Thanksgiving recap

We went to our old stomping grounds of metro Boston for Thanksgiving this year, visiting some friends we haven't seen in quite some time. 


Unfortunately, Peggy was befallen by a nasty, nasty head cold for a bit of it and missed out on some of the activities we had planned to show Chloe the sights, namely the aquarium, Duck Boat tour and a visit to the observation floor of the Prudential Center.  But she rallied in time for Thanksgiving Day and beyond, and we spent a wonderfully fun Thanksgiving Day up in Manchester, MA, and the following day on Newbury Street, at Quincy Market and along the Waterfront, and in Lexington.    

Thanksgiving Day in Manchester, MA

Duck Boat Chloe

A Weekend in Moab

Because of the 3-day weekend, we planned an active weekend for ourselves in Moab, UT.  We began the weekend, though, by picking Chloe up at school on Thursday afternoon and beginning the 6-hour drive across Colorado and into Utah. 

Friday morning we got ourselves over to a local bike shop to rent some mountain bikes for Peggy and I (we brought Chloe's bike along), and then over to the trailhead for our ride.  The plan was to do the 10 mile (approx.) out-and-back ride -- and the approximate 1-mile roundtrip hike into Arches National Park -- in the morning and early afternoon, and then head onto over to another trailhead to do an 8-mile ride there.  But first things first... we had to get this first ride in the books first.

So we set off on our bikes, bundled up a bit due to the chilly temps, but excited to have this little adventure ahead of us. The first part of the ride was mostly jeep road... wide, relatively smooth and easy to navigate.  After a couple of miles into it, we got on the slickrock that this ride (and Moab) is known for.  This section was definitely wide like before, but more challenging in that it was a gradual ascent for a couple of miles, and required more bike-handling skills to negotiate the various idiosyncrasies of the rock surface.  These "challenges" aside, this section was definitely a highlight of the trail for marked by circles of rocks were dinosaur footprints!  There were probably about 15 or so footprints marked... though many required some "interpretation," there definitely were others were we found ourselves saying "Wow!" 

We continued our way up and along the slickrock and eventually made our way back onto a 2-mile long jeep road that would take us to the border of Arches National Park.  Once there, we had to lock our bikes up to a rack and walk the remaining half-mile or so into the park and our scenic lunch spot.  And just like our reaction to some of the dinosaur prints, we once again found ourselves saying "Wow!"  We were in the Klondike Bluffs area of the park, and the rock formations here seem other-world-ly.  They are unlike anything else we've seen.  We were exposed to the cool breeze of the day now, so while we enjoyed the view for a bit, we also felt it was a good idea to not stay too long and get too chilled. We walked back to our bikes to begin our descent along the roads and slickrock back to our car. 

By this point, I could definitely see the increased confidence and bike handling by both Chloe and Peggy... I've done such riding just once before so am by far not an expert, but I knew some basics about riding mountain bikes and what they can handle.  They haven't, so it was all pretty new to them.  On the descent, they really impressed me – Chloe's bike doesn't have a rear suspension so she got jarred around a lot, and Peg's bike's front brake was acting up – and began to look comfortable riding their bikes in this environment. 

We made it back to the car around 2:30p, quickly loaded up the bikes and headed over to the next trailhead.  Once we got there, though, the brief rest from the car ride seems to have germinated some concerns about doing this next ride... Chloe's legs (and butt) were pretty tired, and after some feeble attempt to improve it, I couldn't do anything to improve Peg's bike's brake (and doing another 8 miles or so, while "active" wasn't "fun.")  We gave it the ol' college try nonetheless but after a little over a mile, it became evident it wasn't worth going on... Chloe was lagging behind, and Peg's front wheel was making sounds akin to the communication groans of humpback whales.

I once again loaded them on the car, and we headed back into Moab to return the rental bikes and enjoy some post-ride nourishment at a local eatery.  And of course, toast a great family bike ride.

