2nd. Meeting Summary

I did not have Wizard's luck. I barely made the tail end of the thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. I could see the storm over the hills as I drove along the I-15 and Bear Valley road but only reached the tail end of it as I drove in to the Bowen Ranch. The smoke from the fire in the area Wizard mentioned was still visable. It appeared that they were having a flareup and there were a couple of plains circulating. After paying my dues and parking, I assembled my bike in the rain and, put a platic bag over the backpack so it wouldn't get wet and rode down to the springs. The fresh breaze on my damp body felt really cool (in both senses of the word). By the time I got down my hands and fingers were sore from working the breaks so hard. I only had to get off an walk the bike at the fences and two rocky or steep places.

I arrived at 12:50 just in time for our meeting. As expected it was Arizona Mike and myself. This gave us plenty of time to get to know each other better, through one on one conversation, look over the brochure and discuss some of the most recent post to the website. I will not go into detail on what was discussed on the brochure as I will do so in a separate thread (probably tomorrow as I have already bored everyone with too many posts today).

One issue that we did discuss was Paul's suggestion of holding the meetings the same day every month. AZ Mike also felt it important to have monthly meetings. I suggested that once a quarter our meeting could concide with a clean up day. What do the rest of you think? I feel it would be nice if we could decide on a day and include it on the brochure as an invitation to other hotspringers that do not post to this forum. The meetings would not be required attendance but rather on whomever can make it basis.

I would like to suggest the last Saturday or Sunday of each month at 1:00 p.m. starting with August (maybe we will need to go a little earlier after the time fall's back an hour in October). I think last time I asked this most people preferred Saturday, but I could be wrong. Please answer on this post and let me know if you like this suggestion and which day of the weekend would work best for you. Thanks.

I did go to the area that Sycamore Laughing had mentioned she saw a group going up the steep slope last Saturday. I did find some trash but not as much as I was expecting. I was able to complete two bags and Arizona Mike carried one out for me. Wizard, we decided to use the spot behind the rock where we saw the bottles as a staging area to leave bags of trash that we have collected, when it is too much to carry out. Whomever of the three of us that see Frank first can share this spot with him. Arizona Mike suggested that we leave a notice indicating why the bags are there and if anyone feels like carying one out for us they are welcome to do so, but that it is not an official trash dump site. What do you think?

Getting the bike back up was not as cool. Actually it was quite warm and sweaty. At least no clothes got sweated up. I was only able to ride about 30% of the way, but I figure that if I was fitter I could ride up to 50%. When I got to the parking area it was dark. As I started to pack everything back in the car I felt something walking up my legs. A flashlight revealed that I had stopped on top of a red ants hole and actually had to move the car before I could put everything in. Luckily I did not get too many bites.

Sycamore Laughing and Paul, most of your rock stacks on the trail and down at the springs are still standing and looking good. I was able to stand up the triangular setting you made on the side of a boulder that was at about a 70% angle.

Mike, when you have your electricity back on and computer running, you can post the stats for the day.