Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Little Cottonwood Canyon: To the Top!


Yesterday marked a huge milestone in my cycling career:  I made it to the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  This ride has the reputation for being the most challenging in the Salt Lake area, and as I've written before, it is just about the same distance and grade as the Alpe d'Huez in the French Alps, which has often been part of the Tour de France and which Mark and I will cycle in September.  The following elevation graph tells the story:  from the time we left the house until the top of the canyon, we limbed almost 4000 feet, and approximately 3300 of those feet were in the canyon over a distance of approximately 8.3 miles.


It was a tough slog in places.  But I made it.  The next challenge will be to cycle it again with less "breathers."

I had a great weekend with the kids.  I had Esther, Aaron and Levi overnight on Friday, then after a lazy morning, we drove down to Payson for their Scottish Festival.  While there, I had their pictures drawn by an "artist" for the princely sum of $3.


The kids probably had the most fun on the playground (below).  I was tempted, as we sat and listened to a couple of musicians, to think, "We need to get the most out of this festival.  After all, it took us an hour to drive down here.  It would be silly to leave after only 90 minutes."  But I squelched this voice in my head and instead said, "You know what?  We'll stay as long as the kids feel like; we don't need to see and do everything (not that there was that much to do).  We'll leave when we feel like it, even if after only 90 minutes."  I was rather proud of myself.



I picked Nathan up Saturday evening when I took the Quads home, and he ended up staying through Monday afternoon.  On Sunday evening, we had a nice dinner with our friends, Ben and Tina, which Nathan seemed to enjoy.  (If you look closely, you'll see one of the cherry pies I wrote about a week or so ago.)



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