all things cbl

Aaron and I ended up taking a day off from the toils of the office and decided to upgrade our BrianHead and Minersville Cisco 2500 series routers.

On the way to BrianHead we stopped by a few GeoCaches along the I-15 route.

Unfortunately for me, I had not dressed for the occasion. I had awoke to a sunny, warm St. George spring day. As such, I had worn a T-Shirt, Shorts, and sandals. However, upon leaving the warmth of St. George, and upon reaching the windy city, Cedar City, I knew I was in trouble..

We ended up meeting with Jeff, our Cedar City Office manager who had recently gotten the approval to purchase a Nissan Xterra. Lucky for us, he let us take it on our upgrade path to BrianHead and Minersville.

(this isn’t the real one, just one that looks somewhat like the one we had)

Wow. The clutch on this thing is a little bit different than my ‘99 Ford Ranger XLT. It took a few minutes to get used to, but by the end of the day I was liking this vehicle.

Aaron and I decided to head up Cedar canyon to BrianHead. However, we didn’t ask if the road connecting to BrianHead was open, and upon arriving at the top of the canyon (27 miles later), we saw the ‘ROAD CLOSED’ sign, blocking the road. I honestly considered putting the thing in 4WD and going around the road block. However, that would not have been a good idea. So back down the canyon we went.. flying around the turns here and there, back into Cedar City.

Eventually we made our way to Parowan and up the Parowan canyon to BrianHead. However, upon arriving at the Cedar Breaks Lodge, it started snowing!! (Aaron has pictures, which I will link to once he posts them) Imagine it! Me in a TShirt, shorts and sandals going through the parking lot with it snowing to the lodge. I could only imagine what the employees of the Lodge thought when they saw me. (Lucky for me, I had found a coat in my ranger when we switched vehicles).

This was our first time to the Lodge to view our equipment. Sure enough, it was in a place that dust prevailed. Wow. Our 2501 router had dust inside like none other. The USR Total Control Chassis had dust throughout it’s whole system. I couldn’t believe how much dust was covering all of our equipment. After enough time blowing off the dust we finally got the router upgraded and all was well.

Our next stop was Minersville, by way of Beaver. We arrived on site at the Minersville Library around 4:30pm and were out of there by 4:45pm. It went REALLY quick. I was surprised. So now we have two 2500 routers upgraded to the latest Cisco IOS with more RAM and Flash than they have ever had before. It’s a good feeling.

Going back through Beaver we stopped for dinner at the Kan Kun Mexican Food place on the west side of the Beaver exit. Jeff had recommended this place before, so I had to try it out. I ended up getting two Beef enchiladas, and Aaron got a chimichunga. He enjoyed his food a bit more than I it appears. I still compare all of my Mexican eating to my great experience at Toro Moro which still holds a #1 spot in my heart.

Lucky for me, Aaron let me drive the whole day. It was quite fun. I actually enjoy driving for some strange reason. It keeps me alert and awake. Whereas, I could just space out if I were riding shotgun.

With enough Spanish music to keep us occupied for days, we ended up listening to just a handful of my CDs and talking about a number of topics. Too many to list here, partially because I have probably forgotten about most of them. Such is the curse for being with Aaron for a long period of time. We talk about many technical things, and end up forgetting about most of them. They usually revolve around the ‘If I had to do it over again, I’d do this.. ‘ or, “why can’t people just …. ” you get the idea.

Lucky for me, Aaron gets to drive for our SLC trip next week when we visit the UEN center to upgrade our CommIX peering Cisco 2501 Router. That should be another event worthy of another long blog.