Our Time in Mancos

This post is loooooong overdue. The worst part is that I've actually had these photos loaded onto the blog for about 3 weeks now, I just haven't gotten around to writing anything to go with them! So - in the interest of getting them up while they are still somewhat relevant I'm going to minimize text and just give a super brief caption for each shot. We had a GREAT time in Mancos visiting Sheri, and it was so relaxing to spend time at her new house!

We spent one of our days hiking at Canyons of the Ancients. Here is a shot of one of the dwellings built into a wall.

Thor and I in the dwelling. I have to admit I wasn't 100% sure this was okay, but we were assured it was okay to climb in - so I did. Hopefully some ranger doesn't see this picture and fine us!
Views from our hiking trail.

Another dwelling we saw as the light was getting low.


Sheri, Thor & I at Sheri's house our last day in Colorado.
On our drive back to Portland Thor and I swung through Arches National Park. Thor had never been here, and I think I was in 5th grade when my family went on a car camping trip through the south-west, so it had been awhile for me too! We lucked out with gorgeous clear skies and it was a treat to see the arches close up again.

Mountain Biking in Moab!

On our way to Colorado for Christmas Thor and I stopped in Moab for a day to do a little mountain biking. It was a touch-and-go decision because Moab has had more snow this year than they have in about 20 years, but Thor kept in contact with the guys at Poison Spider Bicycles and they let us know that the SlickRock trail was partially melted out - so we bit the bullet and loaded our bikes in the truck!

Sunday morning we woke up to a COLD morning, but with beautiful sun and blue skies!

Here I am standing on an ice puddle - it was definitely nippy outside and we were concerned about how cold we were going to be on our bikes!

Once we got moving though we heated up quickly - and were soon shedding layers. It ended up being the perfect temperature for riding! Although riding on the 'slick rock' was a lot of fun, I don't think I'd trade it in for single track. Enjoy our pictures!

Christmas Day & Climbing in Ouray

We spent part of our time in Colorado visiting with Ralph in Ouray. I had never been there, but Thor was right: Ouray is the most beautiful little town I've ever been to! It's like visiting a little village somewhere in the Alps. We rolled in on Wednesday night and spent Thursday climbing at the Ouray Ice Park. I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it up any climbs since it had been over five years since I'd been on the ice - but surprisingly the climbing came back quite easily and I had a really fun time and wasn't even that tired! I loaded all the pictures up onto Facebook - so here's a link to the album of all our climbing pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43886&id=1048487456&l=29085cf2e9, but here's one picture of me on Tangled Up In Blue on Christmas just to get you excited (I don't know why it's so small here....sigh. I'm TERRIBLE with technology)!

Thursday night we went to Orvis Hot Springs and spent a wonderful couple of hours lolly-gagging about in the main hot spring. Properly relaxed we headed home to watch the Star Wars trilogy on cable and eat delicious linguine!

We had a great Christmas morning with Ralph, and then rolled out to the ice park again to get a quick climb in before Daphne and her boyfriend, Corey, showed up to visit for a little bit. Here's a picture of us all together on the porch:

Corey, Daphne, Me, Thor & Ralph

In the afternoon we headed south over Red Mountain Pass back down to Mancos to have Christmas dinner with Sheri & Fred. It was a wonderful, delicious dinner - but sadly I didn't get a single picture of the table, tree or family from Sheri's house on Christmas Day. You'll just have to trust me when I say it was beautiful, and we had a great time!

Colorado Cow Country

We're back! Thor and I rolled in last night from a fabulous week of visiting family in SW Colorado. I have a lot of great pictures to post once I get my act together, but for the time being here is a shot from one of my favorite moments of the trip. We were driving down Sheri's road to get to the highway and ran into a herd of cattle being driven in between pastures. We were stopped for about 10 minutes as the herd split around us on the way to their new pasture. Very neat!

Holiday Lights Ride - Winter Wonderland!

On Monday night Thor and I headed up to Portland International Raceway (PIR) to see their holiday light show, Winter Wonderland ! PIR hosts this light-show every year, but this was the first year they have hosted a 'bike-only' night for viewing the lights on the 1.5 mile track. Portland is experiencing unusually cold weather right now - so the temperature was only about 25 degrees when we headed out on our bikes for two laps around the track.

Fuzzy, fuzzy. I wasn't such a great night-time photographer.

One of our favorite light displays was the Twelve Days of Christmas - here are the 8 Maids'A Milkin'! On our first lap Thor and I familiarized ourselves with the 12 Days of Christmas so that when we came through on lap two we could belt out the 12 Days of Christmas at the top of our lungs. =) We were having a great time until we were surprised by a maintenance worker at one of the corners on the course, then we felt a little bit sheepish about singing at the top of our lungs!

