Michigan Part 1

FRIENDS AND FAMILY!! It was so great to be back in MI and visiting my dear friends and my wonderful family. We also got to visit with Rich's awesome family as well! It's been a few years since I was able to spend any time in MI and any substantial time with anyone. I love being in MI with all the green trees and farm land. I even took pictures of the dirt roads that I miss so much! :-) Although it always seems way too rushed and not enough time in any one place, I feel like I got a pretty good dose of all the people I love so much. Never enough, but it's hard when we live so far away, I always like to encourage you all to come visit, for more one on one time! (when are you all going to learn to love skiing?!!) :-) Anyway, I got out to MI and was able to spend 4 days with Bea, and spend some time with Lori and Deanna as well. We had a blast just hanging out - it seems as if there has never been any time apart whenever we get together, it's awesome. Going back to Ann Arbor and being with my old friends is like putting on your favorite flannel shirt and slippers at the end of a long day... perfectly comfortable. Bea, Lori and I went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth... not a great movie in it own right, but it was in 3D! We had sooooooooo much fun, being goofy and carrying on! The pic with the glasses is of us after the show. :-) I was able to spend a couple of afternoons with my mom and John and we enjoyed some relaxing time cleaning out the gardens and doing some work around the house. I always wish I were closer to be able to help out my family more, so I do what I can when I visit. It's a nice way to spend time. Rich and I took Mom and John out to Common Grill for dinner after riding the Poto, and it was great, Lori joined us as well. We also spent some time up north, with Dad and Jane, and David. David treated Rich and me to lunch at the golf club he works at. I felt like I had to speak with a drawl, and say "dah-ling" a lot there! Lunch was great and it was awesome to see Dave in his element. He and Dad cooked a great dinner for us one night - yum yum!! Rich and I then went back to Milford to stay a few days and visit with his uncles and aunts. We had a great time, his family is so great! Lots of eating out, and gaining back the 4 lbs I lost before going to MI!! Worth it though! Lots of mountain biking helped keep it in check. :-) I also got to visit with my dear friend Pat. Pat and I worked together in Taylor for many years. She invited a handful of our good friends and old colleagues over for lunch and we had a ball. Lots of laughing and getting caught up. I had lunch with Jenny and her kids - one of which is my Godson, Jacob. Then on back to Ann Arbor for food and drinks with Cheryl, who is doing and looking great! We had a great time shopping, and trying on jeans! :-) A visit to our favorite old haunt, the Irish Pub topped off the evening. Then the long drive home the next day and you can read about that in Part 3! :-) Whew! A whirlwind visit but perfect all the same! I miss everyone terribly!!

Michigan Part 2

MOUNTAIN BIKING!!! One of the things I really wanted to do while in MI was visit some of my old mountain biking haunts. The trails in MI are so much fun and so easy compared to out here, I really wanted to just get out and play. So... I drove out with my bike and Rich's on top of my car and we hit the trails while there. First, I met up with Jody and April at Pontiac Lake, before Rich got there. Jody and I did a loop before April arrived and then did a second one with her. It was so much fun!! I had forgotten what a great trail PL is and I think it must be my favorite trail now. We had a great girl's ride that day, then we all had dinner and spent the night at Jody's with a good glass of wine and lot's of girl talk. Jody and April headed out to work in the morning and I headed to Island Lake to ride by myself before picking up Rich at the airport. Island Lake is a super fun trail that I call the Superhighway of mountain biking. Flat and fast. I did both loops, for a total of about 15 beautiful and fun miles. The pines are my favorite section - Mmmmm, smells so good!! After picking up Rich, we headed up to Petoskey to visit my dad and brother. Up there, we rode the North Country Trail, which we had a blast on. The beginning climb used to seem sooooooo long, but compared to the 4 to 6 miles climbs you get out here, it was over before I knew it. Dont get me wrong, I still had to stop and catch my breath!! From there, it's just a series of whoop-de-dos and giggles. What a great trail. The next day, we went to the VASA singletrack in Traverse City. This trail was made longer then the last time I rode it, to about 12miles and it was sooooooooo flat it was funny. The fun part though, when not cruisin' along at mach speed (haha) was that there were some sections that were soooo tight and twisty it was crackin' me up! Geez, watch your shoulders and hips!! So great to be in Northern MI riding a bike! After we got back downstate, we rode the Poto, what a grunt that trail is in 90 degrees and 95% humidity!! ugh. We also met up with Tammy and Ian (our MI friends who now live in SLC as well - they were visiting at the same time we were!) and Jody and Todd, for another round at Pontiac Lake. Unfortunately, we got rained out of our ride at Highland. Well, that was it. Lots of fun riding in the beautiful MI forests. The amazing trees, the shade and the smell of pine. I loved every minute of it and miss it a lot. This Sunday, back to our 17 mile mountian loop!

