Home Addition: Earth moving fun.

I just love digging in the dirt.  It keeps me grounded. Oh, bad pun, but really, no matter how crummy of a mood I am in, if I can go plant something, weed something, or especially move rocks around in the backyard, I feel better. Last weekend I installed the beginnings of a sprinkler system.  Yard work is the best therapy there is, and boy did I need therapy this week!

The painters have been painting inside for two weeks now.  To put it simply: I don't like them and I'm sick of them in my house.  Last week, the paint fumes were so bad and the house was so cold (we don't want to turn on the furnace until we can clean the toxic construction dust up) we had to get a hotel one night and I stayed with friends the next two nights.  As if couch surfing and cancer air are not bad enough, the painters made it impossible to get to any of our food or dishes in the kitchen for a week.  So that explains why I needed yard therapy.

Two weeks ago, I frantically called around to try to find a sprinkler guy that could help me extend the freeze proof hydrant line that we had the excavators start way back in June.  We have been extremely fortunate for fabulous, warm, dry fall weather, and we've used it to the fullest doing last minute exterior finishing tasks.  Unfortunately, Drew and I both had to spend way more time than planned over the past two weeks helping the painters prep inside the house (isn't that part of their JOB!). Anyway, the weather was going to turn, and I wanted to trench the water line before it did.  Well, it didn't happen. I found someone to help, but he was unavailable until last week. But Monday of last week there was snow, rain, and cold, so we had to wait until Friday to start the fun. 

I hired Aaron S., owner of Wasatch Sprinklers. He is awesome.  Knows his stuff, a nice guy, and a mountain biker to boot.  All contractors should be like Aaron.

He rented a mini excavator and began digging a trench 30 inches deep so that my water line would be below frost depth.  (My brother tells me frost depth is 8 feet in North Dakota. Whaaat? That is tooooo deep for this girl to dig.)

Back when we dug the basement, I had the excavators extend a water line from 5 feet below grade inside the basement out through the foundation and to the edge of the deck, where we put in a stop and waste valve for a future sprinkler system and a "farm hydrant" as they called it. Basically, the hydrant has the valve down below frost line and a drain on the down gradient side of the valve so the vertical part drains each time the hydrant is turned off. You can see it with the red handle in the this photo.

The goal of the day was to dig a trench from that hydrant all the way to the "Back 40" and install an identical hydrant back there.  Back 40 is what I call the area behind the garage, where the veggie garden will be.  To you city folk, Back 40 is a play off of North 40 or South 40, etc, which refers to the 40 acres of farm field on the north or south part of your section of land. It is a term dating back to the pioneer days on the prairie, I imagine.  My Back 40 refers to the 40 feet by 40 feet on our 0.12 acres of homestead in the middle of Salt Lake City.  I want a farm hydrant back there so we can have year-round water in that location so I can grow stuff in cold frames even while we have freezing temps at night. True homesteader spirit!

So we laid in the blue plastic pipe and the electrical wire for the timer. This step included plenty of hand digging by me, the unskilled laborer, to find and excavate under the power line from the house to the garage. The power line conduit is visible here in the foreground cutting diagonally across the trench above the blue pipe.

Here's a close up. It doesn't look it, but there is 10 inches of space between the two lines.

Then we started back filling.

While the base of the hydrant was dug up, we T-ed up after the the stop and waste valve and installed a valve box for the future sprinkler system. 

Aaron installed the timer in the garage while I back-filled both by hand, and, Joy o Joy, using the mini ex. I had been wanting to run one of these things forever!  It was so much fun, I think I might rent one just for the hell of it and go out to an empty field for a day.  $250 per day is cheap therapy if you ask me!  The machine was pretty easy to use, but I have a new appreciation for backhoe operators everywhere.

We worked until dusk but didn't get everything done.

By the next day we had the trench back filled to about 10 inches deep and had laid in the 1" PVC branch for the drip system in the garden.

As long as we had the trench there, I figured I'd throw down a drain pipe just under the surface from the downspout on the front of the garage back to the Back 40. This way, the drainage from half the garage roof won't run on top of our future patio. I reused some pipe we had and only had to shell out $20 in additional parts.

The addition of all that wonderful moisture earlier in the week certainly added an element of slippery to the job. I made a huge mess of the yard, but when Drew arrived home on pre-Halloween night, he found a happy, dirty wife!

The trench is almost back filled now, but I want to let the topsoil dry out a bit more before finishing the job.  The rental company neglected to pick up the mini excavator on Saturday, so, Lucky Me, I got to play with it some more.  On Monday morning, I decided to rearrange some of the rocks we had already rearranged back in June.  Here is a video of my slow and determined rock handling. 

Did I mention I am happiest when moving rocks around in the backyard?  That was happiness squared.

Halloween 2010

Drew was home for Halloween this year. That's both Utah Halloween (Saturday) and regular Halloween (Sunday). How the Mormons can get away with changing the date of Halloween I don't know.  I was against it, but since we were in danger of being "tricked", we handed out candy on Saturday night and Sunday night. 

