Tucson 2026

 For our Christmas presents for 2025, Lori and I gifted the family a trip to Tucson. We tried to run it like a full on, all inclusive resort. Despite a few hiccups, I'd say it was one of our better trips.

We left from the Provo airport on Saturday the 4th of April. The Schow family was with a different airline and behind us, the Henderson family left from Salt Lake, and Braden and Michelle drove. With me was Lori, Sally, Traven, Jason and Meagan. We left pretty much on time, which is a miracle for Allegiant. And our bags all arrived, so the trip started strong! Enterprise did not have my mega SUV, so they upgraded us to the MucoMobile, Big Daddy Diesel, a 12 passenger luxury van. It did not disappoint! "Muchael" comes from the fact that Lori booked my ticket by that name. We had a lot of fun with it, and the nickname will probably returned. The van did have two issues.

Issue #1: The blasted heated drivers seat button was right where my left knee would bump it. Not knowing this at first, I was sure Jason had somehow turned on a heated seat. It just felt like something he would do. They mocked me! They even pretended to push a magic button to turn the heat off. Fortunately for me, Meagan pointed out where the button was, and I was able to monitor its usage and not heat my seat in the Tucson desert. 

The second issue was watching Lori and Sally struggle to get in and out of the van. We solved this by going to Walmart and buying a Fisher Price Little Tikes stool for them to use to get in and out. Jason then acted as the footman of the van, always opening and closing doors and making sure the passengers were able to get into their seats.

We landed famished, and discovered that In and Out DOES serve food around 10 am. We drove to Tucson, about a 2 hour drive from Mesa. We ended up killing time by eating cheesecake and appetizers at The Cheesecake factory. This kind of set the tone of the trip. Food, food and more food! We ate when we weren't hungry. We ate too much. We snacked. And we went through so much soda. Our best guess is we hit around $1,500 in food and supplies for a week with our family of 18. At the end of the trip, we did have to toss out some food, which I think caused Sally physical pain and mental anguish. I just didn't have a way to safely transport the cheese slices and ice cream!

The highlight for me was just spending time with everyone. I feel like I had quality time with each of my grandkids, and was able to visit with the adults as well. Phil and Dallin are amazing and take a good teasing like champs. We played games, some played Pickleball and we all swam a lot. 

We did overbook the house, so Traven had a couch and I had my air mattress. Truth be told, the air mattress was very comfortable. The downside was I was in the way in the laundry room and away from Lori, but we worked around it. And we are at a stage in our family where staying up to 10 pm is really cutting loose and living on the ledge. I have discovered that I'm used to some background noise in order to sleep, so I'm not ashamed to say I used white noise on my phone each night to overcome the eerie silence of the laundry room.

This type of vacation is great and more relaxing than one to an actual theme park or something geared entirely to tourists. We did about one outing each day, usually in the morning, then spent the afternoons napping, swimming and doing whatever we felt like. If someone didn't feel up to a certain activity, they didn't have to go, because we had the awesome house rental. Most everyone went on all our adventures, but the 60 steps down into the missile silo was a no-go for some, and walking around the zoo was a hard pass for others. Kaylee, with little Logan, realized this was probably the last time she could skip the zoo. That boy won't allow it in the near future!

Some other highlights:

Celebrating Phil's birthday.

Doing an Easter Egg hunt. I was impressed on the prep work that Alyssa and Michelle did so the kids could still enjoy this and other Easter traditions. I'm not going to lie to you. I wasn't too heartbroken on missing most of the church General Conference either......

Senora hot dogs and churros. Watching Bella eat guacamole. Fun fact, she doesn't need a chip or anything really. Just a spoon.

Slipping the grandkids a treat whenever I could. I did run to the store and buy a couple of stain treatment products for the various chocolate problems I caused.

Hosting WeatherTalk in the van, where we would all say what our device had as the current temperature. Side note, it's currently 58 degrees in Spanish Fork.

Learning that when Sally says something is "interesting", that's bad. Really bad. There are some very interesting purple buildings in Tucson.

