Where did I go for so long?

Why the abrupt halt in my posting? It is a very sad story. As you know, it is hard to find zippy internet connections while one is on the road and we were several days without one.

We had a great time at the Grand Canyon. We stayed at Mather's Campground which was very pretty. Crowded and tight but laid out in a way that was surprisingly private. Due to our early troubles we had to shorten our time at the canyon so we had to cut our hiking short. We descended a short way on two trails just to get the feel. We were able to ride our bikes around the rim a bit and get some nice photos. The buses do not show any respect to bicyclists! We made it just in time on our bikes to a great sunset viewing vantage point. Had to ride home using our LED flashlights I bought for $3.99 at Office Depot. They work as well as the $20 on we bought at Lowes. We saw a moose on our ride.

Drew and Nick flipped a great intro for a video with Drew playing his guitar at the campfire. This was to be their best video effort to date. On our long drive to Las Vegas, Drew edited three videos to download that evening when we got to the campground. At a rest stop, Drew opened his truck door and his computer slipped from beneath the seat and hit the ground. It didn't seem to be damaged at the time because he used it for several hours after the fall.

Drew announced that he had just finished his last video when he let out a big "What just happened!" His computer crashed and he recognized the problem from an experience another Mac friend had had. We frantically tried all kinds of things to get it to reboot. We Googled fixes using our slow as molasses air-card. I then made an appointment at the Las Vegas Apple store while driving down the highway.

The Genius pronounced Drew's Mac dead and the three videos un-retrievable. At this point the boys lost all interest in Flipping the rest of the trip. I tried to keep it up but they were no longer willing participants. The Faminacan Vlog came to a screeching halt.

Since we had to go to the city to go to the Apple store we decided to look at the lights. Not our cup of tea.

Well, we had a great time at Yosemite. Tuolumne Meadows was a great place to stay. Our day spent in the valley was not our favorite. We decided to climb Clouds Rest instead of Half Dome. Drew took a rock climbing class. Nick has a terrible time with his asthma. There were four fires burning in the park and he had to use his inhaler so much that he emptied it. We had to get a refill at the first aid center when we were in the valley.

From there we headed to Moab, UT. We took a ride around Arches National Park. Very pretty. We took our bikes to Slick Rocks and we all did the beginner trail. Dave and Drew did it twice. Drew wants to go back some day and ride it with a properly set up bike. We had put flat pedals on all of our for sight seeing and this made climbing on the slick rock really difficult. Dave purposefully flew over his handlebars into a puddle of sand. Wish I had a video of that!

Nick had the highlight of his entire trip when we rented a Razor. He had a blast driving it in some dunes, over dirt roads and around a huge rock formation.


From there we drove home and gave the MOD POD a well deserved bath.