Winter just keeps hanging on

Well, here it is almost March and we are still having major snowstorms. Yesterday morning it looked like it was gong to be a beautiful day with a clear sky and a beautiful sunrise. However, by 9:00 am, it started to snow and it kept snowing the whole day. By the end of the day we had accumulated at least another 10". This might not have been so bad but our snow blower has engine problems and wouldn't keep running so that meant that we had to shovel by hand. Here are a few photos of what it looked like once the storm passed

 Eric's poor buried car which is still waiting for transmission repairs

 Hopefully the mail man can still find our mailbox

 Keeping the sidewalks clear is always a challenge

 A beautiful blanket of snow on our yard

 I bet that icicle is at least 8 foot long

 No bird baths today

 Can you find the canoe?

The upper garden

February Dive Trip at the Crator

Well it had been a while since we did a SCUBA dive so we decided Feb. was as good as time as any. We went to the Homestead Crater where the water temperatures are 90 degrees year round. For Ashley, this was one of her first warm water dives so we had a lot of fun. The depth of the Crater is about 65 feet. The visibility was about 15 foot. Attending was Joseph, Eric, Ashley, Tyler and a good friend of ours Larry from my work. In the photos below, Ashely is the easiest to find with her pink dive skin. Next easiest to find was Eric, because he had a green marker light.

 

Ashley at the surface getting ready

All of us making our final checks prior to going deep

 Ashely & Tyler 20 feet down

 Eric and Joseph

 Tyler "takin it easy"

 Tyler and Joseph (green fins) at the bottom. It looks like we are on the deck of a sunken ship but it is just a dive platform that sank to the bottom.

 

With his green light, Eric was the easiest to find at 65 feed deep

Eric "OK" at the end of our dive

 



Snow shoeing adventure

This past Saturday Joseph and I went snowshoeing for the first time.  We have wanted to do this for a long time and finally had a free weekend with great weather.  We went up to North Fork by Liberty.  They maintain a groomed trail for cross-country skiing as well as trails for snow shoeing. We felt it was a great place to start.  It amazed me how many people snowshoe.  The key is layering as it is easy to keep warm when you are exerting that kind of energy.

 

 At the beginning of our hike.

 Joseph, with Liberty in the background.  It was a beautiful clear day.

 We were mostly in the scrub oak.

 We brought a picnic with us.  We just stopped by the side of the trail and stomped down the snow. Joseph brought a small blanket that we sat on while we ate and enjoyed the scenery.

He brought his camp stove to heat up hot water for hot chocolate.  It was great!

 Our view from where we were sitting.

 A nice day spent together.

We did have a little mishap when we took the wrong trail and ended up following a path that had been made by an elk.  Instead of going back up the hill to the groomed path, we had to blaze our own trail and that was a lot harder.   Took a few falls in the process.  They offer a free cup of hot chocolate to everyone when you get back to the yurt hut at the base of the trails.  We had a great time and look forward to going again. 

Joseph goes to Chicago

Last week I had to go to Chicago for a business trip to attend a robotics conference. This was my first time to Chicago and I can say it was impressive. Lots of tall buildings along with subways and elevated trains. While I was there they were experiencing record cold temperatures for the whole week. Temps were anywhere between 10-32 with lots of humidity made it really cold so I didn't spend much time outdoors. It also snowed for the first time in over a year so on that day, traffic was a mess (it looks like it is the same every where you go, on the first snowstorm of the year, no one remembers how to do winter driving and traffic comes to a stand still). When it was time to come home, SLC couldn't be outdone and we had our first ever ice storm. We were experiencing our typical winter inversion with nice warm temperatures in the mountains but below freezing temperatures in the valley. So when it rained, it quickly turned to ice and caused the SLC airport to close (first ever for SLC airport). Unfortunately that meant my flight got canceled and I had to wait until the following day to come home. My direct flight from Chicago to SLC got changed to a flight from Chicago to Memphis, and then to SLC. I had to take the long way home but it was nice to finally be home again.

Subway

 View of downtown from the 95th floor of the John Hancock building

 Lake Michigan in the distance (as seen from the John Hancock building)

View of downtown from my hotel room