Bertha Falls

Wednesday June 29, 2022

Today we decided to hike up to Bertha Falls. Every where that Ben went he was trying to figure out what all of the plants were. Googles new search function was pretty good at identifying most of them.

It was very strange to hike through all of the dead trees.

Bertha Falls were beautiful and it looks like this part of the mountain was spared by the fire.

Some of the kids wanted to play in the water so Mom and I stayed back with them and everyone else headed down the mountain.

When I was a kid living in Waterton I was hopelessly in love with Christine Hunter so I carved our names on this rock retaining wall. At the time the wall was new but now after fifty years of erosion the wall does not look so new anymore and there is no sign of Christine on the wall.

Once we were all down from the mountain we rented surreys and cruised around town. It was very tiring because the little kids are not much help on the peddles.

Once it got dark we decided to hike up Bears Hump. That is always a fun hike.

Wood Pellets – Lots of Wood Pellets

Last year Rob decided that since we’re in the smoking business we should sell wood pellets. I did my homework and settled on a company in the Ukraine. This was long before Russia decided to try and take over Ukraine. To make a long story short we ended up buying 39,000 pounds of wood pellets and shipped them to Miami.

By the time we got the pellets to the US they were about $7 a bag and the going price was about $20 for a twenty pound bag but about the same time our wood pellets arrived the price of wood pellets dropped dramatically and now you can buy a thirty pound bag on sale for $10. To make matters worse Rob and Zach were managing the wood pellet business on Amazon and they had our pellets listed at $30 a bag. Needless to say, I haven’t sold many wood pellets but all the while I’m paying $500 a month to store them.

I finally decided to drop Amazon and move the pellets closer to home. If nothing else I’m saving $300 a month storage fees but I can also use them in my testing and maybe start selling them on line. They are premium pellets so I can sell them at a higher price but within reason.

I rented two pallet jacks and luckily Ben was able to help me, but the biggest blessing of all is that the driver of the truck had an electric pallet jack and was very helpful. He backed his 18 wheeler into the narrow driveway and spent the next four hours helping us unload eighteen pallets of wood pellets and haul them to the other side of the facility.

Ben stayed longer than he probably should have but finally had to leave but by that time we had most of the pallets in the storage unit and then Kira called. Ben had helped finish the heavy lifting but we had three pallets that wouldn’t fit so we decided to stack individual bags on top of the other bags. Since there are 105 bags per pallet Kira and I moved 315 bags of wood pellets. I had loaded the last bag into the storage unit, walked out into the driveway and it started pouring rain.

Let me tell you what a miracle that was. The pellet on the right is a good healthy pellet ready to burn. The pellet on the left is one that has been wet. Can you imagine a pallet full of wet wood pellets? That would be 2,000 pounds of saw dust. Sure the pellets are in plastic bags but those bags are porous to prevent condensation from forming in the bag.

I am so glad that the Lord saw fit to hold back the rain until Kira and I got the pellets under cover.

So Kira and I were just finishing up the last of the bags when the manager of the storage units comes up to us and mentions that we are not allowed to store wood pellets in the storage units. I thought he must have been joking.

He had been watching us all morning and decided to tell us now? I was dumb founded and I asked him why? He says that they are flammable. I pointed out that half the storage units are filled with wooden furniture and I’d even seen one full of cans of paint. He then said that they attract pests. I responded that pests would be just as happy living in an old couch.

I finally realized that I’m arguing with the wrong guy and asked for a number of his manager. He said he couldn’t give me his number but assured me that he would call me. He finally did and we have it all straightened out now. 

Ragnar Trails

It has been a long time since I’ve been able to run a Ragnar with the kids but last week end I got to do it again. This time we did a Ragnar Trails. The normal road Ragnar has two vans with six people in each van and you take turns running 200 miles. The Ragnar Trails is a team of 8 people who each run three loops that all come back to a base camp.

I think I like the trails best because we are all together in a single camp and you can spend more time with each other. It is also fun that every person runs the exact same trails so you can compare your thoughts about the trail with each other. The down side is that your group can split up while in the car you are forced to be together. In the car you can also cheer each other on but in the trails you only see the runners at the exchange points.

Some time ago at a Ragnar where several of Justins cousins ran with us Justin was handing off to his cousin Angela. He took her in his arms, dipped her and laid a big kiss right on his lips. From then on someone got the bright idea that we should exchange the band at all exchange points with a big kiss. I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing but the kisses with the girls was great but I’m still a bit traumatized from that big kiss on the lips with Justin. I must admit it is the first time I ever kissed anyone with a beard. I don’t need to do that again.

Somehow, on this Ragnar the kissing was exchanged with a slap on the bum. That is much better than the kiss. Everyone else began to feel left out so we all lined up at the exchange points with our bums poised for a slap. I guess other teams felt the need to participate so I have been slapped on the bum by complete strangers.

Another downside to the Ragnar Trails is the night run. In places the trails can be rather treacherous and running with a headlight isn’t always enough light. With only a single light sourced the depth perceptions is also out. Dave Holland never got a hundred yards on his night run when he tripped on a rock and split his hand open. At first I thought it was a scraped but once they got it cleaned up it was pretty nasty. Justin ended up taking him into town where he got ten stitches. It kind of ruined the weekend for him.

Other than that, the entire weekend was a blast and because I’ve been training for a half marathon with Alycia I did really well on the runs. At least I really did well for me.

Kira and Justin flew Lisa out to stay with the kids while we were up in the hills running. On Sunday we drove home together. As we were heading up into the mountains coming up out of the desert we came across a truck that was on fire. The truck was pulling a trailer and the truck was fully engulfed and the trailer was just starting to catch fire.

As we pulled past the truck we couldn’t see anyone with the truck. I was a bit worried that perhaps the occupants were standing next to the truck when something blew up and were perhaps lying injured in the ditch.

We pulled over so I could walk back to the truck and Lisa called 911 but we had no signal. Another car had also pulled over so we suggested that they continue driving until they could get a signal.

As I walked back to the truck I could feel the heat on my face. All of a sudden there were two very loud explosions. I couldn’t see anything major so I wonder if they were the cars air bags going off.

After recovering from the shock I continued approaching the truck but I still couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly there was another very loud explosion but this time something came flying out of the cab of the truck and landed on the road in front of me. I think heard something tinkling on the road behind me. That one did kind of worry me and I didn’t dare go any closer.

I wanted to go behind the truck but the traffic would have forced me to walk closer to the truck than I was willing to do and on the other side of the truck was a cliff into a gorge. I couldn’t see any bodies anywhere.

Finally a police car pulled in behind the truck. I waited to see if anyone would come around the truck but no one ever did. After waiting a few minutes I decided that there was nothing more I could do and I left in all in the policeman’s hands.

I checked the news later on but I could learn anything more about the incident.

Halloween

Ever since the movie “Coco” came out Lisa has been a bit obsessed with the Dia de Los Meurtos. This year for Halloween she has two ofrenda’s in the house for her mother. 

She also went all out on her costume. As you can imagine she had a lot of comments at school and at our wards “Trunk or Treat”.

This year I used my old standby decorations for the back of the van and I dressed up as Indiana Jones. Several of the little kids actually recognized me. I was surprised.

For some reason we forgot to take any pictures of the van so here is a picture of the van from last year when I was a star ship captain.