It was cold and rainy, but that didn't stop about 40 kids from stepping up to get their handouts on Saturday.  We greeted them with flaming tiki torches,

a giant spider, and a joke hand from the old refrigerator on our front porch (rednecks!).

Sunday we only had one set of kids and their wine drinking parents. Guess we know why they didn't come on Saturday.

We're famous

We've seen a bit of publicity lately.

I made it into the September edition of Cycling Utah. Page 12.

The article is about the last race of the I-Cup race series and the overall series results. It has a good action photo of me racing except that it shows my bra.  Note to self: remember that when in the forward leaning cycling position, spectators have a better view angle at your chest area. 

I also had the lead story in the May issue of Survey Notes, the Utah Geological Survey's glossy periodical for the general science-minded public. 

And last on my list of recent publications is my co-editorship of a big volume of papers published under the Utah Geological Association entitled Geology and Geologic Resources and Issues of Western Utah, which you can own for only $28.95. That field trip I helped with last fall was based on this book.

Drew, or should we say Drew's baby, has also had a brush with fame.  The Mustard Truck, his 1976 Toyota Land Cruiser, was used as a prop in a photo shoot for the most recent Athleta catalog. The cruiser is pictured, complete with our Utah license plates, on the high-profile back page...

And several other pages.

How did the Mustard Truck get so famous? Our neighbor's son-in-law is a photographer for Athleta. He saw Drew's truck parked on our street and asked if he could use it in a photo shoot in Park City.  In addition to making us famous, the Toyota earned enough cash to pay for its most recent trip to the service station!  Now that's the kind of vehicle we need. Sorry, Bobke.

Race Report: The Bucket List does 24 Hours of Moab.

The 24 Hours of Moab is one of those classic races that you have to do to call yourself a mountain bike racer.  For its 16 years of existence, it has been held in a valley called Behind the Rocks south of Moab. The really crazy people attempt to do the race solo, other only mildly insane people get teams of between 2 and 5 people to race as a relay.  The person or team completing the most laps in each category wins.  Drew had done this race about 10 years ago, but had a less than great experience.  Our good friend Jim has had this race on his bucket list for many years, and secretly, so have I, so when Jim started talking back in January about getting a team together, we were game.   Our Revolution Peak Fasteners teammate and friend Steve was in, and we recruited my cousin-in-law Christian from Loveland, Colorado.  Our team name: The Bucket List.

Drew and I headed down on Thursday.  We had expected to be driving Bobke, our VW Westy camper van but once again, he was not ready. Instead, we took our trusty Toyota. We stayed at Christian and Milissa's condo in Moab, since ours was rented out.  Friday we packed up early to get out to the race venue.  We staked out and raked out our camp spot. 

and made a makeshift bed in the bed of the truck.

 It was really quite comfortable, although the cramped head space made it a little bit hard to change into race gear.  The weather was great as we did some bike maintenance.

After we held the fort down for most of the afternoon, Christian came out to pre-ride the race course with us.  Below is a picture of Drew and Christian (left of the green bush) riding on course.

 Here are some racers testing their skills on one of the technical sections, of which the first 6 miles was full.

 But the last 9 were a mix of this kind of sandy road

and more mellow slickrock.  The race course was not as bad as I remember when Drew and I rode it for fun a few years ago, but then I wasn't thinking of it with a race in mind back then.

Steve and Jim showed up at the camp while we were out riding.  After a pre-race preparation beverage for some of us, we headed into Moab to have a super delicious homemade dinner of pad Thai made by cousin Milissa at the condo. It was so great to have our fill of race fuel and not have to deal with the crowded restaurants!

Back out to the "campground" for a restful night's sleep and up with the sun to do some final race preparations.

The race started at noon; Jim elected to go first.  The start involved about 325 solo riders and teams in a LeMans start, running about 100 yards around a bush and back to the tent again before they picked up their bikes and headed out on course.  Massive mayhem.

LeMans start of the 16th annual 24 Hours of Moab.  La Sal Mountains in background. Photo by Lyna Saffel.

Here is a video of the craziness, which included a gorilla, superman, and a guy with a penguin on his head.

Jim turned in a 1 hour, 29 minute lap; pretty good considering the run and all the traffic he had to deal with.  Steve was next up, doing well with 1:21.  The transition from rider to rider at this race was well run and efficient.  Here is a video of Steve coming into the timing tent, clocking out, and handing off to Christian. 

Christian also turned in a great time on his first lap of 1:21.  After those three, we were in 10th place in our category of 27 teams!

I was next, heading out for my first lap at 4:12 PM. 

 I felt reasonably good and turned in a time of 1:30.  I think we were in about 12th place at this point.

Now the hard part.  Drew went out as dusk was approaching.

 Night riding is by far more difficult than day riding.  Even though we have good handlebar and headlights, depth perception is not what it is in the daylight. Technical sections are challenging! 

The night laps are definitely the hardest, but since when has "hard" stopped Drew Diesel Jordan?  Drew finished his first lap in the dark in a time of 1:26.

