St. George - Center of the Universe

Stacey and Taylor played the perfect hosts for us last weekend at Casa Reese. Kirkham had a blast playing on the soft carpet and watching cartoons with cousin Jack. He slept better than he's ever slept and was a happy camper all day long. Kirkham had his own bedroom with a ceiling fan and private bathroom. Now when he wakes up he just shakes his head in disappointment; no ceiling fan, no private bathroom and I think our carpet gives him a rash. Oh, just wait for summer, tiny Kirkham. Little does he know just how hot it gets upstairs in our home. Right Stacey?

On Saturday we took the kiddos on a hike in Zion. Kirkham is behind me in the backpack and Jack was in the Chariot. Zion is a reverent place and arms must be folded at all times.

Kirkham managed to peek out of his pack when we stopped at the lodge to take a break. Kirkham's halo of hair is shining brightly. We were in Zion after all...

Finally out of his Cordura prison, Kirkham was able to strip down and enjoy some sunshine with Erica. Kirkham is in the 90th percentile for height and 50th for weight, according to his latest visit with the pediatrician. As you can see, he's almost as tall as Erica, all legs.

Erica is a great mom and loves to take small little nibbles out of Kirkham's neck. Stacey is the great photographer who captured this all on film. Taylor was off being a fun dad with Jack. And I was content to just sit there and make Twilight jokes. I'm awesome!

This is Kirkham's windblown look. He doesn't have a lot of hair, but what he does have adds plenty of personality.

Sadly, the only two differences between Kirkham and me are that I rarely grab myself in public and I almost never drool while doing so. The whole looking down at it while doing it is something I still do. And, yes, my toes still curl if I do it just right...

Johnny's White Rim Adventure

The White Rim trail is a 100 mile loop that travels some of the most pristine sections of Canyonlands National Park. From the photo above you can actually see the White Rim. Because I've ridden my road bike over one hundred miles without too much difficulty, I made the assumption that a 100 mile mountain bike ride would be just up my alley. Not to get too far ahead of myself, but I was very wrong. For starters, just look at my bike.

An initial glance will show that the tires are knobbier than my road bike tires and the brakes and handlebars are a little different, too. The astute viewer will notice that my mountain bike only has one gear. My road bike has 20 gears. But let's start from the beginning.

A couple of weeks ago, three friends and I decided to make the journey to Moab to ride the White Rim trail. Moab is a good seven hours from Las Vegas by car, but only 1.5 hours by plane. Here we are loading up the plane with our bikes, sleeping bags and Gu.

All loaded up and ready to go. Four big mountain bikes and four guys fit nicely in the plane.

Looking backwards after takeoff. My bike and I were really able to bond on the flight. Good times.

The views from the plane were truly amazing. Here we are flying over Zion Canyon.

And this is the Green River at Mineral Bottom. This is where we spent the night.

We dipped the wing in order to see the road that we would be riding out of our campsite. This is Mineral Bottom road.

Before we landed, we decided we wanted to buzz by Castleton Tower. Finding it on the map proved harder than just looking for it out the window.

Castleton Tower.

Todd (pilot) and Carl (copilot) were about that excited to see more sandstone formations.

We landed in Moab.

Filled up with gas.

Loaded the rental car.

And started our drive.

Being from Las Vegas, we just assumed that the desert was warm all the time. Camping in Moab is cold and our pre-dawn start was pushed back because we are wussies. We waited for the sun to warm us up.

From our tents, we started the climb out of Mineral Bottom and up Horsethief. We thought that it would be a good idea to get this climb out of the way first thing. I'm glad we did.

Remember that little red line that we dipped our wing to see? Well, this is it up close and personal. Do you know what Moab has a lot of? Red dirt...

Guess what? More red dirt. Yippee!

That's right, Todd. More red dirt. Oh, yeah!

Yep, Carl. More red dirt. I know you can't believe it!

Guess what I see? Do I even have to say it? More red dirt...

This is pretty much what the trail looked like most of the day, with the exception of some steep hills thrown in for good measure. The views, though, were amazing.

Remember those steep hills I was talking about? They went up...

(Hogsback)

And down...

(Schafer Trail - This is actually the big drop to the White Rim proper. The photo is a little out of sequence, seeing that we descended Schafer about 50 miles before we ascended Hogsback. I'm all about dramatic affect, though.)

And up again.

(Hardscrabble - Walking your bike, by the way, is completely acceptable when you have only one gear and you are a wussy. This should be no surprise based on the fact that we waited until the sun came up to leave our tents in the morning. Wussies...)

The vistas were amazing all day long.

You would need at least three days to really see all the sites along the way.

Just ask Carl and Todd. They'll tell you the same thing.

Guess who the center of attention is in this photo? I'm using my enormous helmet to block the breathtaking surroundings.


By the time we hit the Green River we knew that we were almost done with the ride. Just one more thing.

More red dirt!

We finished the ride in about 11 hours. 8.5 of those hours were spent on our bikes. The other two and a half were spent peeing, eating and shedding clothing. It was getting dark by the time we arrived back at the car.

We drove straight back to the plane, loaded our bikes and flew to Vegas. It was a great trip and a fantastically difficult bike ride. I'm sure we'll do it again soon!

San Francisco

We were fortunate enough to escape the sunshine here in Las Vegas and soak up some much needed cold rain in San Francisco for the Tour of California. Bike racing is awesome!



Erica and Kirkham on the streets of San Francisco. Kirkham was a good sport the entire time.

Kirkham loved taking the bus around the city and looking at all the people.

For example, Kirkham couldn't stop staring at this old, dead woman with a knitted hat. San Francisco is fun!

We had some good meals while we were on our trip. Although I was officially the worst parent in the Bay area for feeding Kirkham wheat, eggs, ice cream, peanut butter, chocolate, Diet Coke and cheese. We're going to try rice cereal this week!

Jeff Louder, a guy Erica grew up with, was nice enough to keep warming up on his bike despite the toxic smell coming from our little bundle of joy. Cotton balls have so many uses...

After skinning a small bear, we were finally able to keep Kirkham warm enough to watch the prologue in Sacramento. The highlight was seeing Lance Armstrong.

If you zoom in on the displays of some of the cameras, you can actually see Mr. Armstrong. Even people on his own team take pictures of him. That's how cool he is.

Here's Lance coming around the corner during the prologue time trial. I just missed the part where he sits up and waves at me.

For stage one of the Tour of California we were invited to watch the final circuits of the race from the balcony of a Santa Rosa law firm. Kirkham hung out on the floor while I watched the riders go flying by.

Three hours of driving for 30 seconds of bike racing. No, there's nothing wrong with that.

Kirkham was a tired dude after the long drive to Santa Rosa and back. Although the flash from the camera was just enough to wake him up.

Capitan Erica was all smiles after crab sandwiches on the pier. San Francisco was a lot of fun.

UH OH

Today my kid learned to turn the TV on.

We never watch TV during the day.

I blame Taylor.