Avery learning to crawl and wave!!! She was just the perfect height to end up under the coffee table in the family room. I'm amazed she didn't hurt herself more than she did. 

Logan interacting more and more!!! We had some long conversations. I can't wait for many more. We can talk work, fantasy football and a host of things.

Soaking in the hot tub with Jason. 

Driving through Saguaro National Park. Watching these two wandering off into the desert on yet another adventure.

Going to the Desert Museum. Watching Bella talk to Wyatt like she's an adult.

These two. And it's not just always when they are together. In the pool, as the kids were playing, Mason did not want to share his diving snakes. Bella got her hands on them, tossed them into the deep end, then said something like, "Now go get them.".

Going to the Air and Space Museum. Reading the names of the brave men that flew in the B17 bombers. It looked to me like your odds of survival were slim, and your odds of not being shot down were zero.

TOURING A NUCLEAR WEAPON SILO! Check that off the bucket list. I am going to read up on the computing power behind navigating a weapon that could decimate 30 square miles. My guess is we basically had the capabilities of a low-end calculator in charge of nuclear warheads. Hearing about the cold war conditions, the steps that were taken so that the weapon was not compromised, the safety measures to make sure one wasn't launched without the President's authorization - it was all fascinating and terrifying.

Going to the zoo. Watching Mason, Park and Bella touch a snake. Getting the annual grandkids zoo trip done with tons of adult help and in two hours - priceless.

Watching Avery and Bella in the morning while Dallin and Alyssa went on runs.

Seeing Dallin's childhood home and hearing his memories of the Tucson area. The "compound" where he grew up is out in the middle of nowhere. It sounds like it was an amazing place to grow up, with 3 Henderson families in a row. I can only imagine the adventures they had with an entire desert at their disposal for exploring. I loved hearing about the work he personally put in on various projects, like putting in a basketball court.

Waiting in line for gas at Costco, only to jump out and see the word "DIESEL" printed all around the fuel opening. This led to a somewhat desperate search for a gas station that did sell diesel. We nailed it on the 4th attempt. We turned the van in with about 140 miles to empty, so I guessed wrong on that. At $5.99 a gallon, I was hoping to be in the single digits when we turned it in.

Going on Kaylee's "circle" tour, which took us to a Lego minis store, a retro candy shop and to the Tucson LDS temple.

Seeing Lori be able to have time with the grandkids. Her work does not offer the flexibility that mine does, so I get a lot more time with them. I love it, but I do regret she misses out some. So watching her teach Avery to sign "more" and play blocks with Wyatt was great.

And the attempts at getting a photo of Braden added to this photo. This introduced us to gigantic Braden and mutant family members. We should have done the picture before he was prepping for his nighttime drive to get his family home. He seems to love it. I'd end up running into a cactus somewhere along the way.

One thing I have to figure out is how to kill time when checkout is at 10 am and the flight isn't until almost 9 pm. Here we sit at the airport......

Disney Wonder 2025

Magic. Dreams. Wonder. Where do I even start? Going on a Disney cruise was a bucket list item, and I can’t wait to get back.

The atmosphere is immersive. Disney knows how to draw you in. The music, the themed restaurants, the decorations, the ship horn - it never ends. We are at Tritons, Tiana’s Place and Animators Pallete. One night at Animators featured a show that ended with Fantasmic Mickey and Fantasmic music. Tiana’s was a bayou parade.

The food is amazing, and the service was so friendly and kind. I feel like I am leaving some new friends behind. Even the couple they paired us with for dining was super fun. A high school football coach from Texas and his wife.

The shows were top notch, The Golden Mickeys, Frozen and Disney Dreams. I might have teared up a bit in that last one as Anne Marie learned to follow her dreams and fly!

Alaska. My goodness, what an experience. And we only saw a glimpse. God’s work is on full display up there.

Boarding, disembarking - seemless.

Now, I need to figure out out how to pay for all our souvenirs…..

