Angry BBQ!

I saw this picture on the interweb today . . .



It made me laugh, so I thought I would share.

Enjoy!

To the Rescue

Well, Saturday didn't quite turn out how we planned, but that's okay. Not long after getting up, Richelle's dad called to say their truck had died as they were driving to Woodland to go snowmobiling. They said they were on the off-ramp of Exit 4 off of Highway 40, just east of Park City . . . it was up to Richelle and me to come to the rescue.

Their electrical system had gone dead, so we were all fairly certain that their alternator had gone out, so the make & model of the truck were called in to Napa, were we stopped by and picked up a new alternator on the way.

When we got there, we found that the alternator's mounting bolts didn't line-up with the mount, and that the electrical plug had rounded edges instead of square. But now that there was an extra vehicle on scene, several of us drove into Park City to see if we could find the right part. After aimlessly wandering for a bit, we found Part's Plus, told them what we needed, and they produced the same alternator - the one that Napa gave us that didn't fit. We spent a good twenty minutes going through every other similar one they had, but couldn't come up with a match.

So Richelle and Daniel hopped on their phones, and started to track down the right part. Eventually we found that the part we needed could be found in Heber City, so we drove the 15 miles to Heber, got the part, and came back, where it was installed in 30-minutes.


We then rushed home, since Michelle and Abe were coming by to watch the rest of the 2nd Season of Supernatural with us. We'd watched the 1st Season of Supernatural with Michelle last Spring, and were repeating the tradition with Season 2. The episodes terrify Richelle, but she loves them just the same . . . she just makes me go everywhere with her for awhile after she watches an episode or two.

So we finished out Season 2 and then drove up to Karl and Christi's in Layton to start up Season 3. He's been recording them all season, but hasn't been watching them until we could catch up and go watch the episodes with them. So we went up there and made dinner, and watched the first two episodes of Season 3. Yeah, we watched 6 episodes yesterday. That's a lot of TV - and having lost our morning to rescue missions, I closed out the day feeling like I really didn't get anything accomplished. Oh well.

The other exciting bit of news was that the local Dick's Marketplace was selling Girl Scout cookies. Richelle love, and I mean LOVES, their Samoa cookies . . . actually, I have a pretty sweet spot for them too . . . so we were able to pick some up. Yeah, I'm starting to feel like my life has mellowed out a lot when I can find myself getting exciting about Girl Scout cookies.

A Few Days in Vernal

This past weekend, Richelle and I hopped in our Toyota time-machine, set the dial for the Cretaceous Period, and traveled to Utah's "Dinosaur Land" (a.k.a. Vernal Utah for the non-paleontologists out there) . . . in other words, Vernal is Tyler's hometown, and we followed him home for spring break like a couple of lost Apatosauri.

It's not like we haven't been there before - last summer we spent a couple of days there camping, rock-crawling and spelunking (which turned out to be quite the Indiana Jones-esque experience . . . you'll have to ask us about it sometime) in the Ashley National Forest not far outside of Vernal, and a day with the MacKay's deer hunting there this last winter (a venture which produced nothing . . . but then again, when has hunting in a blizzard ever been very fruitful?).

So, I took last Thursday and Friday off of work, and Richelle and I drove the 2 hrs and 45 mins to Vernal . . . actually, I should probably say that I drove, while Richelle slept. I always seem to get the short end of that stick.

Salt Lake to Vernal

We didn't have much of a plan, really - it was kind of like, "Hey, let's go to Vernal and do whatever we want," which is pretty much what we did Thursday. We made it to Vernal around 5:30pm, and then proceeded to spend the remainder of the day doing little, if anything.

Friday, we headed East of town to go looking for deer sheds. Tyler followed the road till it was too muddy/snowy to proceed, after which we headed cross-country for quite awhile. Eventually we came upon a fairly large group of deer (about 30-50), and we figured it was as good a place as any to get out of the jeep and start looking for sheds. Overall, it turned out to be pretty successful:

Tyler, Justin and Richelle in search of deer sheds

Here's Richelle holding the first find of the day

The view from a ridge - looking South towards the Dinosaur National Park

A deer shed we found, just waiting to be picked up

The day's haul

Saturday we headed back out into the wild, but didn't make it very far before Jason, Tyler's friend, got stuck in the snow. That necessitated a change in plans, so instead of a day bonding with nature, we headed to the gun range to bond with metal and gunpowder instead:

Jason's Rubicon stuck in the snow - Tyler's pulling him out

Tyler taking aim with Jason's M&P 15t at the Buckskin Recreation shooting range

However, it turned out that we had limited ammo on hand, so we didn't end up doing much shooting, which was a shame . . . I'd forgotten my ammo-box back at the house, so we ended up calling it quits after only 30 minutes. If the snow hadn't been so think, we probably would have headed back out into the woods, but Mother Nature wasn't exactly cooperating.


We did cap off the night with an all-meat dinner. Tyler had a ton of meat in the freezer from several deer and elk, and we decided we'd try to put a dent in the supply. We grilled up a pretty sizable pile of venison, and did our best to devour it. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the meal. I doesn't get much better than that.

