Wednesday, November 5, 2014

New Computer and More Hikes

 

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After a valiant try and many hours of work, Jim was unable to resurrect the old Toshiba so we ended up trading it in at Best Buy, for which they gave us a whopping $36. We now have an Acer Aspire R14 with a touch screen, which we really wanted since we have gotten used to it on the iPad.

In the process of backing up and reinstalling everything on the new computer, Jim realized we lost all of our photos from March to October of this year. So from now on we will try to do a better job of keeping things backed up and we’ll see how that goes.

The weekend turned out to be good for indoor activities, with cold temperatures and off and on drizzle, but on Sunday morning we braved the threat of rain and did a group hike on the BLM land behind the RV park where Mark and Bobbie moved on Saturday. The call of electricity and long, hot showers were just too much for them to resist. Suzanne is now in the campground at Zion NP, so she joined us, too. We started on a fairly level dirt road, but after a couple miles began a very steep climb. I didn’t realize this was Mark and the Boonster’s plan, and in order to convince Suzanne to come I had told her there would only be a few short hills. She will never trust me again!

Suzanne and Jim taking a breather on the steep part.

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The goal was to climb all the way up to Gooseberry Mesa, where we had biked last week. The road/trail was rocky and steep, but we had some distracting scenery.

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Laurelee and Libby making their way up.

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Views from Gooseberry Mesa.

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Bobbie, Mark, kB and Coffee Girl seeking shelter from the cold wind at the top in order to eat a snack.

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The curvy road is our way out, nearly 4 miles away.

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It was too cold up top, so we began making our way back down. Jim, Suzanne, Laurelee and Libby weren’t quite there yet, but we convinced them to turn around since it looked like the rain was moving our way, which it did. Luckily it didn’t last too long.

Although the sun was shining on Monday, it was cold and windy and our legs were sore.  A good day to dump our tanks, get water and propane, along with laundry. The Maverick station in nearby LaVerkin has a nice dump, free with gas purchase, and the laundromat in Hurricane is one of the nicer ones we’ve run across. With rain out of the forecast, when we came back we decided to give Debbie and Laurelee more space so we moved farther down the dirt road to Mark and Bobbie’s old spot.

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Yesterday we did another group hike with Mark and Bobbie, Laurelee, Debbie, Suzanne and her friend Lynne, and a new addition to our group, John and Ellen, who met Mark through his blog.

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Back to the Chinle trail in the Zion Wilderness, one we did last year, an 8 mile hike according to M&B, which turned out to be over 11. This time we knew what was in store and decided to go for it again. A few turned back over 4 miles in to return home to pets, but the rest of us did the long loop.

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Time for lunch.

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We couldn’t have asked for a better day.

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Coming through Scoggins Wash put us in some compromising positions, right Suzanne?

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It was a fun day on the trail. We’ll see if Lynne and John and Ellen join us again!

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Tomorrow a hike through the Zion Narrows is being planned. Jim dislikes water so will not be going, and I have yet to decide if I want to brave the cold, wet, dark canyon. We’ll see…..

20 comments:

  1. Great pics Gayle and so great to finally meet you and Jim yesterday! Sorry to hear about you losing some of your earlier photos. Hoping at least you have photos from your blog so all is not totally lost, but certainly a loss none the same. I'm resting my legs today and doing laundry. Hope to rejoin the gang for more hiking by Friday!

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  2. I was wondering how everyone did with the cooler weather over the weekend. Glad to hear you're still enjoying the area around Zion. I was toying with heading that direction next week but realized I'm going to have to sit on my butt at home until my camera gets back from warrenty repair. No idea how long that will be yet. :-(

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  3. Sorry to hear that you lost so many pictures. I recently did a major back up and it is well worth the effort. Feel free to snag any pics of Olympic National Park. I'm sure loving the hikes!

