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It’s tough on our dog here in the desert. She’s a swimmer! She loves hitting the creeks and ponds on our summer travels. At the end of every summer the Mary Tobin Pool, not far from our house, opens up to dogs! $2 and your dog can swim in the pool. We took Luna down on Saturday for well over an hour of hard swimming. Once she figured out the ramp, it was non-stop fetch time. They even had a swim race. Luna raced 5 other dogs. It went a full 25 yards, but Luna couldn’t figure out how to jump in. While all the other dogs were swimming away, I finally threw her in. It took her a second to figure out what was going on, but with Jen on the other side calling her, she straightened out and started throwing a wake. She caught all but 2 dogs to finish 3rd. She got a cool little trophy and stuck around for the podium with the winner Peaches…who was owned by one of the skankiest lookin’ chics I’ve seen in a long time.
Today we went back down, but only had 10 minutes left to swim. She showed every dog there how it’s done. Jen threw the log out to the middle of the pool almost every time and she hauled butt fetching it back. She continued to buffalo her way around on the ramp with little regard for other users. We can’t wait for next year.
Dog Swim from David Wilson on Vimeo.
We’ve been getting some much needed rain. It’s getting the critters out. Jen and I saw a nice size diamond back cruising across Sotol, but I didn’t have my camera. It didn’t make a sound. Nice set of rattles too.
I went out by myself last monday and saw this fat horny toad.
Then I saw this creeper. I saw some more not long after, but I wanted to keep the pace on.
Have fun out there and respect the wildlife.
Gonna have to figure out how to configure the camper for a crib.
I’ve been wanting one of these the first day I started teaching. High schoolers come up with the best excuses. Of course, at my school, they are pretty heavy duty. Examples from last year: My baby was in the hospital…for 15 days. I couldn’t afford diapers for my baby and the courts just gave me custody of my little brother because my mother got thrown in jail and my 24 year old boyfriend lost his job.
Okay. Those are pretty good excuses even though there are a multitude of services for kids like that, but they sometimes don’t know or it takes a while to get things rolling…like a year.
But for the kids that are always whining and crying about stupid stuff, I’ve always told them that I’d be happy to call a wambulance for them. I found one.
This week is going to be fun!
I just joined Facebook last week. I’m limiting myself on it as it is definitely a time vacuum. I still have a Myspace account that I set up when I was at the university. I couldn’t stand all the adds and stupid backgrounds that people would set up. I really hated going onto someone’s page and having some really bad song blare out of my computer. I’m sure people thought the same of my page. So I haven’t visited there much over the years.
Facebook is kind of cool and I’ve found several friends that I’ve lost touch with over the years. I think that is a good thing. I’ve alsways been real bad about staying in touch with old friends. I pretty much completely ignored my high school friends after I moved west. I got an email about my 20th reunion, but I pretty much ignored it. I mainly hope that facebook keeps me in touch with all my mtb friends and reconnects me with old mtb friends. I have no desire to get back in touch with any army friends…..if I ever really could call them friends to begin with.
I have a twitter account but I don’t know how to use it. It seems kind of pointless to me.
My blog gets regular viewers, but I don’t really care. I hope that I’m able to post some info every now and then that will be helpful to others…friends or otherwise. I like reading other people’s blogs as long as there isn’t too much data and data analyses present in the content. If I see a screen shot of someone’s power profile, I immediately go to someone else’s blog instead. It doesn’t mean that I never go to that person’s blog again, but I’d much rather look at cool pictures and hear inside stories about races, rides, and bike builds.
Anyway. I’m on facebook now.
As a high school science teacher I’m constantly trying to get kids to measure things correctly….with both precision and accuracy. I won’t go into the details on the differences….just think about the archery target and “groups”. Most people who paid attention in math and science will remember that.
After packing up the Moto-Lite in a big, heavy duty Titus box, I measured everything and went online to get a quote. I would have printed the invoice via Brown’s easy to use website, but I was unable to add “signature required at delivery” to my order. So I took it down to my local UPS store where the guy quoted me about twice what I figured online. He told me it was a bigger size than the price I had figured online. I asked him what sizes he entered and he was 1″ off on the height, 31 instead of 30″. I grabbed the box and put it on the floor. I snatched his tape measure. I put the tape next to the box and sure enough….29 3/4″. I made him look at it. I measured at 6 points all around the box. All measurements were just under 30″. New price was less than half what he quoted and right at what I calculated online.