There really isn't much else to report. We headed to church on Sunday, which unfortunately started at 9:30am. We came back, packed, had a nice Sunday lunch, and headed back to Bountiful. It wasn't the most exciting trip Richelle and I had been on, but it was just what we needed . . . low key is often just what we're looking for.

Automotive Woes

Well, Richelle and I have been up to our necks in automotive projects over the last week - something we're not exactly experts on, but we can hold our own. Tyler and I have been plugging away at the issues with our Jeep, and I'm almost done. Last week I replaced the thermostat, and finally finished up the giant bushing project that had been looming over the Jeep since the day we bought it. That project turned out to be every bit the pain in the --- that I thought it was going to be, and then some . . . but it's done! All that's left to do is put in the new radiator, and we're golden.


Richelle has been fighting her own auto battles. She helped her dad work on Adam's Integra this week, which has been down-and-out for a couple of weeks now. They worked on it all day, put it all back together, and unfortunately, it still wouldn't start. She also helped work on the brakes of Phillip's 4-Runner, and I think another project or two. Today she's working on replacing the power-steering pump in her Cavalier, which is something she's been trying to get done for a couple of days now.

Last night proved interesting too. Richelle got a call just before 8pm that Phillip had driven down to drop Brigette off at her gymnastics class, and that his rear driver-side wheel had fallen off as he was leaving the parking lot. Everyone was off at work, or unavailable, so Richelle and I went and picked up a jack and headed down to get him taken care of. By the time we got there, her Dad had already shown up too. Phillip wasn't too happy (can't imagine why), but it didn't take too long to jack up the 4-Runner, use the wheel lug wrench to bend the tire lugs straight enough to get the tire on (one of which was sheered off, leaving only 4), and send him on his way. It wasn't a huge emergency, but it was more excitement than Richelle and I had had in a few days.

Phillip's 4-Runner, sans wheel

What's left of the lugs

Anyhow, not much else going on. This week is Richelle's Spring Break, and I took Thursday and Friday off for work. We were originally going to go down to Moab, but we've decided to push that trip back to April. We do want to go somewhere this weekend, but haven't decided where yet. Where ever we go - it'll be better than working!

Laughing to Death

Richelle showed me this video today when I got home . . . she couldn't stop laughing about it even before she showed me. Then, at the end, where the little girl was talking, she laughed so hard I thought she was going to pass out. I can't tell you how much I love her! She's the cutest!

Take a sec and watch it . . . it is pretty darn funny.

Saturday Snowmobiling

Saturday morning Richelle and I dragged our butts out of bed earlier than usual and went snowmobiling with her parents up near Woodland, UT. I wasn't too excited about getting up so early on a weekend, but I was still eager to go. We were told to show up at her parents between 8:30 and 9:00am, but Richelle knew better, and we didn't show up until about 10am, and we still didn't leave until about 10:30am.

The drive to Woodland is about an hour . . . if you don't know where Woodland is, don't feel too bad, because I didn't either. Basically you head up to Park City, then head south like you're going to Heber City for a little bit before you head east to Kamas. From Kamas, you head southeast for a bit and BAM!, you're in Woodland. Actually, just east of Woodland is the Uintas National Forest, and it was there that we spent the day snowmobiling.

It was a pretty nice morning - the warmest we'd had in awhile, so I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised that we weren't the only ones up there. In fact, we were approached by a ranger just about the moment we parked, who was checking the registrations on all the snowmobiles. Several of the sleds had been registered that morning on-line and we didn't have '08 stickers yet . . . unfortunately, the ranger didn't seem to know much about the on-line process, and it took a little bit of time to run him through the paperwork. Needless to say, it took us awhile, even after we got there, to unload everything, gear up, and make it on the trail.

Richelle all ninja'd up

Me looking like I just stepped out of a Tom Clancy novel

We eventually made it on the trail, and the fun began. There's nothing quite like blowing up a trail at 60 mph, snow pellets from the sled in front of you bouncing off your helmet . . . yeah, it was awesome! We eventually made it to this huge mountain-side where we spent some time playing around.

Around 3pm a storm started to blow in (one we'd been expecting to hit all day), and we headed back to the trailers. By the time we got back it was snowing pretty heavily. We were all exhausted, since by then it was about 4:30pm . . . Richelle and I had only expected to be gone a half-day. It took awhile, but we eventually finished loading up. By then it was snowing pretty heavily, and the drive home was pretty much white-out conditions. We didn't make it back until about 7:30pm . . . it was a long day, and by then we were exhausted. Today Richelle and I woke up to some seriously sore muscles . . . yeah, I'm getting old.

The big hill we played around on (Phillip & Brigette in the foreground)

Richelle being silly

Phillip, Richelle's bro, being a goof

Tyler being Tyler

Tyler, Brigette, Kayla and Richelle

Richelle dishing up hot chocolate

The view from the top