For some reason a few jerks thought it would be cool if they took some chairs and set them up on the dance floor in front of the stage while waiting for the show to start. Obviously they'd be asked to move the chairs so not sure what they were thinking, but I suggested to Val that since we'd probably be standing for the show, we might as well stand in the front, so we went and stood in front of the folks on chairs, and actually ended up sitting on the front of the stage for a bit while we waited. In any case it resulted in our having a great spot to enjoy the show from, and for me to put my new camera to further use.

A girl (Lauren Shera) opened the show and had a nice voice and played the guitar well, but none of her songs really stuck with me. Probably would have helped if they'd turned up her vocals a bit more so we could hear her better over her guitar.  She played 8 or 9 songs I think.


Lauren Shera



Dan and Dave came out and did a few set up things (including Dan taping lyrics for several new songs to the stage and floor speakers), then disappeared for a few minutes (Val and I were wondering if its like a team warming up before a game and then going back into the locker room for one last pep talk. Don't know.) before returning to put on a fabulous show.





On the whole they played over 20 songs, with Dan mostly playing guitar (and sometimes the harmonica as well) and singing, and Dave accompanying on the piano.  A few times Dan went to the piano and Dave played some accordion.



Dan started the night not talking much, but after a half an hour or so, he seemed to warm up to us, and shared stories of braving the icy roads driving down from Boise that day. He seemed very grateful that we'd come out to see the show and talked several times about how he's been sober for 2 years  now and you could tell from the emotion in his songs that he's very happy with being a family man.  He had several new songs that mentioned his wife and kids and his own personal "comeback story".


I was able to get good videos of Augustana's two biggest commercial successes, "Boston" and "Sweet and Low" (the new camera shoots in 1080p):


Worth watching (or skipping) to the end for some kind words for us "good people" who'd come out to see the show.



One song I didn't record but that I loved was a new one called "Love in the Air", that was just upbeat and happy and also featured some high falsetto backup vocals from Dave that had everyone chuckling.  Luckily someone else recorded a very similar rendition at a different show and posted it on YouTube.  Hopefully whenever they get this song recorded and released it sounds a lot like this:




"It's al-ri-hight!"


A little grin from Dan

I wasn't sure if they'd do an encore at such a small, intimate show, but after lots of cheers and requests, Dan opened up his guitar case again, scolded us playfully for not being satisfied with 20+ acoustic songs, and sang one last song.  Definitely a fantastic show, and at $15, a relative steal. I'd definitely pay to see them again.