The rest of the weekend, though, didn't pan out as active as we had hoped.  The plans for Saturday was to do a 7.5 mile hike in Arches, on a trail that would take us by several of the rock formations that are the park's namesake.  During Friday night/Saturday morning, though, Chloe got wicked sick and vomited over a fair portion of the upstairs of the house we were staying in.  Peg and I were definitely "active" during this portion... she scrubbing carpets, and me driving into town at 1:00am to visit a laundromat.  The rest of Saturday was spent just hanging out... I was able to watch the Pitt v Louisville football game online, and thanks to Hulu, we were able to catch up on episodes of "The Office" and watch several episodes of "Ugly Betty." 

We hoped we would be able to do a little of Saturday's hiking on Sunday, but Mother Nature had other plans:  As we entered the park, it began to drizzle... and it drizzled the entire time we drove through the park viewing the sights visible from the road.  As irony would have it, the rain stopped as we were exiting the park and heading back to Boulder.

Oh well... we plan on heading back to Moab again some day, and who knows... maybe there are mountain bikes in our future!

Pictures from this trip can be found here.

Boo!

Chloe, The Skeleton Bride

Just because it was sunny, calm and mid-60s in Boulder...

... doesn't mean the same conditions exist just 40 minutes away (but 5,000 feet higher.)


A friend of mine and I snuck in a quick hike today up near Brainard Lake.  We were expecting things to be a little cooler than here in Boulder, but we weren't expecting it to be over 20 degrees cooler (and much windier) and most of the trail to be snow covered.  Thankfully, someone "broke trail" for us and packed down the snow some, for if they hadn't there easily would have been times where we would have been walking through 6 inches of snow. 

Here are some pix.

Fall, "Fizz" and The Fonz.

We used this weekend to visit our friends the Hankins in Illinois.  They're a family we met in 2004 -- we were both taking our nearly-1.5-year-old daughters over to France to catch some stages of Le Tour.  Anywho, we've kept in touch with them over the years and have had the occasional meet-ups too.  They've been to Colorado a couple of times, so the time for us to visit them in Illinois was well past-due.  There was a lot of general catching up, and hanging out and relaxing which I won't go into, but I did want to bring up 3 things that help with the alliteration of this post's title.

 - One of the first things Peggy and I noticed is how much we don't have the Fall colors coming from the maples and oaks here in Colorado... don't get me wrong, the aspens here are pretty spectacular, but there is a something nice about seeing the browns and reds and oranges.  And considering how many trees were on our around their lot, there was plenty of time for us to enjoy autumn's show.

 - On Saturday, they took us up to New Glarus, WI to check out the similarly named brewery that resides there, as well as the Swiss-based town itself.  Both were very enjoyable in their own right (and for their very different reasons.)

- On Sunday, because we were flying out of Milwaukee, they took us up several hours early to go explore that city.  While there were many cool things we saw -- the "safe house" restaurant with its secret doors and codes, the Discovery Museum, and Miller Field -- I think the highlight (at least for Peggy and I) was getting to see The Bronze Fonz.

Some pix from the weekend are found here.

LOTS of Good Deeds

Chloe and her classmates were rewarded with a "Crazy Hair Day" for filling up their "Good Deed Bead" jar.  (The teacher lets them put a bead or two in a jar for doing something nice, and once that jar fills up, they get a reward of some kind... crazy hair day, pajama day, etc.) 

Anywho, yours truly was responsible for helping put some craziness in Chloe's hair this morning.  I had her lay on the bed on her back with her head hanging over the edge, and tried to hairspray the dickens out of her hair.  Below is a picture of her with an admittedly unhealthy amount of hairspray applied, and below that is a picture of "the look" I was going for.

In a Rut

Because we missed it last year due to our time in the UK, we made sure we made it up to the elk rut in Rocky Mountain National Park this year.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as cooperative as two years ago, and some rain showers came along, darkened the skies and chased us into our car earlier than we had hoped and expected. We were able to get in a short hike with the friends that joined us, and did get to see – and hear – some of the male elk bugling, but Mother Nature did limit our time at the show. 

