Pacific Northwest Postcard

Steve and I are in Seattle. I'd never visited before and it's a lovely city, very green with lots of beautiful sunshine. We spent our first two days here as tourists: visiting the Seattle Art Museum, riding the ferry (where I snapped the photo below), shopping at Pike's Place Market to get fresh steamed crab, picnicking overlooking the Puget Sound.

Today I got up at 3:30 A.M. to run in the inaugural Rock and Roll Seattle Marathon & Half Marathon. I had two happy surprises during the race. First, I spotted a bald eagle during the run. Actually, I spotted a bunch of people taking pictures of something in a tree. Those people pointed out the eagle. If you've never seen one in its natural habitat, the bald eagle is a beatiful, majestic bird.

The second happy surprise was having my first decent run in months. I was slow, but I wasn't in pain. I've been running with injuries to both feet since last December. It's crazy, but I've run 8 half marathons on aching heals. Today, it took me a long time to start running well. I was into mile 2 before I felt limber, but once I got going I got stronger every mile. I finished 13.1 miles feeling better than I had at mile 2. As I neared the finish line I realized I wasn't running in pain. Honestly, I started to cry because I was so thankful.

After the race, we met up with Steve's parents who spent the day showing us Seattle. Steve's stepmom grew up here and she drove us to all the good spots: a locals only restaurant for lunch, then out to Leschi Park on the shore of Lake Washington, up the hills in the Queen Anne neighborhood for a fantastic view of the city. Tomorrow we're hoping to visit the aquairum and some other spots before we hop our flight home.

As much fun as the tourist stuff has been, I'll always remember Seattle as the place a was reminded of what it's like to fun joyfully. I'll be sorry to leave tomorrow.

Happy Father's Day

I was looking through some family photos for the perfect snapshot of my Dad for my Father's Day post. That's when I realized I don't have any photos of my Dad alone. He's always surrounded by his wife, daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters and great-grandson. (Yes, we finally got another boy in the family.) In all our photos he's making us laugh and you can see how much he loves us and we love him. That is just about perfect.

And then there's one photo where my Dad is inexplicably with Willie Nelson.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Here are Dad, me and Mom in Cabo San Lucas. We're sitting on sandbags in preparation for a hurricane.	Post hurricane. Still laughing.
Dad and I putting on our helmets at Nascar Driving School at Texas Motorspeedway. (His Father's Day present.)	Making me laugh at my Penn State graduation.
Dad goofing around with his granddaughters after one of our Monday night family dinners.	My Dad with my Mom, my sister and his granddaughters all grown into young women.
Mom, Dad and the first 2 great-grand kids. There are 2 more great-granddaughters now.	Dad and Willie Nelson. What can I say? Everyone loves my Dad.

The Tahoe Trade Off

Two weeks ago Steve was cheerleader extraordinare for me and my run team at the Rock N Roll marathon. Last weekend it was my turn to support his cycling team at America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride in Lake Tahoe. I didn't have much to do except photograph the team's finishers. We flew to Tahoe and I didn't have a car to chase the riders for 100 miles. Instead I plopped down at the finish line and snapped photos.

Here are our San Diego riders coming across the line - look at those clean pace lines. There's no team in the ride that's more trained and efficient at pace lining. Lots of teams rode in swarms, but Team San Diego rides smart.

Here are the guys showing off there medals and reminding you it was 1oo miles!