October Overview

Happy Halloween! Here's a quick photo update of October:

Celebrated my birthday - 34 is going to be great!

Did some packrafting on the McKenzie River. 

Got in some high-country riding in Bend. 

Decided to start running at lunch again after over a year off - picked up some flashy new kicks that I am SURE make me run faster. :)

Gorgeous sunrises on the way to weekend adventures. 

Riding with great friends. 

A little more packrafting!

And the start of my third Whole 30!

Mmmm. Kalua Pork. Mmmm. You have to make it. so easy. Soooooo delicious. 

Elk burger with wilted kale, self-picked chanterelles, and homemade mayo (with avocado oil - so good). Yuuuum!

A Birthday Weekend to the McKenzie

My birthday was this past week - hurray 34! I think it is going to be a good year. 

My birthday itself was great - breakfast with mom and AJ, and dinner with T at Castagna that evening. AND mom made a coconut cake. Yuuuuuuum!

A throwback picture to when my love affair with cake first began. 

Then Thor and I went to the Mckenzie area for the weekend to float and mountain bike. The weather was amazing - I love playing outside. It makes me feel alive. 

Before floating. 

Fall colors are incredible!

We ended up hanging out with Dave & Leah - who Thor knew up in Alaska. They're great! Dave showed us around a new (to us) trail on Oleary Ridge - a new IMBA Epic designated trail. 

Old Friends & MTB and Paddling With W - SO fun!

This past weekend was a double-hitter. We PROMISED ourselves we were going to stay in town to clean the house and get organized for our trip to Canada, but of course we got talked into playing instead! 

Friday we rolled down to Oakridge to camp with our friends Morgan, Dave, Matt, Michelle and all their kids. It was great to see them! Our schedules don't overlap much now that they have little ones, so Thor and I were excited to get an invite to join them. It was really pleasant getting caught up a bit at camp, and Mira (~3 yo) and I even got to read a couple books together in the sprinter van!

Saturday the boys and I went riding, while Morgan and Michelle took kid patrol and spent time at the lake (maybe a better choice at almost 90 degrees!)

 

At the top of Alpine. We rode the Alpine-TireMtn.- Cloverpatch - Alpine loop. Always a great choice!

Me - coming down through Tire Mtn. a little fuzzy, but you can see how big the trees are!

Perfect blue skies!

The view from the bottom. 

65 Miles for Mom's 65th Birthday

For moms 65 birthday she decided to ride 65 miles - so we picked a course and off we went! We chose to ride west of Portland instead of out in the gorge so we'd have less climbing (smart!). It was a great, great day. 

Mom and our chauffeur for the day - Thor. Thor had to work that Sunday, but he graciously drove us out to our start in Beaverton AND then came out to pick us up in Vernonia when we were done. Champ!

Mom and I suited up and ready to roll out. 

Looking fast!

By midday the early morning fog had burned off and we had beautiful, blue skies. 

Managed to snag one selfie without going off the road to prove we were both on our bikes and having fun despite having taken a wrong turn that added about 8 miles onto our route (which ended up being a very good thing in the end).

Still smiling and riding strong around mile 40!

Here we are enjoying well deserved margaritas at the end of our ride waiting for Thor to come and pick us up. 

  we don't have any pictures from the final stretch because the Banks to Vernonia trail is not very picturesque. Originally we were planning to ride it out and back to get the full 65 miles in, but because of our earlier detour we were able to skip that - which was good - because neither of us wanted to ride it back the whole way! 

Mom was saying how she wasn't sure about keeping up the tradition of riding 5 more miles every significant birthday (70 on 70, 75 on 75, etc.) - but I said that's ok! we can just switch to sky diving like ex-President Bush to mark those birthdays! :) Who's in in 5 years?!

Oakridge: Single track for Miles

I realize I'm veeeery behind in posting. I got backlogged after we went to visit Daphne in NYC and I had soooo many great pictures I got overwhelmed with organizing all of them. I'm going to try and get caught up! 

No posting doesn't mean we haven't been busy though. :) This past weekend we rolled out of town to Oakridge for a little camping and mtn biking and it was fantastic. it rained last week so the trails were in perfect shape. I'll blitz through captioning these pics. 

Campsite #1: where laea ate a stick and started hacking/dry heaving at 10pm and we thought we were going to have to drive to Eugene in the middle of the night. crazy dog. thankfully she settled down.

Day 1 ride: Alpine-tire mountain-Cloverpatch- Connector-Alpine. great loop! About 30 miles total and 5,500' of climbing. These pics are not in day order, but you can see how beautiful the area and trail are!

I think this section on tire mountain might be thors favorite stretch of trail in Oregon 

The wildflowers were out in force!

Sunset from our campsite on Day 2 - near the resevoir. 

And a view in the morning. 

Sunday we were both tired, so we slept in (9:30!) and then decided to just do a paddleboard in the sun. We even got Laea on a board! Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks! She balanced up there for about an hour before we headed back to shore to do some swimming, and then rolled back to Portland midday. It was nice and relaxing overall!