We watched a couple of heats of the hydroplanes first, which was a lot of fun. My camera was acting up a little, but I did get a few videos:

Here’s Isaac with his binoculars trying to get a better look at the hydroplanes:

The air show came next, with a few really neat demonstrations. Air shows present some unique photography challenges, and my little camera wasn’t up to capturing a lot of good images, but I did snap a few shots. Things I didn’t get good shots of were a visit from a P-51 Mustang and a Spitfire. I couldn’t have captured the really great sound of those Merlin engines anyway. The did several low passes for us.

After the WWII planes, we had a demonstration by Vietnam-era choppers, a Cobra and a Huey. They did several maneuvers showing us tactics that were used in Vietnam. The Huey would go in first, low and fast, snaking back and forth, scaring up ground fire, while the Cobra would arc up high and take out any VCs who were shooting. Great demonstration, and some really low flying.

The Coast Guard did a nice demo, where a rescue swimmer jumped into the water and was then picked up. My picture is terrible, but you may be able to click through and see them hoisting him back in.

Next up was a demo from an AV-8B Harrier, which was really cool. It was also very loud, as loud as all the Blue Angels together. Isaac kept his ears covered. Here’s a video I took of its departure:

After this, they had a routine by a stunt pilot named Sean D. Tucker, in a little custom built plane for the Oracle team. Holy carp. I have seen some ridiculous things, but he was bonkers. He was doing prop stalls, strange high-angle ultra-slow passes, outside loops (-6g!), and a really silly series of front flips where he literally just whipped the tail around over the cockpit. Ridiculous. Amazing. My video stinks, so here’s a better shot of his routine if you’re interested:

Isaac LOVED this, and I thought it was amazing too.

We had a demo from the C-130 attached to the Blue Angels, Fat Albert. Here’s a video of their big climb-out:

They used to use RATO for this, but from what I hear they’re running low on those; not as much need for them these days.

Finally, we had the Blue Angels. I’d seen the Thunderbirds before at Hill AFB in Ogden, but this was my first time seeing the Blue Angels. We’d been watching them and hearing them fly around the city all week, so Isaac and I were ready. It was a great setting; they zipped all over the lake and over Mercer Island for their routine. Isaac was getting a little worn out by the time they were flying, so he wasn’t as excited as I expected, but he still enjoyed it. I was able to get one fairly decent shot of them in formation:

Once they were done, we headed back to a long, hot line for the shuttle, and then the train home.

There’s one picture I kept even though it didn’t turn out, and even though I’m looking a little scruffy. The reason I kept it was because Isaac took it. He’s getting more independent, and I sent him out with my camera to take pictures. Most of them were of the camera strap, or the ground, but he got everything but the focus right here.

It was a busy week, but a lot of great fun with Isaac.

On Thursday, Isaac came to work with me. After I got through my morning meetings, we hopped on a bus and headed down to the pier to get a tour of the USS Bonhomme Richard, LHD-6. This is named after John Paul Jones’ famous ship, which itself was named to honor Benjamin Franklin.

First I should probably explain what an LHD is, for those who don’t know. An LHD looks a lot like an aircraft carrier, and it is in a sense. In fact, it displaces nearly twice as much water as HMS Invincible, the lead British aircraft carrier, and nearly as much as the largest carrier outside the US, the French Charles de Gaulle. The big distinction is the role.

LHD is “Landing Helicopter Dock”, which is descriptive. The mission is to land and support as many as 1800 Marines and their equipment. To get them to shore, an LHD can utilize aircraft from the flight deck and hovercraft from the well deck, and it can pack a pretty serious punch with its strike aircraft as well.

Our tour started with a walk up the gangway, where we entered the ship through one of the large openings on the hangar deck.

This image may give you some idea of the scale; we’re standing about in the middle here.

