Thanksgiving

Dave says: October and November were both busy months for me. I traveled to several universities for campus visits and also worked on my dissertation. I finished my interviews just before Thanksgiving and was excited for a break. The original plan was to go to Moab like we did last year when we enjoyed sunny weather in the 60s. This year, the weather grew considerably worse right at the time of our trip. Our two-wheel drive vehicle barely made it through falling snow into Monticello and when we arrived at Moab there was several inches of snow on the ground. We changed the plan and headed over to St. George instead where they had been receiving rain but no snow. 

While Alisha spent some family time in Cedar City, Aleks and I hit some of the best mtb trails in the area for a couple of days. We started with Church Rocks and Zen on day 1. Day 2 was Barrel Roll along with some new cool trails in the area like Sidewinder and Suicidal Tendencies (ya, there is some exposure on this one) in the morning and Guacamole in the afternoon. We spent all of Day 3 at Gooseberry Mesa for some classic slickrock riding until we were absolutely exhausted. My Pivot trail bike excelled on all this terrain and it was a blast. I even got Alisha out for a loop on the Jem trail.

For Thanksgiving, most of Alisha's family came into town in Cedar City and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them. The kids have a lot of energy and are fun to play with. Every time we see them they seem to have grown quite a bit. After Thanksgiving, we stopped to see my family in Phoenix and had Thanksgiving part 2. We stayed with my grandparents which is always enjoyable and watched Arizona beat Duke. We hung out at Christine's and played with her kids. We also saw my parents and Daniel and Katie as well. So despite some questionable weather at the beginning, it ultimately turned out to be a great Thanksgiving break.