San Diego 2024

 We are currently in southern Utah, hoping to make it home and end this vacation alive. That might sound extreme, so let me explain.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the positives. Traven has been incredible. He’s really trying to turn his life around. Bella has been an amazing 2 year old. It’s impossible to not be happy with her. And the first family vacation with Phil and Malia has been very rewarding.

Two major flaws in this trip. First, the vacation rental was more chicken coop than house. A two inch gap under the doors and windows that don’t close kept things chilly. It came with 2 towels, even though it advertised as sleeping 8. We bought towels, blankets and an air mattress to make it by. There were literally no appliances other than the fridge. A fridge which came with someone’s leftover food. Gross. The cabinets were grimy. The beds were miserable. The shower I used had a weird odor. The ceiling showed signs of of water damage. 

The van is a death chamber. Each mile the vibration worsen. And the check engine light is now on. We stuffed some our newly purchased towels into the side doors to make it more bearable. Most of the seatbelts struggle to work. It’s horrible.

We are hoping to get some $$$ back from AirBNB and Enterprise. I think we had a lot of fun despite these flaws. However, Southern California is too crowded this time of year.

It hasn’t helped any that some of us are sick. I thought I would literally cough up a lung the second night. I’m still sore, as if I did a hundred crunches.

I think my days of long road trips are over.

LIVE! 360 2024

 Day One - Travel

I had my daughter and son-in-law drop us off at the airport. Yes, I'm traveling with my wife. Since work pays for my travel and we pay for hers, it's a struggle to get us seated together, and for this flight, we were not. However, I did get my aisle seat, and next to me was a woman probably around 5 feet tall, so it's all good for legroom. Our flight to Orlando left on time, and all was well. It took a while to get our luggage, but we were soon off to find some food and our hotel.

LIVE! 360 is held in Orlando during November. It is located at Loew's Royal Pacific Resort, which if you don't know, is part of Universal Studios Florida. The resort is pretty amazing. Water taxis to Universal, Christmas and Universal decorations abound, dining options are many, plus everything else you'd expect from a resort (exercise room, pools, etc.).

The lodging rates are great, much lower than you'd normally pay. It's a big conference, so you won't every feel lonely. And it is well run, from registration to the conference app. It's all seamless. My only gripe is it's very coffee centric. Man, just hit a brother with a morning Diet Coke, please!

There are many different education tracks you can take. Microsoft is the main sponsor, so it's very much oriented towards them. That said, you have:

Data Platform Live (for me, of course)

AI Live (Copilot)

Tech Mentor

Visual Studio Live

Cloud and Containers Live

CyberSecurity / Ransomware Live

Day Two - Workshop

I'm in a workshop on Sql Server 2022 new features, then a deep dive into Sql Developer. I'm stoked! Also, it’s really not working to take notes in here. Let’s just say the day will be informative.

This day, conference ended at 4. At 430, I was in line for Jollywood Nights, and by 530 we were in the park. No lines, lots of holiday shows. We shut the park down at 1230 am. On a somewhat conference related note, lots of the theme parks do after hours events this time of year. If you have the desire, you can learn all day and party into the night.

Day Three - Keynote and Breakout Sessions

Ok, so data, AI and the cloud. That was a lot to take in. Rather than summarize that poorly, let me tell you something else. I mingled this morning. Not my favorite thing or a skill I possess, but I tried. Here's what I learned.

1. The conference continues to grow. They sold out their usual blocks here where I am, and then the next resort over, so they have now spread across 4 resorts. Booking early is key anymore, or you might have to walk a bit to get here.
2. The conference has LOTS of return customers. Once people come, they are hooked.
3. A lot of conference attendees have yet to stray over to Universal. It's that good that a theme park can't pull them away.
4. Lots of teams are here. Sure, there are some lone wolfs like myself, but a lot travel in packs.

What the tracks look like on the big board.

A Jollywood treat.

Caught the last show of Fantasmic for the day.

The OG, Hollywood Tower of Terror.

Jollywood!

Happy Holidays!

Day Four: What is a Database?

