Due to the heavy rain yesterday, I was stuck walking the treadmill at lunch. I have no problem walking outside, I generally walk 2 miles at lunch. But on the treadmill? I may as well be having my teeth drilled, TV or no.

But I did it anyway, for the good of weight loss. Today? Thanks to the high winds from the storm last night, the sky was clear enough that I didn't have to use the treadmill at all! Today's walk was easy.

Oh, and as of yesterday morning, the stats are:

Start: 227 lbs
Now: 188 lbs -
------------------
Total lost: 39 lbs

Only 13 pounds to my initial goal of 175!

Greg

Wow, three months of no entries, and now, two in one day! I should have posted the one about the Buttes last week, so I guess I'm bad.

Yesterday I took my son, Gregory Jr. to Big Bald Rock as a short hike. It's located above Lake Oroville, here in Northern California. It's a pretty unique place for this area, a giant piece of volcanic rock that you can walk around. It's easily a half square mile in size.



For a 4-year-old like Gregory, this was paradise. He loved climbing around, while at the same time being afraid of the incline. It was funny watching the contradiction go 'round and 'round in his head.


While up here we did some geocaching. One we weren't able to find, but we found three. The third one was a tad nasty, the container wasn't sealed enough, causing mold & mildew. Needless to say, I didn't even sign the log.


I bought a little hiking/camping kit for Gregory for Christmas, which came with some binoculars. He used them here, but they aren't very useful. Using them, you see exactly what you saw without them. What they do accomplish, though, is teaching Gregory how to use such tools without breaking the real thing.


This was Gregory's favorite formation. He spent a good 20 minutes climbing on it.


He climbed in, out, around, on top of, and beside it. I called him Gregory the Explorer, but he said no, he's just Gregory.


If you want to see the rest of the pictures, you can at http://www.thechances.com/gallery/BaldRock022506/. Thanks for looking!

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to hike through the Sutter Buttes on the Middle Mountain Foundation's Ridge Trek. I recommend this to anyone who hasn't been! It was a pretty leisurely hike for half the way, but the second half was a bit of a chore. In fact, the second half was optional, in the event people felt they couldn't make it to the top.

On the way in, we passed through Bragg Canyon, learning about the history of the Buttes and their geology.

This was also a bit of a dream of mine. After many years of my father telling me of his time hiking (illegally) through the Buttes when he was young, I was finally able to do it on my own. I wish he was still alive to go with me.

At the beginning of the hike, we saw an old manmade well and a small workshed of sorts, built out of stone. I believe this was a late-1800's structure.


Some of the trees were in early blossom. The guide said that by the April wildflower hikes, these blossoms will not be here.


This view is looking toward where we came in. The pond in the middle is a manmade reservoir that was built in the 60's. Many deer and geese get their water from this reservoir.


The beginning of the final ascent. As you can see, it was pretty steep. National Geographic Topo listed it as 12% grade.


We rested at the top of the first crest. Sadly, I don't have pictures beyond this point, as my camera's battery died. Incidentally, I'm replacing it ASAP!


If you're interested in taking this or other MMF hikes, visit their website at http://www.middlemountain.org/. They are wonderful to work with. I plan on going on a more of these hikes as time goes by.

Finally, if you'd like to see the rest of the pictures I took, you can at http://www.thechances.com/gallery/SutterButtes021806/.

BOY you guys are gonna love this story.

On Tuesday I drove out to the Foresthill Bridge in Auburn, CA. This is the 3rd highest bridge in the US, and the 9th highest in the world. It also has a story behind it. Back in the 70s, the plan was to build the Auburn Dam, and along with that plan, they were going to flood a canyon. They built this bridge across the canyon with the anticipation of the dam. Water would have flooded the canyon, and the bridge would only be about 100 feet above it.

Well, the dam never happened. In the meantime, you now have a 730-foot-high bridge that spans a half-mile, only 16 feet shorter than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Mainly I went out there for location scouting, for a potential ad for the company I work for. "Bridging the Logistics Gap" is what I'm calling it.

These pictures really don't show the scope of the bridge. The thing's a monster.

On either side of the bridge and in the middle are those little phone kiosks, like the ones you see on the side of the road when your car breaks down. These, however, are set up to dial directly to Suicide Prevention. The sign in this one reads, "CRISIS COUNSELING, THERE IS HOPE, MAKE THE CALL 1. OPEN PHONE BOX, 2. LIFT THE HANDSET, 3. PUSH THE BUTTON".

Now for the fun part.

At the end of my time at the bridge, I decided to walk across it and walk back. As I got a little ways in, my phone rang, so I put my tripod on the ledge. It's a good thing I hadn't walked very far across.

The arrow is pointing to the part of the bridge where I knocked the tripod off the ledge. It's a good thing the camera wasn't attached, because it fell maybe 150 to 200 feet down. I ended up climbing down that hill for the third time to retrieve it, and luckily it still works. A bit of plastic is now broken off, and there's dirt lodged in places I can't get to. Battle scars.