Return to Current Letters

Ok, I have had some complaints that I don't' show pictures of Rachel when I write these letters. So here she is. Her grandpa is of a firm belief that any kid (of any age) needs candy. Kyle would agree, but here is her first (presumably) taste of liquorice. It doesn't look like she is to upset by the ordeal. She now can roll over and over. That is about as much as she has learned. We will keep you posted as her progress progresses.
This may seem like a pointless adventure, but when I was showing people how the sprinklers work, one took an interest and wanted me to run them longer than just a few seconds. He was really concerned that the rotor type sprinklers that I used would only get the ground wet at the end of the spray and not in the middle, so I was letting them run long enough such that he could see where the ground was getting wet and where it wasn't.
In that process, we noticed that there was an area just to the north of the patio in the back yard that wasn't getting wet. This is because the rotor that is supposed to get it wet (seen here) is adjusted such that it makes just less than a 90˚ spray arc. The reason for this is simple, it overshoots the length of the side walk, and gets the porch wet, which I don't like, so I adjusted it shy of the 90˚ and now there is a triangle shaped corner that is bone dry. Terra's solution was to put in some gravel or some cement there such that it would be no big deal, but I didn't like that.
I wanted to put in another sprinkler in that corner that would work. So I went to Ace and spent about $3.50 on a pop up sprinkler (non-rotor) some fittings (I already had the pipe and some fittings), and then came home and put it in. Now the entire yard gets enough water (of course I don't have any grass so that statement may be a little optimistic). At any rate now each sprinkler zone in the back yard has 5 heads on it for a total of 15 sprinklers in the yard.
To pick up after Mia's letter, I had planned on hiking up Mt. Humphreys. The reason for this is simple. I can see the peaks from my window at work, and I thought that it would be neat to leave a signal mirror with my coworkers at work, and then climb up the peak and see if I could flash the mirror the distance and we could each see the flash from the other location. Now, for this to work, a lot of different things had to fall into place. First I had to acquire some signal mirrors, which I don't own, the weather had to be sunny at both locations, and no rain in between them, and each mirror operator would have to be ready at the same time.
We looked for some mirrors locally (I know, I know stupid me, but I thought I might find some), and not finding any, went to the interent. I located one that would flash 100 miles (2"x3"), and since my distance was >100 miles, I went with a 4"x5" mirror. I found a place in Idaho that had some and ordered two. They arrived on Wednesday, and I handed them out on Thursday at work, and Friday I went up the mountain. My plan was to arrive on top of the peak at 12:00 noon and do the flashing then. According to the internet, the distance was 4.25 miles, and I thought that 3.5-4 hours would be ample time to accomplish that goal. We (myself, Ethen, Wyatt, Wyatt, and Mia) left here at 5:50 am Friday to drive to Flagstaff and then hike the mountain with the intention of being on top at noon.
When we arrived, the sign indicated that the distance to the saddle was 3.8 miles and the distance to the top of Humpherys was 4.8 miles. Again, I thought that it wouldn't be a problem. Then we started walking. Everything seemed to be going slow, and we needed frequent breaks. Now I would like to blame this on Ethen or Wyatt, but as we climbed higher and higher the hike got increasingly harder. When consulting the map above, it is easy to see why. As the grade increased, our speed decreased, but not near the same rate. What I hadn't considered was how much the elevation really got to you. In fact there was a sign about 3/4 miles from the saddle that reads "Elevation 11,400 feet No camping above this elevation".
After that sign, the oxygen in the air was all but refreshing. You would literally take 25-30 steps and then have to try to catch your breath and then do it again. At 11:00, I was starting to realize that I wouldn't make it to the top. Now this was a concern among my coworkers, that I might not make it to the top by the given time, so I simply said that it wouldn't be a problem, I would just get to the east facing side of the hill and then find a clearing and do the flashing from there, well the Humpherys trail starts on the west side of the hill and you can't see the east side of the state until you hit the top (something that I had neglected to research enough prior to departure).
Again, if you consult the map, you will notice that there is a trail that would have been perfect for my logic, which I was unaware of. At any rate, at 11:00 I grabbed Ethen by the hand and we left the rest of our group bound by determination that we would not be the reason that this signaling event failed. So we went up the mountain as fast as we could, and I was literally pulling Ethen up every rock and climb. For an hour we did this only stopping for 15-20 seconds at a time just because we couldn't breath and kept going. We ended up making it to the saddle at 12:00 exactly, and was rather disappointed to find that the saddle between the two peaks only had views from the Southwest and Northeast. That meant that I couldn't see the paper mill, nor the flashes.
We were under the cover of clouds so, even if I was on the correct side of the mountain (or even the top for that matter) we couldn't flash back. That was disappointing, but I didn't feel like I wanted to climb any more to try to get up there. I would guess that the saddle is around 12,100 feet in elevation (judging from my watches altimeter). According the GPS (which Wyatt had sitting with him down the trail another .5 miles) the mill was 112 miles away from my location. I would have used it to test the elevation at the top of the saddle, but Wyatt decided that he didn't need to make it to the saddle and a log next to the trail was as far as he needed to go and he sent the rest of his party on and we picked him up on the way back.
At the top (saddle), Ethen was very enthralled by a chipmunk that tried to eat his sandwich, and then he followed it around. Next time, I will have to construct the event a little differently such that we would at least have the view to flash back even if the weather doesn't cooperate. The worst part about that was that the proceeding 4 days at work it was clear at noon, so I was hoping that on day 5 I should be so lucky. In addition to the lack of sun, we had to endure the rain for about 30 minutes on the way back down the mountain. We arrived at the base of the mountain at 8:15 and started hiking, I hit the saddle at 12:00 (Mia and Wyatt made it at 12:35) and then we were back at the car at 4:10 pm and back home at 7:00pm.
On another note, we decided that we would build a rocket for Kyle as he is getting ready to turn 3. We did this for Ethen, and so turn about is fair play. We managed to get this accomplished this week, and then today we went out and launched them. It was pretty fun (all though a little warm). Kyle ended up enjoying the making of the rockets more than the launching of the rockets. For some reason, he didn't like the noise that they made as they took off. On an interesting note, Rachel didn't like the sound of them blasting off either. She would start yelling every time we shot one off. The funny thing about that is that they aren't that loud at all. I guess he just doesn't fancy it as much as his older brother does.
We headed over to the local park to do the launching, but there was no parking and what looked like teams of people in similar colored shirts doing some type of competition or activity, so we left that location in search of another. What we found was a softball field that was under construction, and as such didn't' have any grass, but fields of weeds. This suited me just fine, although I don't know if the boys liked it or not - I guess that it probably reminded them of our back yard.
In other news, work is still there. The way that it would appear is that the result of the shutting down of one of the 3 paper machines is going to result in a 27% reduction in the work force. Currently we are waiting for those who want to volunteer to take the severance package and be terminated before we will know who will get to take the severance package involuntarily. I don't think that I will be affected by it (or at least I am hoping to remain gainfully employed by the changes although I may be in a different job at the end of the restructuring).
This month both of the boys age another year (Kyle - 3 and Ethen - 5). That means that Ethen has the option to either start school now, or wait another year (in two years Kyle will also have the same option). We have decided to have Ethen start kindergarten this year, but there is still time to change that school of thought. He is smart enough for it, and could do it if he so decided to, but he is also cunning enough to know how to get out of it for another year if he really wanted to. Stay tuned for more news.

Return to Current Letters