Dude is talking datatypes, and my mind is swimming. I love that the presenters post their slides and demos, but also share their emails, make themselves available between sessions, etc. And I love that they aren't afraid to make fun of Sql Server. It deserves it some times.

Did I mention the food here is awesome? Well, breakfast is weak, but lunch brings its A game. Behold, the fajitas!

Also, snuck off last night to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. Side note: the gas station located nearby has 44 ounce sodas!

I love that one simple conference session can help me feel inspired and ready to dig into things at work. Take this last session. We spent an hour learning about data types, indexes, data compression, etc. And the whole time, I'm thinking about things I need to check on at work to see if we can't make things better and faster on the database side of things. Indexes with where clauses? Row and page compression? So much to dig into.

On Wednesday, the conference hosts a luau for friends and family. I was amazed at the attendance, and by how many people travel with spouses, partners, children, etc. The after hours party was a lot of fun, and a great chance for my wife to see the nerds I hang out with. I thought about selling off my two free drink vouchers, but in the end did not. However, one thing I learned - nerds love coffee and mixed drinks!

The keynote speeches were inspiring. I loved how one talked about the industrial revolution and how companies that did not adapt quickly went out of business. If we don't embrace change, we can quickly get left behind in our industry. By the end, I was left with an impression that I need to help hasten our movement as an organization to the cloud before we all get left behind.

I attended two sessions about data governance, and they sold me on the idea a lot more than the people around work have. Again, I was left with an impression, that I should do more to hasten this work as well. Do I want the Informatica folks trolling around in my data? No, but I understand better why this must happen.

 

Ragnar Relay Zion 2024

 For those of you who have not heard of this event, it is a relay race in which team members take turns running one of 3 routes. A typical team consists of 8 individuals, with each runner taking a turn running one of the trails. They are rated as green, yellow and red on a difficulty scale. Each route provides breathtaking views of southern Utah, with some of the trails bordering closely to Zions National Park.

The red trail covers 7.4 miles, with an elevation gain of over 1,200 miles. Yellow comes in at 4.4 miles, going up over 800 feet. Green is a 4 miler, with around 400 feet in gain. Over the 3 legs, a runner covers close to 16 miles.

Let me tell you about my team. Let's start with Caleb, my nephew. For most of his life, baseball was his sport. When his family moved from Wisconsin to Spanish Fork his sophomore year of high school, he quickly found out that, if you haven't played on a club team since birth in this town, then you aren't playing at the high school level. Rather than feel discouraged, Caleb reinvented himself. He trained hard as a runner, and is really excellent at it now. He is on the Maple Mountain High School track and cross country teams, competing at the JV and varsity levels. 

Traven is my youngest child. He has had some things to overcome in life. At an early age, he was diagnosed with Graves Disease and lost his thyroid. Due to some unfortunate decisions by his birth mother and some genetic gifts, he battles a lot of mental health demons. For Traven, running brings peace and provides an anchor for him. On a bad day, he can go for a run and find some relief. Honestly, Traven and I have had our share of difficult times. When we can run together, it helps us heal our relationship. He's the good looking one on the right in the photo below. To say that having two teenagers on our team was fortunate would be an understatement.

Dallin is my son in law, and the glue that brought our team together. Dallin is a leader and a gifted athlete. I could not have picked a better man to be the husband for Alyssa or the Daddy for Isabella. His attitude is always great, and he has a way of lifting anyone with whom he interacts. He's the one in white below. We made him take off his Christmas sweater for the picture.

On the right is his brother Connor. As a teenager, he was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo treatments. I've seen pictures of "Connor Strong", when the male members of his family all shaved their heads in solidarity with him. But you know what? He kicked cancer's butt! He had to delay his church mission until he was cancer free for a given amount of time, but through it all, he overcame. He is a great runner. When he finished the green loop, I don't even think he broke a sweat!