They had an MH-60 Black Hawk here, but most of the aircraft were back in San Diego. Here’s Isaac with the MH-60:

From the hangar deck, we descended a long, wide ramp to the well deck. Here the Marines had brought a couple of HMMWVs, an LAV, and a big military truck. They were letting the kids climb all over and inside them. Here’s Isaac in a Humvee:

They also had a couple of LCACs, which are large military hovercraft. These can take LAVs, HMMWVs, or even an Abrams tank ashore on all sorts of beaches and at nearly 50 miles per hour. The well deck can accommodate three of these, though they only had two when we visited:

After a tour of the well deck and some conversations with the Marines and sailors there, we went back up the ramp to the hangar deck, and then up another large ramp to the flight deck. Our first stop was a brand new (about a week old) AH-1Z Viper. This looks like the AH-1W SuperCobra, but features some significant upgrades, including a 4-blade composite rotor, a new targeting system, and just better performance overall. Here’s a picture of Isaac and some other kids getting some questions answered by the Marine Lieutenant who flies it.

After this, we moved on to a nearly-new MV-22 Osprey:

This is a really neat aircraft; it’s got excellent speed and range when the rotors tilt forward, but it takes off like a helicopter so it meets many of the needs of the Marines. Here’s Isaac trying it out:

I had lots of questions for the flight engineer, about auto-rotation, range, noise, gun placement, and so forth. I am a nerd for this stuff. It really did still smell new.

From here, we went on to one of my favorites, the CH-53 Sea Stallion:

This thing is a beast. It’s the largest chopper in military service these days. I had a nice chat with the pilot while Isaac was trying out the controls.

The pilot told me about another little kid; he’d showed the kid a button, and said DO NOT PUSH THIS, it will make the chopper fly away! Then he pretended not to be looking, and saw the kid pushing the button. Isaac thought the Sea Knight was pretty great, so we bought a nice picture of it from the crew (proceeds go to fund their unit’s annual ball) to hang on his wall.

I didn’t know if I’d mention this or not, but I’ve decided I will. As we were touring, I kept thinking of all the WWII footage I’ve watched of ships like this in harm’s way. I thought about these young sailors and Marines going to war for us, and I worried about how precarious things seem in the world today. I’m very thankful we have these volunteers, who understand the risks and responsibilities they’ve chosen, but who are willing in spite of it to fight and die for us. I tried to explain some of that to Isaac on the bus ride home.

Anyway, a great tour, and a fun day downtown with Isaac. He wore his Crocs, so he had a couple of blisters by the time we were back at the office. I left him there to rest his feet and ran out to get him a sandwich. The kid eats like a Marine, I’ll give him that; he ate a big old sandwich and nearly all my chips.

As the anesthetic from the hospital wore off, the pain started to get a little more intense.  Kathleen went out right away to get my prescriptions, but it took a couple of hours since there were four to fill and the pharmacy is about 20 minutes away.  I was getting pretty uncomfortable by the time she got back with the pills.

I was given four (eventually five) prescriptions:

• Demerol, for pain.  This turned out to be a little bit weaker than I needed, and may have been the reason I didn’t get as much to eat and drink early.  It just didn’t seem to do much for the pain.
• An anti-nausea medication, to take with the Demerol. I was scared to death of vomiting with all the damage in the back of my throat. Luckily, this was not a problem.
• Prednisone, for inflammation.  This actually really seemed to help. I iced my throat too, which eased my discomfort somewhat.
• Keflex, to prevent infection. I’m still taking this.
• Lortab – when the Demerol started to run low, I called in for another painkiller prescription.  I thought they’d give me more Demerol, but they went with Lortab instead.  This turned out to be a good thing; the Lortab worked much better at taking the edge off the pain so I could eat. 

As of today, I’ve lost about fourteen pounds. It’s kind of a combination of nothing being appetizing, and everything being really painful to swallow.  I had the weight to lose, really; I’ve been getting kind of fat in my old age.  This took me from 190 to about 174, which is better for my size (I’m 5’9”, with a kind of skinny frame anyway).  That’s not the healthiest way to lose weight, but hey, I’ll take it.

The foods that worked for me were tuna sandwiches, gummy worms, applesauce, and otterpops.  Last night, I begged Kathleen to run to Taco Bell and get me a Baja Gordita (also a Baja Chalupa, as backup).  It stung a little bit going down, but it was so nice to eat something tasty.

So the past nine days are kind of a mélange of grumpiness, hunger, pain, and boredom.  However, I find myself breathing through my nose more comfortably already (the doctor went ahead and took my adenoids as well).  If I have any improvement in the number of throat infections this next year, I’ll call it a win.  I had eight throat infections over the last twelve months.

That’s the summary for now.  I’ll post more when I have my post-op appointment with the otolaryngologist.