Why this race has to take place in October, when the nights are long and chilly, I don't know.  Jim, Steve and Christian each did their first night lap in under 1:35.  I went out for my night lap starting at around midnight and it took me 1:52. Sheesh! Talk about a scardy cat. I walked almost all the technical sections; I just couldn't make myself go fast enough to have enough momentum to clear the obstacles. I didn't check our standings after my dismal time, but by morning, we were down to 15th place. Drew went out after me and posted a time of 1:38 and finished at about 3:30 AM.  Then the rotation started again in the deepest darkest part of the night.  Jim and Steve each did about a 1:45 before Christian headed out for the sunrise lap, clocking a 1:29. I went out for my last lap starting at about 8:30 AM. It was chilly when I started the lap - probably about 50 degrees, but it warmed up quickly. I turned in a pretty good time of 1 hour 39 minutes considering I (1) was out of shape, (2) was slightly sleep deprived and (3) had done 30 miles already in the previous 20 hours. I was glad to roll into the timing tent one last time.

Photo by Milissa Melle.

After I came in, Drew went out for our team's last lap.  The rest of the team had turned in their timing cards.  Jim was ready for some relaxing.

Photo by Lyna Saffel.

 But Drew had other ideas.  As he came in with an awesome time of 1:28 to all our cheers and jeers,

Photos by Lyna Saffel.

he went out again for a 4th lap! He said he felt good and couldn't let 25 minutes of time click off the clock without racing.  The way these races work is that any member of your team can start another lap up until 12:00 noon.  He had come in at 11:34 AM. If we had stopped and any team behind us had gone out for a 16th lap after that, they would have passed us in the standings.  Drew was determined to hold our middle-of-the-pack standing!

His second straight lap took him 1:37, not bad considering he'd run out of food and water.  He finally finished up The Bucket List's run of the 24 Hours of Moab at 1:11 PM.  We did a total of 16 laps or 238 miles and climbed over 21,000 feet in 25 hours 11 minutes. Time to celebrate!

The Bucket List. L to R: Lucy, Christian, Steve, Jim, Drew

We all chilled out for a while, then headed back to the condo for another delicious meal of burritos and ice cream while we watched Race Across the Sky, a movie about the Leadville 100 mtb race.

Monday, after breakfast, all of us including Milissa rode on Sovereign Singletrack. It is such a fun trail, but most of us just weren't into it after that ordeal. We cut the ride short and headed for home.

All in all, it was a great time, but I'm glad to say I can cross that one off my bucket list!

Just rides

We just returned from racing the 24 Hours of Moab mountain bike race.  We'll get some photos and a race report up soon, but first just a couple of pics from a couple of rides I did in Park City these last few weeks.  I enjoyed the little breaks from the house; hope you do too.

September 25th ride in Deer Valley:

 Flagstaff loop.

 Rhonda and Lyna soaking in the fall color.

October 3rd up Spiro trail and over to the Canyons on Mid-mountain trail.

Sure is pretty up there this time of year!

Home Addition: GRANITE!

Granite install day was absolutely best day of the remodel so far; that is until the refrigerator leaked on the new floor, but let's not dwell on that. Let's relive the installation of the most beautiful countertop in the whole wide world.

Week before last, Pablo, from Center Pointe Stone came to template the countertop. He was great and I'm glad I was there to discuss overhang, sink cut out, etc. Then, last Tuesday I got the call to go see the final layout of the Mylar templates on the granite slab. I wanted to make sure the prettiest parts of the slab were going to be used in the most visible places.

Turns out, the whole slab was amazing, so it wasn't that hard.  We figured out how we could place the pieces so that we managed to capture all the coolest areas of the slab and even get backsplashes out of the same slab.  Awesome. So as soon as we were done looking at the slab, they toted it away to the cutting room.

The next day was to be the day. I took off early from work just to see it, but hours past and no one showed up. I was so sad. It would have to wait until Friday.

Friday morning, John and Brian arrived with the slabs in the back of a pickup.

They said the biggest awkward piece weighed about 300 pounds, but they did a good job getting it in the house. They called in another guy to help lift the slab into place. It only took about 30 seconds to get it up on to the counter.

There was a lot of trimming and shimming. Then some glueing and screwing, or I should say drilling.  I was amazed to see that it onloy took one minute to drill each hole for the faucet.

5 hours later, we had the most fantastic looking countertop imaginable. Here are a few pictures, but the pictures really do not do it justice.  The depth and variety of colors is really unique.  The quartz is smokey and translucent and at one spot you can actually see through the edge.


This picture you can a mafic black banded section surrounded by the more felsic section – maybe a xenolith?  This is my favorite part of the counter, so it is nice that it ended up next to the sink.

The two slabs on either side of the range are very nice. One has a lot of pyrite, which looks especially cool when the light shines on it.  

I am so happy with how the countertops turned out.  The stone is absolutely gorgeous and the fabricators were 100 percent professional.