Make sure you know how to make accurate and precise measurements. It might cost you!
This past Saturday Jen and I raced the Laramie Enduro for the second time. This time we both did it SS. Last year Jen was the 3rd woman behind Gretchen Reeves and Melissa Thomas. She had a great race. I finished just behind Gretchen. I did not have a great race.
This year was quite different. While the course isn’t great for a SS, we both tend to love racing the light bikes more than the heavier dual suspension. It also forces you to be more efficient and keeps you from killing it on the descents….you can only spin so fast.
At the 30 mile mark I was the 4th SSer when a large bent nail stuck in my rear tire. I pulled it out and the sealant wouldn’t hold it. I ended up pulling the wheel off, popping off the tire, adding sealant, and airing it back up. It held! During my tire change I had to take a leak. That was the second one of the race. The first time was on a super long road descent and I did it on the move. One guy passed me and made a comment about that being totally pro!
After my flat, I dropped about 5 places in the SS category. I didn’t kill it or anything to get my position back. I just raced at the same pace. At the last feedzone with ab out 7 miles to go and a crapload of climbing, I caught the 3rd place SSer as he cracked hard. I ended up dropping a group of geared guys on a road descent before the big climb up Headquarters (my aero tuck is insane!!) and finished about 10 minutes faster than the year before. I was stoked!
Jen rode as the 3rd placed woman most of the race. She along with many others got way lost at about mile 50. She still finished as the 3rd woman, 1st SS woman, and only about 10 minutes slower than the previous year. She’s pretty sure she lost that 10 minutes when she went off course.
Now for the bad news. We were headed up to Rapid City to ride in the Black Hills. We were about 70 miles north of Cheyenne when we blew a piston. 91,000 miles on the Duramax. Not good. We are stuck in Cheyenne now trying to decide if we want a new motor or a new truck. We’ve found some great new trucks. And I mean new! But that would mean no money for a couple of years. Wish I had bought a warranty for my truck. Lessons learned.
…..that’s the name of the forest service area we are camping in this week. It’s also the area the Laramie Enduro is raced on. Our free campsite has been loaded with fog and rain and we got to see these creatures our first day there.
Needless to say, Luna is a bit leary about straying far from the camper.
Before we came up to Laramie, we stopped again in Breckenridge to ride the Mt. Guyot loop. Thunderstorms were all around, but we made it back to camp before we got nailed hard.
Jen huffing and puffing up French Pass
The sweet descent off french pass
This descent is really awesome! The climb up to Georgia Pass is easy and the descent of the Colorado Tr. gets better and better as you get near the bottom. I didn’t get any pics of that part as we were pushing it to beat the rain.
Jen got her second national title again yesterday with a very decisive victory over some strong single speeders. Christina Begy and other Colorado SSers. She was pretty stoked considering that she suffered from race allergies again and vomited her entire breakfast just before her warm up.
The men’s field was stacked with pro riders. I dangled off the back of the lead group on the first long climb but couldn’t keep them in sight. I ended up 9th. 30 guys lined up. It was awesome! I’ll have to start training to be in the mix with those guys.
Widespread Panic tonight!
Jen and I are hanging loose at a slightly lower elevation (8,500′) in Granby, Co…the site of the National Championships. The camping is excellent and the trails are incredible. Our course is going to be tough. It should be close to 2.5 hours for the SS men’s race.
Breck Epic coverage was excellent. You can check out lots of stuff at the following:
There are tons of blogs out there that provided much better coverage than I have. I plan on working up a day by day description of my efforts. I had such a great time racing with competitors old and new. Some of my encounters with my fellow competitors first occured almost 15 years ago. I’ve seen some of them grow up and now they are kicking my butt.
Anyway….we’ll be here through the weekend then we’ll hit Denver Sunday night for the Widespread Panic show. Hopefully it won’t be too hot for that one. We’ll head to Utah and hit Breck on the way back so I can take Jen on the Mt. Guyot loop. That ride is SICK!!!!!