I’ve made as much preparation as I can think to do.  I’ve purchased a number of soft foods, got some drinks, got my Camelbak filled up and ready (they say fluids are very important), and I’ve got a lot of technology and reading to amuse me.

Videos follow.

Poor Nicole must not have been feeling well, because she didn’t leave my Aunt’s arms to play in the pool.  She clung to her and even fell asleep in her arms in the water. Zach brought the big kids over to play in the pool and wash all the sand off their bodies.  He reported that they built a nice castle and a canal system, but we have no pictures since my camera was with me at the pool.

We went back to our room and decided to get ready and drive home since the kids were kinda sick and the last two nights of sleep in our room were less than restful.  Everyone showered and got dressed.  Zach went to fill the tank with gas and fetch some lunch (shrimp from “The Sea Shack”) with one of our remaining food vouchers while I packed up all of our things. 

We drove home by way of Charlotte, North Carolina.  It added an hour to our trip, but we really wanted to be able to take our Charlotte to Charlotte.  We arrived around 8:00 PM and had a late dinner at IHOP in Charlotte.  Everyone enjoyed chocolate milk, pancakes, bacon, sausage, crêpes, and coloring. By the time we were done with dinner, the sun was setting and it was starting to rain.  We drove to downtown Charlotte to see the skyline and look for buildings and signs with Charlotte’s name on them.  Unfortunately our van’s wipers were terrible and it was pouring rain.  By the time we pulled into a parking lot  so that we could get  a picture of Charlotte in Charlotte it was completely dark and pouring rain.  Zach hoped out with his umbrella and the two big kids and they all came back soaking wet. Before we could drive out of Charlotte, the rain poured down so hard that it was almost impossible to see the road so we pulled over to wait out the storm.  After about 15 minutes, the storm died down enough for us to drive on and we were soon out of the storm and on our way home.  We arrived home in the wee hours of the morning.

All the kids enjoyed playing in the sand.  Ila and Nicole didn’t like the water much, but they both enjoyed the sand.  We dug out a little hole in the sand in front of Ila and let it fill with water so that Ila could splash around in it.  Unfortunately as you can see in the video below, she also sampled some of the sand.

Before long the water started washing further up the beach enough to cover Ila’s legs with each wave. Ila started to yawn so I scooped her up and wrapped her in a towel.  I put her in the stroller and turned the stroller so that her face was not in the sun.  She watched everyone play for a little while before falling asleep. A collection of fountains between the beach and the car helped the kids to rinse most of the sand off of their bodies.Back at our room, everyone got showered and dressed.  We ate lunch before attending a timeshare sales pitch that not only paid for most of our room, but also provided us with some food vouchers.   After another stop at our room and a little down time for the kids, we choose a nice restaurant off of the list of places that accepted our vouchers.  The name of the restaurant was “Robert Irvine’s eat.”It was a very nice restaurant that wasn’t accustomed to serving children.  They only had one high chair and no kids’ menu.  I have to admit to being a little nervous about taking the kids there.  Every table had these fragile looking water glasses and the atmosphere was very pleasant and peaceful.  I must not have been the only one who was nervous because as we left the restaurant, we got many relieved compliments on how well our children behaved.  My favorite dish was the fried green tomatoes with feta and sprouts (pictured above).  At one point, Ila dropped her pacifier and a waiter washed it off and returned it to us on a dish.Day two ended with movie night in our hotel room.   Ila fell to sleep easily and although Nicole still required extra attention to stay in bed and fall to sleep, she did seem to fall to sleep quicker than the night before.  Unfortunately she also woke up in the middle of the night and threw up all over the bed.

Ila didn’t cry much.  She did practice her trick of transferring toys back and forth between her hands and feet. All of the kids took a nap in the car

We checked in, got unloaded and then headed out for dinner at Fat Baby Pizza.  We ate peppers stuffed with prosciutto and cheese and a delicious thin crust pepperoni pizza.  The kids were not fans of the peppers, but they tried them.After giving Ila a bath in the hotel sink and feeding her, I put her to bed in our pack and play to let her cry herself to sleep. She was very distracted by everyone in the room so I took the other three kids out on a walk to acquire more pillows and ice.  She was still crying when we got back so I decided to take the kids on a bedtime swim at the hotel pool. Our pool trip was cut short unexpectedly for reasons I won’t detail here, but our rush back into the room and the changing of all three kids out of swimsuits and into PJs awaked Ila just after she had finally fallen asleep.  The rest of the night was difficult as Ila and Nicole both had some trouble falling asleep and as a result, Zach and I also got very little sleep.

