White Rock Bay visit

Oliver even helped.  Here he is scrubbing walls.

Today I got up early enough to do a long swim.  Cathi had already gone to run in the Ogden Marathon.  The kids were all asleep.  As I was about to leave I saw what a disaster the house was in.  Cathi was going to be gone all day, I was planning to be gone all day.  Leaving seven kids at home alone all day on a Saturday in a house that was ALREADY in a disaster state really bugged me.  Both Jacob and Austin last night both said they didn't want to paddle for me, unless I paid them $20.

So I decided I would do a shorter swim today and get the house done.  We removed all the furniture out of two bedrooms and spring cleaned.  We vacuumed the entire house, cleaned the kitchen, swept and mopped all the wood floor.  Pretty much a spotless house.  Then we mowed the whole yard, and then mowed the neighbors yard.  The ones that up and left their home and left it in foreclosure.  Nobody is there to take care of the yard, and I'd hate to see that yard go to pot all summer.  Anyhow, we worked our butts off.  All of us.  While Cathi was running the marathon.  (She ended up with a pretty good time too)

Oliver (3 yr old)doing a flip on the tramp with
his buddies after all the work is done!

We were done by 11am. Then we played outside.  It was a beautiful day!  The sun was shining.  I bought the kids 4 large meat lover pizzas and sodas.  They were in heaven!  They had the rest of the day to play and I ended up with a very clean house.  I was pleased.  But now what to do about my swim?  I thought, Cathi would love to go with me out to White Rock Bay and let me check it out.  So that's what we did.

We took Max with us and Cathi brought an umbrella to shield her snow white skin from the sun.  I too the GPS to take waypoints to figure out where I would be starting my 20 mile swim, and how far of a walk it would be from the parking lot, and from the water's edge.  Here are the points:

The water was cold.  There were millions of brine shrimp.  They were pretty big too.  A little less than a cm I would guess.  There was a slight current from the south west.  White rock looked bigger than I thought it would be from the map.  I was wondering if I ought to go between White Rock and the beach when I do it, but based on the map, I'll go west of it, since I have to go slightly west to get around the point further south.

Notice that the map shows the waters edge almost where I'll start.  That's how far the water has risen.  Doesn't seem like much, but the waters edge to where I'll start is about a little over a quarter mile of wading.  There were tons of bugs biting me when were were parked and in the vegetation, but once we got to the sandy beach, there were no bugs in sight.  It was way too hot for them out there I guess.  The did a number on my scalp.  I was itching for hours.  I'll have to remember to wear tons of bug spray for that first little bit of the walk to the waters edge.  Then from there get myself covered in head to toe in vas/lanolin mix.

Max wasn't wary of the water, he got in up to his chest and it was funny when I saw him drink some of the water.  He took one dip with his tongue and then shook he head side to side after realizing it wasn't fresh.  He kept going out in the water while Cathi laid on the beach under her umbrella and took a nap.

So I didn't actually swim today, just a little preview of the start of my qualifying swim.  I'm getting excited!  The start of my taper begins, and last minute preps.