Bob Palin's Blog

But first - a new bicycle. I have had a Trek 730 crossover bike for almost 30 years and it has done me excellent service despite almost total neglect. Lately however I have been riding on a lot of terrain that it isn't suited for, sand mostly, particularly as it currently has narrow street tyres on it. In addition I ran over it with my truck a few months ago and a number of items are now 'altered' from their original shape and functionality... Janet and I went down to the bike shop in Cedar City and looked at a couple of full suspension bikes, naturally I liked the considerably more expensive one more. It's a Specialized, I'm not into bicycles enough to even know or care what model it is but it has full suspension, hydraulic disc brakes and 29" wheels, it cost more than my first car. The new bike was not tested on this day however. After the bike buying adventure we decided to head up the mountains above Cedar City, I had been over a dirt road which at the fa...

A glorious sunshiny day today with a high of only around 70 so the dogs and I went for an early afternoon ride up the Great Western Trail from the end of Sand Creek Road. I'm posting pictures each day on Facebook of me with the bike as part of a contest that Southern Utah University has entered. People associated with the U record their outdoor exercise and whichever university gets the most recorded sessions by mid October gets a grant for outdoor equipment, SUU is currently in the lead. If nothing else it's an excuse for a daily selfie, so here it is At the Torrey Overlook Frikka was willing to sit and pose but Biff stayed in the shade.

The weather forecast didn't look that great for my third tour day in a row, dry and cloudy in the morning with thunderstorms starting at noon. But that didn't mean that the dogs didn't need to be walked so out we went just before sunrise in the chilly 40 degree temperatures The lower areas of the desert were still too wet to consider driving out there so I decided to head up high again and see if we could get to Cathedral Valley from the top before the storms hit. It worked! The Elkhorn road was fine the roads down to Cathedral Valley only slippery in a couple of places. The clouds did look rather ominous as we descended towards the South Desert, the Henry Mountains were nowhere to be seen all day We took a look at the South Desert then went out to the Cathedral Valley Overlook where we discovered a couple of the guests were ready to get into the holiday spirit a little early Kevin and Amanda had brought their Christmas card props along Naturally we a...

I'm not a fan of hot weather, which I define as anything around 80 or above. We have had a very warm September and today is supposed to be the last 80 degree day of that spell, which probably means for the year too. Hurrah! The dogs still had to go for a walk, or a bike ride in this case. Biff tried to photobomb the shot but only partially achieved his goal.