Snowy Sunday Ride

Work has been CRAZY the past week-and-a-half and I haven't had time to post anything. So. Before I get too far behind. Here are some pictures of Thor, our friend Sarah, and I mountain biking up at Syncline last weekend. It was pretty cold (maybe 30ish), but we kept warm riding uphill and were gone for about 5 hours all-in-all. It was beautiful to ride out in the snow - and there were some beautiful views of the gorge. Our camera kept dying because the battery was so cold, but we got a few pics to share. Of course, we were slightly chilled by the time we got back to the car - so that was the perfect excuse to head over to Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River for some pizza & beer!

Merriah's Sweater

I haven't given this sweater to Merriah yet, but I don't think she even knows this blog exists so I'm in no danger of spoiling the surprise! I knit this sweater in Encore, which is a Plymouth Yarn, in color #960 (which they call Deep Mulberry). The pattern is called 'Babies & Bears Sweater' by Carol Anderson of Cottage Creations' in Iowa. I have made this sweater a number of times - and it always turns out well. It's adorable, but not so fancy that you're worried about letting the kid play in the dirt while wearing it! The pattern is well written, easy to follow, and easy to knit! If you want to get the pattern your best bet is probably to order it online. Carol has another neat pattern, called 'The Wonderful Wallaby' (a hooded baby sweatshirt) that I think I'd like to try sometime!

Thanksgiving Weekend!

For the Thanksgiving weekend Thor & I headed up to the Tacoma/Seattle area to visit with my Grammi and other family. It was a really nice, relaxing weekend - with a lot of Chicken Feet(dominoes) played and an epic James Bond marathon on Thanksgiving day (I don't think I've ever watched over 3 James Bonds in a row before!)

Here's Thor carving the turkey!

Mmm. Delicious!

Grammi, waiting patiently for the feast to begin. She almost single handedly killed our stuffing supply - I think she had three full servings!

William & Grammi before dinner.

William & I.

The day after Thanksgiving we went on a nice hike up at Tiger Mtn. (near Seattle) with Kathryn and the dogs. We lucked out with some sun up at the top of the climb.

Relaxing with Laea in the living room.

Friday night Anna flew into town (yay!), and on Saturday we trundled up I-5 for brunch with the Cunningham/Garner crew. We ate at this fabulous little place called The Boat Street Cafe, and I was sorry I didn't have room to eat seconds! This will definitely be on our list of 'must visits' the next time we head back to Seattle.


Sunday morning we had time for breakfast and a trip to the dog park before Thor, Anna & I hit the road for Portland. Here's a nice shot of all of us before we left Grammi's house.

Kruger Cross '09 - Final Cx of the Year!

Two weekends ago (yes, I'm late with my posting!) was my final cyclocross race of the year. Sniff. My mom was in town - so I have plenty of good pics to post (and also a few that came from other's Facebook collections). Sunday morning the wind was howling and it was pouring rain, and I was seriously questioning whether or not racing sounded like a good idea. But then my friends Michelle & Stacy called to see if I would be racing and I said "yes" - so I figured showing up was a good idea if they were hauling themselves out to Sauvie's Island to cheer.

The race was SO hard - definitely the hardest of the year, but I ended up in 3rd place! The course itself was not hard, but it had been raining for 2 days straight and the course was about 5-inches deep in thick, peanut-buttery, mud that gummed up your bike like crazy! By my last lap my tires had actually stopped rolling, but my bike was too heavy with mud to pick up - so I actually had to stop and clean mud out of my brakes and gears by hand before I could get it moving again. Enjoy these last pics of the season!

Pre-race bib pinning at the car.

Warming up in the grass near the start-line.

Running through the tree-section on the first lap.

A shot of the mud.Approaching a barrier on the course.
Splashing into a puddle on the other side of a barrier.
A great shot of the pumpkin fields we were riding through - it was really beautiful!

Riding through the tree section on lap 2.

I'm sort of small in this picture - but I'd like to point out my friend, Michelle, running along the course with Jr. Cheer Squad member, Lowe (purple blob), on her front (also notice beer clutched expertly in right hand while running - nice work!)

Pushing my bike through the dang mud on my way out of the corn-maze portion of the course.

The only non-muddy section of the course - it was such a relief to get here for a brief rest each lap!

Somehow I'm still smiling....

More running with my bike when the mud was too thick to keep the wheels moving.

Look of death I gave my mom as she heckled me post-race. I was NOT in the mood.

But I recovered quickly once I'd had a moment to catch my breath and get a drink of water! =)Overall it was a really fun day - the weather cleared up for the race and it was quite pleasant!