The elk rut wasn't the only show in town, though, as this weekend was probably "peak" for some leaf peeping... there were many aspen groves turning a brilliant gold in color. Their color was muted somewhat by the overcast skies, but the colors were still quite striking when contrasted against the evergreens that often surrounded them.

Some photos from our little excursion can be found here.

A Rough Morning for the Old Boy

During our nearly-daily post-getting-Chloe-on-the-bus-in-the-morning walk, I noticed Chamberlain take a step and then wobble for a brief moment, but then kept on chugging along.  When we got back to the house, though, a light trail of blood made me wonder if there was something more to that wobble.  It was then that I noticed that the dew claw on his front left leg was practically torn off.  I blotted the area as best I could (and as much as he would allow) then had him lay on his bed to let him, literally, lick his wound.

Chamberlain and his new accessories

A couple of minutes later, I checked on him and noticed he completely removed his dew claw, and there were a couple decent-sized blotches of blood on his bed.  I called the vet to give them the heads up we were heading down, secured some paper towels to his paw with rubber bands, got him in the car, and headed down to the vet.  It was there he was outfitted with that ever-so-stylish cone and bandage for his paw, and given an antibiotic. 

As if the dew claw incident wasn't enough, the vet also check Chamberlain's heart (he has a murmur) and based on that examination, the vet felt it was time to add a diuretic and venous dilator added to the Ol' Boy's daily cocktail of drugs.

A Quick Recap, and a Funny Incident Involving a "C"

Yes, I know there's been another gap of substantive posts from me (not that I consider our wedding anniversary "unsubstantial") but when things get busy, the blog takes a seat on the back burner.  But, because of a funny little incident this morning, I thought I'd bang out some words to give a quick update on things, and finish up with this morning's incident.

Finishing up the
TT in Steamboat

 - I'm still biking and racing, though my racing season comes to an end this month.  I was in a stage race in Steamboat Springs over labor day weekend.  It started out well (5th out of 43 in the TT) but the wheels came off on the following days... I had to avoid 2 crashes in the crit, and flatted going over some RR tracks in the road race.  It clearly wasn't my weekend to complete the race, so I DNF-ed.  Despite that disappointment, I'm very happy with my TT performance and place.  I'm currently taking part in a 4-week TT race series, the first was last Thursday.  Continuing the "luck" from Steamboat, I dropped a chain at the start and lost about 40"... I finished 12th out 23, but would have come in around 5th or 6th had I had a smooth start.

Chloe before her 1st
soccer match

 - Chloe's been in school about a month already and really enjoys her teacher.  Her fall soccer season started as well, and has played 2 games already.  She's playing well (though still has some "picking daisies" lapses), and seems more comfortable in the "defense" positions.
 - Peggy's work is going well, and, as anticipated during these first couple of months with her new company, has her traveling a lot lately. (I'm estimating that between July24th and today, we've been together as a family for 3 weeks.... some of it is her travel, some of that is my time in France.)  But, we knew this would be the case so it's not a complete shock.  She really enjoys her new colleagues and role, so that makes it a lot easier for her (and us) to deal with the separation.

 - And finally, Chamberlain, the seldom-mentioned member of the family... he's doing well, and is the subject of this morning's "incident."  I took him with me as I walked Chloe to the bus stop.  Once she boarded and departed, I continued to walk with him around the neighborhood for a bit.  We were walking on a sidewalk, when up ahead of us, I, and he, noticed a rabbit sitting along a fence.  He kept an eye on it as we got closer, and when we got to about 15 feet of it, it took off in front of us and across the street. 
     I fully expected to have a tug-o-war on my hands.  But instead, I watched Chamberlain watch the rabbit run, and then watched him walk over to the fence to where the rabbit was sitting and take a leak!

It was 14 years ago today, in a church in Clymer, PA...

... that I married the love of my life.