Boo!

Don't know my own strength.

It's funny how we get used to imperfect things when they decay slowly enough. Unit it finally breaks and you replace it.
I had to replace the wheels on my shower door today. I hadn't noticed how much harder they were to open and close, until I took a shower with the new wheels. Almost pushed the door into the next room.

Four the english teacher's out their:

Goblin Valley again.

Went camping down by Goblin Valley again this weekend.  Found the same awesome campground that we stayed at last year, it was even empty but we decided not to stay there.

The only way to it, and back out, is across a dry wash.  Well, dry most of the time.  Oh, it was dry(ish) when we got there, but the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for the area.  We would have been fine in the campground, but with the possibility of getting stuck there, we decided to find a different place to camp, right on the other side of the wash.

We were going to stay until Sunday, but decided to come home Friday night.  Sitting in the tent/camper in the rain didn’t sound like much fun, and packing up while it was raining even less like fun.

The day we were there was great.  Relaxed, hiked, played in the mud that was there.  That’s the problem with planning a trip in advance, the weather doesn’t always cooperate.

We also rediscovered an old find.  On the way home we stopped in Salina for dinner, at a little café called Mom’s Café.  The food was great and at a good price.   The people there were great, just your basic down-home service.  Josh’s steak was awesome, Dylan said his grilled cheese was the caliber he dreamed of (ok, he is only 11, but the one he had in Hanksville went uneaten). 

If you’re in Salina during meal time, I’d suggest trying it.

Propaganda über alles.

I didn’t think it was possible to have any less respect for a Utah politician.  I was wrong.

In the desert–when it rains it floods.

I was headed home from grocery shopping, saw some cool cloud formations and decided to stop at Sugarhouse Park to get some pictures.

I also got this shot of a dad and his kid sledding down the hill.  Seems that wet grass can be as much fun as snow.

Then came the parade of cars driving the wrong way around the park.  I’ve seen this before, so at first I just thought it was some moron who thought their 2 minutes was more important than the safety of others.

But around the 4th car, I decided to go see what was going on that was causing all this anarchy.

Well, I got about 3/4 the way around the park and found out what was turning everyone back.  The creek running through the park was overflowing and flooding over the road.

It really wasn’t that deep, but recently in a small town on the border of Utah and Arizona an SUV and a van were swept down by a flash flood.  12 kids and adults were drowned, I can understand why people weren’t too anxious to forge through the water.

Although the ones that did cross had no problems at all.

It rained less than 1/10” in the city, maybe up to a quarter inch in the mountains.  But since all the runoff from the mountains get funneled into about a half dozen creeks going through the city, and it came down quite quickly, they tend to overflow and run out into the streets.  And the water can get moving pretty quickly.

I spent about a half hour walking around the park taking pictures and by the time I got back, the water had already ceded.  You can see how high the water got, where it pushed the leaves up to a line on the lawn.

And finally, it decided to rain on me again as I was heading home.  Even a little bit of hail to boot.  But, as typical here, it didn’t even last through the light I was stopped at.