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    1. Thanks, Karen, I may have to borrow a few of your photos! We are sick about losing them but it taught us a good lesson.
      Gayle

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  4. Both Google and Amazon offer free photo backups. We have years worth of photos backed up on both of them.

    Ed

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  5. Ed, the problem is our limited bandwidth each month and the amount of files that need backing up. Even with the lost files we have about 60 gigs of pictures.

    I am currently using two methods to back them up to more than one hard drive. Hopefully that will suffice for the future. Now if we ever had unlimited data I would put them in the cloud.

    Jim

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    1. Next time you're at a coffee shop, pizza joint, etc. take your laptop and upload all the pictures while you enjoy your pizza and beer. Nice way to spend a few hours.
      Enjoy your travels.
      Ed

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  6. What a great hike…perfect weather and rv friends. Legs were tired this morning, but I still went out for a bike ride with the Boonster, who I'm sure is on the verge of whining about all the hiking going on :))
    Box Canyon Mark

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  7. Oh, I adore that photo of that "striped layer cake" strip of land along the path to the top of the Mesa. I remember how huge it looked from the road, and how great it felt when I could finally look down over it! Yes, "just a couple of steep areas" IF you are in a Cessna, that is!!

    And we need to negotiate on those "compromising position" photos, Missy. ;-)

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  8. So sorry about the loss if so many pictures. I have unlimited and stil don't trust the cloud after experiences of loss with blogger and others. They said they could retrieve everything. But the didn't and I got a 3T external. Very happy with it. What great hikes and pictures today. The narrows was closed due to high water the entire time we were in Zion. Such a disappointment.

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  9. Wonderful hike. Y'all always have so much fun together!
    I never have known you to be a person who doesn't tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Gayle...lol

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  10. Your pictures are great. Jim and I are wishing we were still there. I think I'll get up and go get my external hard drive and back up my pictures. That would be such a bummer to lose that many months worth.

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  11. Ugh I'm so sorry about your photos. That happened to me once, and I'm still not good at backing them up.

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  12. Sorry to hear you lost your photos for those months. At least, you have the ones you put in your blog. Each year we have my blogs printed in a book from Blog to Print. That becomes our scrapbook.

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  13. Looks like two great hikes! What an amazing view from the top of Gooseberry Mesa! That's our kind of adventure:) And you knew when Mark said 8 miles that was only in his dreams!!

    We haven't had anything but sunshine here in Lake Mead...hint, hint:)

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  14. Thank goodness for the blog...not ALL the photos are lost! I tend to back up my photos about every six months or so, a recipe for loss if there ever was one. I got a new laptop a month or so ago and ended up losing all my bookmarks. Frustrating but I also realized it was like a major housecleaning, all the old stuff I didn't really look at has been purged!

    Looks like some fun times with good folks!

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  15. Bill is a fanatic about multiple backups for his music collection so I'll have to make sure our photos get the same attention - so sorry you lost all those months :-( Perhaps Mark is "distance - challenged" and not just devious? They look like great hikes anyway, and the option to turn back while others continue takes the pressure off everyone. That small canyon looks like an ancient bobsled run :-)

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  16. Gorgeous, gorgeous pictures. Can't wait to hear about the Narrows. Diana and I got about 10 feet. That water was cold!

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  17. Here's how we keep our pictures safe - nightly back ups on leap-frog disks for the regular daily back up of the whole computer with SuperDuper! Occasional back ups on Time Machine, but just to overdo a good thing, we don't erase the camera cards. We just label them and toss them in the proverbial "shoebox" for emergency use. (Such an emergency has never happened, but we are prepared!)

    If you wanted to recycle the cards, you could back them up onto a static hard drive dedicated to that purpose, but laziness won out for us. No airtime needed for these methods.

    If/When/As technology changes, we figure that at the very least, we can back up the cards into whatever is the new thing, and just go on from there.

    Virtual hugs,

    Judie

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  18. What amazing pictures! Great hikes and hiking buddies.

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