So my best friend David has been down at NAS Pensacola for some training, and I thought this was the best time to go see the National Museum of Naval Aviation with him.  I’ve always wanted to visit; they have a great selection of aircraft.  Naturally, a road trip these days means bringing Isaac with me; bringing Isaac usually means bringing Charlotte too.  Hit the jump for a boatload of pictures and a quick summary.

It’s quite fun to have kids who are content to go on drives with me.  And by drives, I mean drive from Knoxville to Pensacola (about 500 miles) one afternoon and drive back the next.  Both Isaac and Charlotte never once complained about being bored (hungry, yes) and seemed to enjoy the ride as much as I did.  They look bored, but they were actually asking lots of questions here:

After breakfast at IHOP, we headed over to the museum.  At first, Charlotte was very nervous, but she warmed up after a while.  Isaac was gung-ho from the start.  Here are some pictures.  One of the highlights for the kids was the number of cockpit displays available for them to climb in.  We showed them how to give a thumbs up when they were ready to go (we also had them hum the Top Gun theme).

Isaac with the Blue Angels:

Me trying out my favorite plane (one of them, anyway), an F-8 Crusader:

Isaac trying out an A-7 cockpit.  The kids would ask each other to hold down the displays to make sure they didn’t accidentally take off.  Here Charlotte is holding the plane down for Isaac:

Here the kids are on a rescue mission in a Coast Guard (David calls them Puddle Pirates) helicopter:

Talking about the F-4 Phantom cockpit the kids are trying out. They thought we were teasing about the seat shooting up into the air in an emergency:

After finishing up at the museum, we headed over to the beach.  This is the first time they’d been to any kind of beach, so they were very excited (that’s the Pensacola light in the background):

Digging a great big hole with help from David (the “thumbs up” idea stuck):

Here’s the whole gallery of pictures from the trip:

Get a good night’s sleep.  Pack a lot of caffeine.  Bring all the sessions of General Conference and a couple of Robert Jordan books to listen to.  Bring food, water, and extra newspaper for the cats.  That was the plan, and for the most part, it worked out well.  After 1900 miles of driving, I found myself in a new house, far from home, and completely depleted mentally, physically, and emotionally.

After two weeks, it’s faded a little bit and blurred together.  I headed out from Orem and up Provo Canyon, through Heber, and up onto I-80.  When I’m driving by myself, I can drive pretty hard, not stopping much, and that’s what I like to do.  Here’s the view in back:

Cats, some clothes, and everything the movers wouldn’t take.  I headed out across Wyoming.  A lot of people tell me they dislike the drive, but I enjoy it.  I like views like this one:

I wasn’t too far into Nebraska before it got dark.  I left I-80 in Lincoln and skirted east and into Iowa, where I hit I-29 and went south.  I passed Mound City in the dark; I didn’t have time to stop and check for Lamanites.  I passed around Kansas City through Independence, and onto I-70. 

About this time, I thought about sleeping, but the cats were getting upset.  Late night is their play time, and they wanted to get out and be free.  They were scared and sad.  Their unhappy meowing meant no sleep for me, so I grabbed another energy drink and kept driving.

My GPS suggested I cut off on I-64 into St. Louis, which would have been a great shortcut, except it was closed.  After a little route-finding, I made it over the bridge and into Illinois.  Sunrise that next morning:

I-64, I-57, I-24.  Then a jump over the Ohio River, and into Kentucky.

The drive through Kentucky was beautiful.  It was a sunny day, with leaves changing all around.  Can you see the extra day’s beard growth?

Soon I crossed the Cumberland River and was in Nashville:

Here I grabbed I-40, which is my new “home freeway”, the way I-15 was to me growing up.

Almost to my new home:

I left about 10 in the morning Mountain Time, and arrived at about 3 in the afternoon Eastern Time that next day. 

