Mormon Helping Hands

In all of California and Hawaii this was Mormon Helping Hands day. This is an event designed to get members of the Church, and all others who can join us, into the community for service work. The opportunities vary and in our stake we generally have more than one site where we do projects.

Our ward was assigned to work with the Loma Rica Ward at the Forbestown Museum. As you can see from the photos below, it's a nice little "Old West" mining town type place with all of the standards shops.

The outside attractions include parts and pieces of hydraulic mining operations. Some of the men also worked on a new exhibit that will be a mine entrance. It was pretty cool.

(One thing that was not lacking was photographers. Everyone was taking pictures, me included.)

There was an old school house that needed to be painted, but most of what we did was rake up pine needles, and that took nearly all morning. My job was to unload the small trailers of needles and cuttings and manage the dump pile. Some of my crew is shown below. The picture below doesn't really do it justice. It was a HUGE pile. Even after we tromped it down several times it will fill a 10 ton truck easily. (They haul it off, not burn it.)

Just for kicks, I had one our younger workers sit in front of the make-shift teepee. I think he had fun.

The entire work crew.

The people who run the museum provided a sumptuous meal when we

were finished. They aid they're unofficial motto was: "we always have food!" 

Bike Around the Buttes 2013

This would have been a very pleasant morning of biking, with beautiful scenery, good snacks at the the rest stops, very nice weather, big blue skies, and plenty of time to enjoy it all, except for one thing:

THE STINKING WIND!!! 

Everyone riding the 40 and 100 mile routes, had to ride right into the face of 30 mph winds, gusting to 35, for the first 17 miles of the trek. And that's the portion of the route that has all the hills too. It's virtually flat the whole rest of the way. It was the hardest thing I've done in years! And probably the stupidest. (Okay, not giving up and going home was probably the  stupidest.) It took me 2 hr and 15 min to ride the first 17 miles. Then, with the wind mostly at my back, I did the next 17 miles in 1 hr 30 min.

The final 6 miles or so had two stretches of a mile each that were back into the face of the wind, but we struggled through those. And waiting for us at the finish line was the free meal. 

40 miles isn't really too bad. As noted earlier, I rode 55 miles over the course of 5 days (20-15-20) this past week. The hills are not terrible either. But that wind just killed me. I admit that I only passed maybe a half dozen people the whole trip. Dozens passed me. I'm not anything if I'm not slow. I started at 7:30am, and finished at 12:00 noon. That included 10 min at each of the 3 rest stops. I had planned on probably taking 4 1/2 hours, so that was right on the money. Without the wind, I could easily have made it in 4 hours total.

Anyway, below are some photos I took along the way of the various sights and sites. I even took my Action Cam and shot some video from the final 6 miles. What you see is edited down from the total 34 minutes of raw footage. Who knows. maybe I'll do this again - on a calm day.

At the start of the race. The Sutter Youth Organization building. 

Several views of the Buttes. This time of year everything around here is green.

I've often thought that if Grandpa Vern had known a place like this existed, he would have thrown up everything he had in Utah and moved here to the Buttes to raise his prize winning sheep. What a great place to live!

A couple of views most of you have never seen of the Buttes. The one on the left is the west side (looking east), and the one on the right is the north side (looking south). The north side photo was taken at the first rest stop - after the tortuous 17 mile ride into the wind.

One of the rest stops. The second one I think.

This is an old farm house on Pennington Road. It was probably "rustic" even when it was new.

And this kind of farm house was very common to see on the ride. While some were not in as nice a shape as this one. But I could be happy living in a place like this. Especially since it is well removed from other people.

This was taken at 30 miles. It's worth noting that I saw cattle farms,

sheep farms, and tons of orchards. So why not hay too? This is alfalfa.

When we lived in Sutter, I used to love that they made a memorial out of this old watering trough. 

And look, the undertaker gets into the act in a prominent way on the bottom left. Good advertising. 

For those who remember, this is the house we owned and lived

in for 7 years in Sutter. Sure looks different than it did then.

And finally. . . the video.

Another Day, Another Mile (or several)

Training for Bike Around the Buttes. The log reads:

Monday: 7.5 miles north on the levee and back, 15 total - windy (11 mph) both ways, avg 12 mph speed

Wednesday: 10 miles north on the levee and back, 20 total - (most of the way to Live Oak) - very windy going up (23 mph, gusts up to 30 mph) better on the way home, avg 10 mph speed.

a picture of what it felt like riding north today

Saturday the forecast is for no more than 8 mph wind out of the NW, mid to upper 60's in the morning. Ready or not, here it comes.

Gearing Up

This coming Saturday is the annual Bike Around the Buttes bicycle race which benefits a local Diabetes charity. It starts at the Sutter Youth Organization building in Sutter (my kids will remember it as where the pool and ball park are) and has a 17 mile fun ride, the 40 mile classic, and the 100 mile expert ride.

I started doing this several years ago when I had a diabetic student (who.s mother organized the race). I don't ride every year, and when I do ride I usually only do the 17 mile route. But this year I committed to do the 40 mile ride, so I've been trying to get ready.

Yesterday (in weather that was breezier and colder than I thought it would be when I started) I did  20 miles (in 1 hr 50 min) from my house down to Shanghai Bend, then north on the levee to the 5th Street bridge, over to the Marysville side and made the circuit around that town on it's levees, and back home again.

It went pretty well, especially after having donated blood the day before. Tomorrow (Monday) I'll do 11 miles, and Wednesday the plan is to do another 20 miles - this tome going south on the Feather River levee past Star Bend and back.

I'll try to take pictures on the trip next weekend. Then do everything in my power to help Melody have a happy birthday.

The Week That Was

A few of the many wonderful pictures taken during our days in Utah for Kim and Nate's wedding.

First, from the Fisher cabin in Midway:

Also, a couple from Chris' place:

A now, from the photo shoot outside the temple - after the wedding:

I'm not sure if this is a "Yes! We finally made it." Or a, "How could we be any happier." Maybe both.

Just as we were leaving the reception at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (after the party, the lingering, and the clean up) I got this shot of the temple - which was, after all, the focus of the whole event.