Cedar City, Utah…race week, we are setting up the race course and rock crawl for the weekend, so we’ve been on site at Three Peaks Recreation Area for a week.  I love our life.  The boys finished marking the race course today, so I was finally “allowed” out to walk the course.  Up to this point, I’ve been relegated to walking the perimeter where there was a fence I could follow.  Pretty smart, actually.

The course is well marked, Josh and Kyle did a great job, I walked 5.5 miles of it, it’s a little longer than that, I opted not to do the weaving within the county park area and beelined it to the trailer.  My phone had died at mile 3 so I was a little bit bored, no music left.  It was a great hike, but it sure seemed like it was uphill both ways, just like my dad used to claim when he walked to school.

There aren’t really very many animals at this park, we’ve seen a bunch of jackrabbits, some lizards, but not much else.  Most parks there are some deer, and a number of times there have been rattlesnakes, I don’t miss those.  What I did run in to today were two hawks that were pretty unhappy with me.  There must be a nest nearby, they squawked and squawked.  I love the sound of predator birds.

Getting back to the park, I found our friend Todd had showed up to do a little wheeling – getting ready for the weekend.  When he offered me a ride in his Wildcat I was all for it.  I climbed in through the window, no doors of course, strapped on my 5 point harness and tightened them down.  I threw on my helmet and grabbed the “oh, sh**” handle, I was ready.  Todd took off and put some speed on it, it rolled over the mounds, the rain started and was pelting us, made it a little painful, but not enough to make us stop.  We finished the last section of the race course within the County park and came around for the road crossing jump.  Todd hit the throttle and we jumped, it was awesome.  I love that flying feeling.

Thanks, Todd, for giving me the opportunity to ride in a UTV, even after all the races we do, I almost never get to ride.  It was fun to see it from a racer’s perspective