That night, after I had the van unloaded and the cats settled, I went over to Rick and Dee’s for dinner.  I was kind of a bad guest, I’m sure; I was weird and tired and wound up all at once.  After dinner I found myself in a state of emotional disarray.  I think the exhaustion and the caffeine combined with loneliness and homesickness to really smash me.  All the uncertainty piled up on me at once; alone on my air mattress on the floor, with no family, no TV, no internet, none of my usual outlets.  I read from the New Testament, called Kathleen, and finally fell asleep.

The next day, I felt better.

We headed for U-Dig fossils, which is run by a very nice old man and his two dogs.  It’s a pay site, but there’s the advantage of them pointing you right to good layers of shale and having it broken up in advance with some heavy machinery.  It makes finding fossils very rewarding; I estimate we found more than 50 nice trilobites.

After spending a couple of hours breaking up layers of Wheeler Shale, we took our haul and hit one of the long, lonely, gravel roads.  We drove along the east side of the House Range, with the Drum Mountains to the east of us.  One thing I expect to miss when I leave Utah is the long sight lines. 

Topaz Mountain is open to rock hounds, provided they use hand tools only to extract the crystals.  The best rhyolite formations are higher up in the canyons west of the main dig sites.  We parked and climbed about 300 feet up, but weren’t having a lot of luck breaking up the rock.  After about an hour I started back down, but just about that time Jim found a nice pocket and gathered up some topaz.  Below is the view from the spot we were working.

I will miss the hundred-mile vistas.  I’ll miss the dry, harsh desert.  I’ll miss being the only one on the long dirt road.  Nothing gold can stay.

We’ve had Grandpa Bird in town, and so we thought it would be fun to have an adventure together.  The last few times Grandpa Bird has visited, I’ve dragged him through Utah’s exotic deserts.  I thought it would be a nice change to go to the mountains this time. 

Normally I like to avoid crowds, so I stay away from the mountains and national parks when it’s a holiday.  This was really our only chance to go, though, so off we went.  It was Oktoberfest at Snowbird as well, so there were longer lines and some crowds, but nothing too bad.

Isaac noticed the alpine slide right away, so I went ahead and got a ticket since we were having a day out.  He enjoyed riding the chairlift to the top, and after a bit of a wait in line, we raced on down.

After this we were ready for some lunch.  Grandpa Bird treated us to some sausages and sauerkraut, along with German potato salad and potato pancakes.  We listened to a silly little Bavarian band while we ate.

We’d planned to go to Snowbird for the tram ride to the top of Hidden Peak.  It’s the easiest way to get to 11,000 feet in Utah, and is certainly the easiest peak I’ve done this year. 

At the top, Isaac was full of excited questions about the tram:

After a few minutes walking around the peak and taking pictures, Isaac declared he missed his sister.  “Which one?” I asked.  “Both of them!” he replied.  So we went back down and headed home. 

It was a fun excursion, and great to have Grandpa Bird and Heidi along.  More pictures below.

I’m a little thrashed; due to a road closure and some “scenic” route choices, we wound up going about 17 miles today, gaining about 4500’.  We were expecting about 8 miles and 3600’.  Still a great day in the mountains.

Here’s a slideshow:

The trail starts at the mouth of Rock Canyon, which was one of my favorite haunts as a kid.  It seems like I was up there all the time once I was able to drive.  My best friend David and I even started to get into rock climbing a little bit, playing in some of the easier routes.  I don’t think I’ve been in Rock Canyon more than once or twice in the last ten years.

I forget what a remarkable place I live in.  Here is a terrifically beautiful place, right in my backyard, and how often do I remember to go and enjoy it?  It’s been great to get back in the mountains a little more.  Click the link below to see all the pictures.

The trail climbs steadily up Rock Canyon.  As you get higher, the trees increase, and you walk closer to the stream.  Soon, there’s a left turn up the First Left Fork of the canyon.  Here the trail becomes more heavily wooded and steepens.  We didn’t see any large fauna, but insects and spiders were abundant.  I saw many species of butterfly, and the same little wolf spiders racing around.  Jim spotted a female with her egg sac, and I snapped a picture.  I really like wolf spiders; an interesting species.  The mothers carry the egg sac with them everywhere, and the spiderlings will hitch a ride with her after they hatch until they’re old enough to go on their own.  Here’s the picture:

There was an abundance of caterpillars as well; they were dangling from the trees all across the trail, and were an amusing annoyance.  I felt covered in their sticky silk by the time we cleared the trees and entered into the beautiful meadow (see below).

