My experiments were ultimately inconclusive, and I eventually realized the folly of my method. But my passion for flight remained. There's no greater rush than an airplane takeoff -- those few exhilarating seconds as the plane throttles ahead, roaring as it lifts its heavy frame into the air.

It would have been a viable plan -- if we would have had a compass and a decent map, and if that old Boy Scout orienteering merit badge was more than just a fleeting memory.

John backtracked and tried another offshoot from SR-21. His headlights illuminated a weathered picket fence, and behind it the old Frisco graveyard. Some of the graves were marked with crumbling headstones, the rest with simple wooden crosses. Other plots were visible but unmarked. Shreds of some kind of material hung from many of the crosses, waving silently in the breeze. Nearly illegible names and dates from the late 1800s evoked thoughts of the people who lived and died in this forgotten town.

Most, in fact, aren't advertised at all. Many are tucked away on remote mountainsides or etched into canyon walls, while many are simply driven past and ignored. I habitually take note of vegetation, geographic phenomenon and wildlife when I'm driving. But for some reason I've never paid much attention to birds. Sure, I enjoy the colorful collections at zoos, but I've never stopped to study a flock of ducks in a roadside pond or tried to spot an elusive songbird in the trees. I learned about birds as a Boy Scout, but aside from seagulls and pigeons, the only bird I can still remember from those days is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker -- mainly because of the giggle-generating name.

Regular readers of this column are familiar with my failed attempts to master the art of fishing. For an outdoors writer, the only thing more terrifying than returning from a fishing trip empty-handed is the prospect of sitting down to write a newspaper article about it. Last November, I treated readers to a 1,000 word essay about getting skunked at Horseshoe Springs. Earlier this year, I struggled to muster up a face-saving way to recount a fruitless ice-fishing venture. Whether it's bad technique, bad luck, or a combination of both, I have become somewhat hesitant to write articles about fishing.

Spring fever is a tough bug to beat, especially when you've been anxiously awaiting spring since fall started.

Something similarly ironic happened last week as I was planning for a pre-Easter fossil hunt in the Lakeside Mountains. I vaguely remembered reading a pamphlet somewhere detailing the location of a collection site. When a day's search through old papers turned up nothing, I turned to the Internet. After an hour of feverish Googling, I finally found an online version. The publication was the September 1997 edition of Survey Notes published by the Utah Geological Survey. The author of the fossil collecting article was none other than Mark Milligan, the UGS geologist I regularly consult with for these articles, and a person I had e-mailed earlier that day.

No matter your cable or satellite package, there's at least one channel almost exclusively devoted to his screwball undersea exploits. While television probably plays a less-than-average role in our household, I must admit that the SpongeBob Revolution has officially taken the Thomsen family by storm. And as obnoxious as the show is, I must admit that I find it hysterically addicting.

There must have been 40 of them. At least that's what we figured when we averaged our counts. A pack of 40 wild horses flowing together in a calico streak across the plateau with a single gray mustang at the lead. We knew we were in wild horse territory, yet still the dusk encounter took us aback.

In this age, it's tough to imagine a country full of cities not seamlessly interconnected by smooth freeway networks. But in the early 1900s, long-distance automobile travel wasn't so easy. The only improved roads in the country at the time were city streets. Rural roads were still geared toward horse and stage travel, and proved too rugged for early cars. Long distance travel was best done by rail with the car parked at home.

He does look like a little squirrel in that picture, which makes me chuckle because my nickname was "squirrel" when I was his age -- not so much for the way I looked as for my eccentric personality. Like his dad, Coulter is a little nuts himself. He's a combination of Curious George and Jack Sparrow with a slight Tasmanian devil twist. When he's not pretending our cat is a horse or creating Sharpie artwork on our walls, he's scouring the house in search of pirate treasure.

We drove up to the closed gate where the snow plows turn around and a snow-packed road continues deep into the quiet Oquirrhs. The sun was setting over the distant Stansbury Mountains, framed by One O'Clock Peak to the south and Little Mountain to the north. The thermometer in our dash read 29 degrees. We turned the heater on and rolled the windows down to listen to Settlement Creek course into the mostly frozen reservoir below. We talked about the kids and how we hoped they hadn't burned my mother's house down yet. We talked about the things we needed to buy at Wal-Mart the next morning. We reminisced about the night we first met at a gathering of friends in Skull Valley -- how she broke the ice by offering me fruit punch -- how we sat by the campfire talking until the sun came up, and how almost a decade later we still can't get enough of the wilderness.

British explorer Sir Francis Younghusband wrote that "To those who have struggled with them, the mountains reveal beauties that they will not disclose to those who make no effort ... The mountains reserve their choice gifts for those who stand upon their summits."

I have long been at odds with the web of dusty roads surrounding the domed igneous formation appropriately named White Rock. Every time I venture out that way, something seems to go wrong. And as I turned onto the snowy road I found myself stuck in a moment of my own, recalling an old battle that these roads nearly won.

I was impressed, but not enough to try ice fishing myself. But after politely turning down offers for years, my friend Ben finally convinced me to try my luck on the frozen surface of Grantsville Reservoir. Ben has plucked fish from frozen lakes for 10 years now, but has been a die-hard fisherman since he picked up a spinning rod at age 3. When he's not wading rivers with a fly rod or casting at Hyrum Dam, he's home tying his own flies. "I think it is programmed into my DNA," he says about his favorite hobby. Listening to him discuss lures, flies, and fish species the excited way my boys talk about Disney World, I think he's probably right.

You warm enough, pal?" I asked Bridger as an earthshine crescent moon sank slowly behind the Thomas Mountains.

My wife calls me a pack rat, and I can hardly argue with her after going through some of my old bins full of stuff. The bins, which have been tucked away since before we were married seven years ago, are full of childhood relics that include my rare Chapstick collection, vintage Voltron toys, and my water collection.

Wendover has always been a fun destination for me, though for completely different reasons than for the busloads of gamers making the 100-mile trek westward in search of Lady Luck. My parents used to take us there for quick, inexpensive vacations. Many years of bright lights and prime rib buffets endowed me with an odd childhood obsession with casinos and a lifelong fascination with the desert that surrounds this small oasis. They say there's nothing to do on the Utah side of the border. I beg to differ.

Elizabeth Swann: Lost?

It happened back in that magical post-high-school, pre-LDS-mission window -- back when my buddies and I kept "go-bags" in our trunks for impulsive camping trips, when trip planning was an afterthought and weather was merely a side note. We were at an age when the vigor of youth and the prospect of adventure tend to temper the effects of severe weather on the body and mind. This is not always a good thing.