We were also joined by Connor and Dallin's father, Nate. Nate is the founder and CEO of BILT Intelligent Instructions. It was an honor to have him with us. He is about the busiest man I know, but he not only juggled work calls and church calls using some unstable WiFi, but he also found time to become friends with the neighboring campsite. And yes, they had him over for dinner. If he wasn't a tech CEO, he could make a living as a motivational speaker. The photo below is pure Nate. He's somewhere on a trail, but he took the time to stop for a photo, and found a new friend along the way to take it!

Next we have Nate's nephew, Hunter. He is blessed with the Henderson talents of positivity, friendliness and athleticism. I think the moment that sums up Hunter came when he finished a run, and Nate was not there for the exchange. Rather than wait, he ran all the way back to camp to find Nate and get him moving. 

Outside of myself, the final team member was my son Jason. Two years ago, I would not have imagined Jason being able to run 10 feet. With his weight spiraling out of control and his health constantly worsening, Jason faced a crossroads in his life. Either die a young man, or get in shape. Close to around 200 pounds lost, and so much muscle gained, Jason became a powerlifter. He watched some of the rest of us enjoy running events, and he wanted in! And you know what? He does pretty well. It was amazing to watch this mountain of a man rumble along the trails! He defeated asthma, high blood pressure and a number of other health issues to get to where he is today.

So that's our story. Me, I'm pushing 57 years of age, and probably don't belong out on the trails. I feel blessed to have been surrounded by this team.

We started running at 11 am on Friday. We finished around 2 pm on Saturday. We ran in the sun and in the dark. We ran with clear skies, and we ran in rain and even snow. When we couldn't run, we walked. But we always kept moving forward. When Dallin finished his red loop, he talked about it being a transformative event, where he learned his body was capable of doing more than he thought it could. See, I told you he was awesome!

I watched each team member set and achieve goals. For me, it was to just finish. Caleb? He wanted to be the fastest he could be on the red loop. Hunter? He wanted to finish our very last loop before 2:40, so that Nate could finish with us and then catch his flight back to Texas. Mission accomplished! Traven did zero training, due to soccer season at the high school and playing goalie. I'm not sure he had goals, but he is so strong and stubborn that he ran harder than I thought he would be able to.

When I organized the team and made running assignments, I knew we each has our strengths and areas of concern. Some runners would go yellow, green, red. Some red, yellow, green. You get it. I knew I could send the younger runners in any order and they would be fine. And with absolute certainty, I knew I had to go red, yellow and then green. With a recovery time of just hours, I felt my old body would not be able to finish that 3rd leg at anything other than green. I was right.

I started with red at around 1 pm. For about the first mile, it was great. Just a gentle climb, basically bordering Zion Ponderosa Ranch. And then it begins to climb. And climb. And climb. Some of the ascents felt like I needed a ladder. I'd run when I could, as there were some flat stretches and brief downhills. Finally, around mile 4, you crest into a majestic view of Zions. That's the transformation part. You've battled for 4 miles to get this view. And now you get rewarded with a descent of around 3 miles! And yes, music was a part of this moment for me. Last of the Mohicans was playing as I summitted. I'd been envisioning the end of the movie in my mind for a bit, as I pursued Magua with vengeance on my mind!

About that descent. Most of the way back followed a narrow trail, which was a struggle for my wide body. By the end, after impacting my feet at weird angles, I could feel blisters forming and my ankles were on fire. 

At around 11 pm, I took off on yellow. For me, yellow is just a shade of red. This was a BRUTAL run for me. 2 miles of unforgiving, unrelenting climbing in the dark, with rain and snow coming down. I don't really see well in the dark anymore, so yellow was a solid time of fear and pain for me. If I had been alone, I think I would have tapped out. But knowing that my team depended on me gave me the strength to finish that bad boy off. As I entered the exchange, I don't know that I've ever been happier to see Dallin, as I passed the bib off to him.

Finally, at approximately 9 am Saturday, I stared my green loop. Blistered and bruised feet. Bloodied knees from some falls. Calves on fire. Back seized up. No sleep through the rainy night. Energy at zero. I laced up my trail shoes, and off I went. My goal - just keep moving! And you know what, I found my stride. For the first 3 miles, I ran. The last mile? It proves what I said many times. Yellow is just a shade of red, and you can't make green without yellow! The last mile PLUNGES into a ravine. Like seriously, the most technical part of the entire race. With my legs feeling as weak as they did, I was not about to try and run this part. Luckily, my initial 3 miles of running helped me finish in a decent amount of time. Here's the moment when I was DONE!

Here are two of our cheerleaders, Alyssa and Bella. Lori, my wife, does not enjoy having her picture taken, but she was there as well! Props to them for journeying out into the dirty mess to cheer us on!

This is me, finishing my red loop. I wore my Utah Valley Marathon "Pain you Enjoy" shirt. The irony was not lost on many a runner, as I was asked if I was really enjoying it.

The Elquist side of team.

DONE! Medals in hand! And yes, I'm holding a bottle of BBQ sauce! A gift from Nate for captaining the team.

Just finishing and seeing my cheer squad!

Disneyland 2024

 Someone at work asked me about Disneyland tips. I think I'll attack this post from that perspective.

Tip #1: Fly if you can. With the new Provo airport, and both Breeze and Allegiant flying down to the John Wayne airport, flying for us has become an affordable option. Lori and I flew down a few days early to enjoy some couple time. When it was time to fly back, we traded our luggage and carry-ons for Bella, a car seat and a stroller. What a win! Flying back with her was amazing!

Tip #2: Purchase Genie Plus service. I worked the Disneyland app like a boss. We constantly had an attraction booked via the Genie service. When our times were hours out, the service would let us hold multiple bookings. And when attractions such as Indiana Jones and Roger Rabbit crashed, those passes converted to "wild cards" which we could use on any attraction available via Genie. We rarely waited in line.

Tip #3: Work against the flow. Let me explain. We rope dropped every day. It's a fact that morning crowds are lower than afternoons and evenings. But we came in towards the end of the rope drop madness. That way, we didn't spend hours waiting for the park to open. When we did go in, we would head to rides that typically don't experience rope drop madness. While hundreds of people flocked to Rise of the Resistance, we headed to Pirates. With an insane amount of people migrating to Radiator Springs, we did Soarin'. 

Tip #4: Accept the fact that Peter Pan permanently has a 40 minute wait.

Tip #5: Use mobile order for food and merchandise.

Tip #6: Don't be afraid to split up your group. Braden, Jason, Mason and Parker left us for a bit to build light sabers. Bella needed naps. Honestly, one of my favorite moments was walking Bella until she fell asleep, then hanging out with her in a quiet place. It's good to slow down and just appreciate how lucky you are to be where you are!

Tip #7: This one saddens me, but accept the fact that you might have some in your party that are a pain point. When someone gets moody, just give them space. I suppose this applies to any family vacation. Don't let one fool ruin things for you.

Tip #8: Mix things up. You don't have to ride with the same person each time. Everybody brings something new to each experience. Build core memories with every one you can.

Tip #9: Enjoy your time in line. Share stories. Make plans. Order food. Plot your next Genie plus reservation.

Tip #10: Be water. Things will change. Problems will come up. Just go with the flow, and adjust as needed.

Tip #11: Jungle Cruise and Tiki Room are freaking awesome. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise! And the Disneyland Railroad. I might have taken multiple laps on it.

Tip #12: Mickey Pretzel with jalapeño and cream cheese is a snack that must be enjoyed often. 

Tip #13: This is a reminder for me, and it's outside of the park, but Coco's restaurant has taken a serious nose dive. Don't go back!

Tip #14: The local Walmart has a ton of Disney and California merchandise.

Tip #15: A vacation rental is superior to a hotel room(s). We played card games, ate together on down days, did laundry, etc. 

Tip #16: RunDisney puts on some amazing races. We LOVED running through the parks. I highly recommend experiencing this at least once.

Tip #17: Create a shared photo album and go crazy! We had so much fun sharing photos, and now have a large bank of them to fall back on for memories and stories.