We’d worn the dogs out by this time, so I left Jim here and went on alone.  From this meadow, it’s another half mile and 400-500 feet of elevation to the summit.  The day was beautiful and clear, a striking contrast to conditions two weeks ago on Provo Peak.  I could see perhaps 50 miles in all directions.  There were paragliders taking advantage of thermals (you may be able to make one out in the photo below).

At the summit, I took pictures of the nearby mountains.  The visibility was excellent.  Here’s Provo Peak, just to the East:

Looking south, here’s Y Mountain in the foreground and, with Spanish Fork Peak and Mt. Nebo in the distance:

To the North-East, Mt. Cascade looks like a difficult peak to attempt:

And looking North, the Timpanogos massif and Lone Peak further in the distance:

Here I am at the summit (I am pretty sweaty; unusually muggy for Utah yesterday).  You can see Utah Lake in the distance and BYU below me; the Provo Temple is on the right.

Had this view on the hike back down.  All the flowers were blooming, the sun was on the lake, the sky was clear.  It was a stunning scene.

Poor Jim had to carry his fat old dog several times on the way back:

The target was Provo Peak, and my gym buddy Jim and I left work at 3 PM so we could get to the trailhead.  Provo Peak sits behind Rock Canyon, and rises to 11,068 feet according to most sources.  The trailhead (such as there is) is at about 8600 feet.

To get to the parking area, you drive up the Squaw Peak Road from Provo Canyon, turning left to go towards Hope Campground rather than right to go to the overlook.  The road is decent until about Rock Canyon Campground, but then became a little bit rough.  In fact, an avalanche blocked the road at one point, and we had a bit of a crawl in Jim’s Tundra to get over it.

The path to the summit seems pretty straightforward: find the prominent west ridge, and go up.  In practice, this turned out a bit more complicated.  Click the image below to see details of the route.  We started out following an ATV trail, but that took us past the ridge.  We then cut back to the south, through mud and snow and brush.  After this detour, we were able to find a light use trail up the ridge.  This was quite steep, and we were exposed to high winds; I estimated sustained bursts at about 60 miles per hour.

Not only was it windy and steep, but the terrain was loose.  I was glad to have my poles as we climbed.  After a couple of hours, we gained the summit.  With the clouds and haze, views were limited, but still quite good.  Nothing feels quite like standing on top of the Earth’s high places.  I called Kathleen to tell her I was fine so far, and not to send helicopters yet.  Then we headed down.  After an hour or so of steep, knee-killing descent, we were back at the truck and headed home.

Slideshow below for additional pictures, and take a look at the Summit Post page for more details on the peak itself.

He wanted to be involved in everything.  He enjoyed helping his dad set up the tent doing everything from bringing stakes to his dad to holding the poles of the tent.  He thrilled to see the fire and when Zach gave him a rule to stay 5 steps away, he committed to stay 8 steps away.  He got to cook his own hot dog and his own marshmallow.

The first site we went to see was The court of the Patriarchs.  He was very excited because one of the peaks was named Isaac.  As we rode the shuttle to the site, he heard them say his name when they were describing the next stop—his eyes got wide and he exclaimed “they said Isaac!!”  He was very proud to have a mountain named after him (or someone with his same name).

He hiked himself to exhaustion on each trail.  He loved to be the leader and would run up ahead if he got behind.  On one walk he helped me name some rocks that we thought may have been overlooked when they were naming everything.  He wore himself out so thoroughly that at the end of one hike he said “give me some food and put me to bed!”

As we were preparing a meal at our campsite we suddenly heard Isaac shouting “Mom, Mom!!” and running toward us.  When he got to us he pointed to the road and said “What is that thing?!”  It was a little white golf-cart type vehicle.  What I thought was interest turned out to be fear.  He was actually scared of it!  He can be a bit of a chicken.

You really couldn’t ask for a better camper.  He went to bed on time and slept well.  He loved every adventure and didn’t turn down an opportunity for a walk or a hike or to help make food.  At the end of our trip as we were packing up camp, Grandma’s tent started to blow away and Isaac grabbed hold of the tent.  He was very proud of himself for saving it from “blowing over the mountain”