Rode the my second Antelope Island Moonlight Ride last night with Dave, Dallin and Joe. The Davis County folks who sponsored the ride fed us ham-stuff croissants, chips, a banana and Gatorade. Also discovered that dust on the camera lens when I looked at this shot.
Mountain biked up Mill Creek Canyon from Wasatch Boulevard to the elbow where the Pipeline Trail starts, then rode the Pipeline back down. It's a good workout and the views on the way down are definitely worth the effort to get up there. Of course you can just drive and park or have someone drop you off, but there's a sense of accomplishment in doing it under your own power.
Kate, thanks for the mention of your vocabulary experience in your blog. I'm really enjoyiong what you have to say and the way you say it. You might find it of interest that in my last couple of miles up the canyon I ended up singing to try to take my mind off the fatigue and even out my breathing. I don't know all the words to "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody" but I gave it my best shot.
before and after
Originally uploaded by rfin. Before I rode Jim's high-end street bike in the Salt Lake Marathon Bike Tour, I was used to my beater mountain bike. Now getting on the old Schwinn seems a bit strange.
This is the second year I've done the tour. Last year I rode the Schwinn. Although it's great for trails, there's nothing like the right tool for the job, and that tool today was a street bike. Thanks for giving me a taste of elite riding, Jim.
Trying out the bike was fun, but introducing a loved-one to such a great activity made my whole day. You see today was my first-born son's first Bike Tour and he was definitely tuned in to the spirit, the beauty, the energy, the comraderie, the Zeitgeist of the event. Here's what he had to say. Glad you had such a good experience, Joe!
They're both about connecting people and commerce, technology and trade. They're both about vision, achievement and big ideas that change the world. But it goes even deeper than that.
Promontory's the spot where the first US Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. The railroad right-of-way which started 137 years ago in northern Utah still impacts us today as Utah connects to National LambdaRail, an ultrahigh-speed fiber optic network for education and research.
Without the physical railroad to literally pave the way, the fiberoptic rail might have taken a much different pathway to Utah. Railroad rights-of-way are not only about tracks for trains, but routes and land for natural gas pipelines, electric power transmission lines and fiber-optic cable.
Until a few weeks ago, I didn't realize I had several personal connections to both the old rail and the new one.
Connection 1: As kid growing up in the sixties I always liked May. It's the month of my birth. It's the month that school gets out. And a hundred years earlier it was the time when the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads met each other in my home state. I remember liking the subject as a kid, perhaps because I had my own electric trains, and certainly because I'd been to the historic spot for tailgate breakfast of bacon and eggs with my aunt, uncle and cousin.
Connection 2: Skip ahead 35 years to 2002. I'm working at the Utah Education Network which shares space with KUED,TV, KUER-FM and KUEN-TV at the Eccles Broadcast Center. Emmy-award winning producer Ken Verdoia produced the first-ever TV documentary about Promontory. I got a chance to do a few voice-over lines of historial narration for program.
Connection 3: Then just a few weeks ago, I got involved in writing a news release on LambdaRail's arrival in Utah thanks to UEN and the University of Utah. I sat in on an interview as the U of U's science writer, Lee Siegel talked to Steve Hess, the U's Associate VP for Info Technology. When Steve told Lee about the physical routing of the LambdaRail fiber, a chill went up spine, as I realized the train story of my childhood and the 21st century story I sought to tell were so tightly connected. Read more:
