Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Lori took me on a fantastic hike near Snow Canyon today. Wow, what beauty!
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google Bookmarks, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Posterous.
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
12/26/09
I’m posting this using Flickr’s email posting system. We’ll see if it
works. I wrote this last night but couldn’t get the email to post due to
poor cell coverage.
Good thing we have four more months… Today was rough. Even if this picture
of Lori hammering up the steepest, longest climb of the day doesn’t show
that.
Today Lori and I rode the Ironman St. George bike “loop” that she will have
to ride twice during her race in May. It was a beautiful, crisp day in the
low 40s when we started out from Snow Canyon. I think it made it up to the
high 40s, but it was still pretty cold for us.
And the course is a real challenge. The west side of the loop is a steady
climb with about three challenging (though short) climbs in it. The east
side is relatively flat or just flat-out downhill. We flew down that part
of the course. Even with full-length tights, long-sleeve jerseys,
wind-resistant hats, gloves, and shoe-covers, it was very cold on the fast
sections.
We only rode 50 miles, but it was enough. The scenery was super, and the
riding was fine. Lori was loving her bike, and Eddy was way into riding
with his new friend. And my knee worked out its issues (I adjusted my cleat
after the difficult pains of Christmas Eve). It was a lot of fun. Now we
are tire
Tonight we caught up our bodies w/ yummy steak at the Anasazi Steakhouse &
Gallery in St. George. It’s time for some sleep. Tomorrow we get to do
more Ironman training! Can’t wait. 
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google Bookmarks, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Posterous.
Friday, December 25th, 2009
We hope all of you are having a wonderful Christmas season. We are!
It seems like we got a late start on our Christmas vacation this year. And, I guess we did. As a result though, we still haven’t taken our annual Christmas-email picture. Maybe in the next few days.
We have been busy after all. For the last few years we have been wanting to stop in Las Vegas to eat at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. We are big fans of his Southwest style of cooking, and have several of his grilling cookbooks. So, eating at his restaurant was on our list.
On our way towards LV we called our friend Terry, who lives in Henderson. He was planning to leave to visit family the day after our planned arrival, so he offered up his driveway to park the camper. And, he was available for dinner.
And so we did get to go to the Mesa Grill. The food was excellent (Terry’s coffee-rub filet was probably the best), the service was pretty good, and the company was world-class. We had a great time, and Terry’s experience dealing with the Strip traffic, valets, and general Vegas hype made it a piece of cake to get in and out of the restaurant. Ha! We were home in the Mothership by 10:30 p.m. Maybe earlier!
The next day we needed to get workouts in. And, well, we were on vacation. We slept in a bit, made some yummy Ethiopian Sidamo coffee, and some breakfast. And then, finally Lori and Terry went swimming and Cookie and I went running. By the time we were done, had eaten lunch, and gassed up the rigs, it was about 2:30 p.m. Too late to drive to St. George and arrive before dark.
So we didn’t go. We decided to go to Valley of Fire State Park, which is about an hour outside of Las Vegas.
VOFSP is really nice. We camped in a pretty secluded campsite (they all are this time of year) in the red rocks. Slept in again. And then went for a bike ride. It was really beautiful, and defintely a place we will visit again. Maybe even on this trip.
We left VOFSP at about 3 p.m., arriving in St. George at about 5:45 p.m. (including the time change). It was completely dark. Oh well, we have stayed in Snow Canyon State Park, our destination, before so we just went with a pre-selected campsite from our last visit. Turns out it is a good site for the Spring/Summer, but a bit cold for the Winter. So, we moved today, on Christmas day, to a super nice site w/ a Cookie playground in the back. And good sun for the solar cell and general warming.
Today we hiked out of the canyon to re-connect w/ family and to enjoy the spectacular surroundings. Most of the pictures I took were on film so I’ll try to share those at some later opportunity.
That’s our story for now. Our cell access is very spotty, but I have found that the digital mode is slightly better than the voice mode. Here goes posting… Merry Christmas everyone!
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google Bookmarks, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Posterous.
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
We are going to St. George, UT this year for our holiday vacation. Lori wants to scope out the Ironman course, and it’s hard to beat such a beautiful area. We will try to spend a few days in Zion, Snow Canyon, and maybe some new discovory.
As usual it took a bit longer to get ready than we expected. Monday morning we finished prepping for our trip and then went for a run. Just as we started our run, it started to rain hard. Didn’t matter though; it was still a lot of fun. And, it wasn’t too cold either. Maybe 52 degrees.
We ran as a family. Even with the rain, Cookie was a trooper. She never really complained at all, and as we got nearer home she started pushing. Fun!
After our run we ended up spending another hour or so getting ready. Then we burned some time running some last minute errands. One of which was to pick up the mail from the post office — in the hopes that we would get the Adobe Illustrator we had ordered. The mail man didn’t stop the mail, so there wasn’t any to pick up. I think he does that every time. Then picks it up later and they hold it.
Anyway, we finally got on the road at about 1:15 p.m. Since we had decided to go only as far as Tehachapi, that was manageable. The trip to Tehachapi was pretty uneventful. We arrived at about 8:15 p.m. and headed up the mountain to Tehachapi Mountain county park.
The park is straight up the mountain. I figured the truck was okay w/ towing the jeep since it was about 40 degrees. Well, after three miles of 8% -10% or more climbing, we were smoking — Not bad, but the torque converter seal was definitely doing some spraying. And the park was a big disappointment. It wasn’t well maintained, there was old snow, and it was deserted. Lori said something like “I wonder where the meth lab is?”… And it was 36 degrees and starting to rain. We decided not to stay.
We landed in a partially completed strip mall. It’s flat, and we have a pretty secluded spot behind a building — but not too secluded so it will be safe.
Driving to Tehachapi we had quite a bit of rain. Once we setteled into our “campsite” the wind continued to pick up and it started to rain. Then the rain started to freezed, and finally it turned to snow. We woke up to a couple of inches of snow and a bit of ice. My first thought was, “Wonder what it would be like to spend the day in Tehachapi?” But after looking at the weather forecast, we figured thigns would dry up pretty quickly once we were on the road… and it did.
On the road it was windy, but dry. We even braved a few sandstorms.
Cookie helped with the driving though, which made a big difference. We arrived in Henderson, NV in the early afternoon. I went for a run and Lori did some shopping. Unfortunatley, the Zappos outlet store was closed so she didn’t find what she was looking for. I saw mostly burbs and tried to stay warm on my run.
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google Bookmarks, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Posterous.