Michigan - Part 3

The last section of vacation was actually not in MI at all but rather involving the drive home and hanging out with Gloria back here in Utah. On the way home I divided my drive to include a stop in Toledo, Iowa. The Ragbrai ride (http://www.ragbrai.org/) was going on at the time I headed back and April and her friend Kirby were in the race. April was driving support for Kirby and was hanging out so I decided I would camp with them and hang out too! It was an easy drive their, but I knew it would make my second day long. That's OK, it was great having friends to hang out with rather than sit around by myself in a hotel room! The next day was a very long, miserable drive to Gloria's in Johnstown, CO. I started out with 3 hours of torrential rains through Iowa, then road construction on and off through Nebraska, which is a miserable state to drive through as it is. Actually, maybe the construction was good as it forced you to pay attention for a while instead of getting mesmerized and hypnotized by the endless flat land and corn fields. Finally, after a stop at the Sierra Trading Post outlet (no good finds, though!), I got to Gloria's about 12 or 13 hours later! Gloria used to work at Entheos and was the glue that held the school together! A group of about 6 of us would go out for drinks every Friday and hikes every weekend, mostly encouraged by Gloria, we became know as the Core Crew, it was awesome. We have tried to continue with the traditions, but it's definitely not the same without Gloria! Anyway, we relaxed and got to bed early, to drive to Steamboat Springs the next day to meet up with Amy and Garry who we also work with. They were there doing a WFR (Wilderness First Responder) course for 10 days. We stopped and took an awesome little hike up to Lake Agnes before getting to Steamboat, then arrived with plenty of time to chill. We found a great little cantina, had a cold one and waited for Amy to get done with training that day. We all went to a free concert in the park of Lez Zepplin - yes, an all girl Led Zepplin cover band - it was super fun. There was ski jumping going on in the background, yes, without snow! Then dinner, another drink and bed. The next morning, not being able to float the river because of time constraints, we went in anyway and playing in the freezing water and enjoyed the beautiful morning. Then, Gloria and I hit the road back to UT. A little BBQ in her honor at our house, with some of her old friends, and an overnight jaunt for hiking and camping the next day. We headed to the Uintas, to hike at 10,000 feet where it is cool, but were thwarted there for camping due to the mosquitos - they were swarming! Not to mention the rain, but that passed. We ended up at Wasatch State Park and had a great camp fire, a great bottle of wine, and lots of laughs. All in all a great end to the month!!

Friggen' Genius'

SO here is my commercial plug for one of the best bike parts in existence!! Coolest anyway. I recently had a birthday and for my birthday, I told my lovely wife that I wanted a Surly tugnut. You might be saying.." What the #*&? is a tugnut?" Well as mentioned above it may be the best part that has been thought out. And I mean thought out!! I have been riding a Surly karate Monkey singlespeed for the past year. When I have been down in Moab, it has occasionally had a dreaded axle slip in the dropout when i mash on the pedals to go up a hill. Then I usually go straight to the ground, as my feet don't come out that fast and I acquaint myself with the Red Rock... not fun! So I started looking for a solution, that did not involve ugly, impractical, 1930's technology lugnuts on the rim. Just couldn't do that to the I9 wheelset!! Well this is what I found. It might be hard to see, but essentially it is a stop that you tension along the horizontal dropout so the wheel cannot slide forward. It goes thru the skewer and locks it down. I can atest to it's stength as I rode with Ian yesterday in American Fork canyon and did a bunch of climbing, some pretty good up, that made my cadence fairly slow (30-40 rpms) while standing levering the handle bars in a 42x22 gear. Yes it was a little big for the climbs, but live and learn. This will give me the strength workout I need now that Ironman is over!! Anyway, not only is the new device efficient at what it does, but this is where the Genius part comes in. I think the folks at Surly
deserve a medal for the cool factor!! Check out the real purpose of the flames!! Never left in the Lurch!!!!!!!!

Genius!!
rk

Summer Fun!

Now that Rich isnt training any more we've been having some fun on the mountain bikes, as you can see. We rode Little Cottonwood Canyon with Tammy a few nights ago, surprisingly cool at 7:00 when it was 96 all day! Tammy was given a new bike by her husband as a gift for giving them the beautiful gift of a baby girl, Annika Sage, 3 weeks ago. Yes, three weeks ago! And she was out mountain biking already! Ian, Tammy's husband, then arranged for a little girls get-to-together to ride while he watched Annika. Camine, Tammy and I did an awesome two hour ride around Corner Canyon, in Draper. It was a perfect evening, cool enough again at 7:00, after a 99 degree day. We had a blast!
Next, Kathy got home from a 3 week trip to MI (our timing is off, I'm going next week!), where she was able to visit lots of friends and had a great time. We opted for a hike up in the mountains, near Alta, where it is relatively cooler (about 15 degrees cooler than the valley). There was still a bit of snow up there, but we were able to walk for a couple of hours. We did a hike that took us up to some remnants from the mining days at Alta. Used to be a booming mining town up there! Pretty neat to check out the history of the place first hand. To learn more about the history of Alta, click here: http://www.townofalta.com/about_history.shtml