Other Than The Dirt, It's As If I Never Left

Our vacation is complete. :(

We wrapped it up with a 10 hour marathon drive home from Eldorado National Forest. That drive was actually not as bad as it sounds. It allowed me to slowly shift gears from vacation-no-phones-no-work-communications mode to real-life mode. Not that I wanted to shift gears, but it had to be done.

Three random notes -

• This year our only camping purchases were an air mattress and a coffee percolator. Both were highly valued. Next year, I'm buying a camp shower (stall optional). Grime and I do not belong together. I loved the place where we camped. However, there was a lot of loose dirt at the campsite and our feet were absolutely filthy after a few days of walking around in flip flops and river sandals. My feet were so filthy on the way home that I was almost too ashamed to enter Starbucks for my first Americano in four days. On the trip home when I wasn't driving I was trying to de-grime my tootsies.

• Also, the loose dirt did a number on the interior of my truck. We had to reload all the food and coolers into the truck each night to prevent those sneaky bears from snacking on our food. I must make an appointment to get the car interior detailed.

• During vacation I did not have any neck pain. That's a big deal because I'd slept in hotel beds, camp cots and air mattresses. I was back at my desk for 15 minutes and BAM - my neck was completely locked. It's not fair.

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Tent Camping in Eldorado National Forest

We're wrapping up our vacation this weekend. ** double frown**

Eldorado is beautiful. It's at a nice elevation, about 5000 ft; therefore, the weather is deliciously crisp. By crisp I mean in the thirties at night. We were grateful for that campfire/bonfire we cranked up last night. Our campsite is right along a stream and a short trail from the lake. Perfection.

Surprisingly, I like tent camping here. When I was a kid my family had a travel trailer and we made it one whole summer before we put in the air conditioner. We aren't "rough it" people.

You may be wondering why I'm on the internet. Steve and the rest of the boys wanted to check their fantasy baseball. My laptop has cellular broadband which to my surprise works in the middle of the forest. If it wasn't for the love of fantasy baseball, the laptop would still be in the truck.

This has been such a fun trip and full of great people and great places. I'm sorry to see our trip end.

Shutting down the laptop and heading out to enjoy the lake.

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Yosemite National Park

Steve and I decided to leave Tahoe early and go camping at Yosemite National Park for a few days. Actually, Steve decided to go to Yosemite since he knew I was disappointed that we couldn't stop there on the drive to Tahoe. Other than his bike ride in Tahoe, this vacation is relatively unstructured and we can go on side trips if we feel like it. Luckily, it's a bit before the main tourist season. We haven't had much trouble finding accomodations - in fact, we got a heated tent cabin inside Yosemite at Camp Curry.

I'd never been to Yosemite before; it's possible I've never been at a National Park either. If I had to describe Yosemite in one sentence it would be "Honey, stop the car because I need to take a picture of that." It's just so beautiful. I took tons of photos which all fail to capture how amazing Yosemite is.

We spent most of our time in the less inhabited places in the park - Merced Grove and the Tioga Pass meadows areas. There's still some snow left at the higher elevations and that area doesn't have tons of visitors in the spring. It does have lots of deers and bears. It was lovely, peaceful and so amazing. The waterfalls are absolutely amazing now as all of the snow melts and feeds into the falls.

We're off to camp in Eldorado National Forest for a few day - possibly more pics and posts later, but probably not.

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Lake Tahoe, AMBBR and SAG

Lake Tahoe is absolutely stunning. I love it and I'm incredibly happy to have made the trip.

I was a little worried about the trip, not about Tahoe, but about being there for America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride. This was the 100 mile bike ride that I decided not to do. Honestly, I was more than a little worried that I'd be heartbroken and petulant all weekend. It's not my nature to sulk, but then it's also not my nature to be a quitter either.

In fact, I had an absolutely fabulous time the day of the race. My job was to help with SAG - that's either "Support and Gear" or "Sympathy and Gear" depending on your day. First, I met the team at Inspiration Vista above Emerald Bay. It's beautiful there as you can clearly see in the photo. At Vista I took the cold weather gear they needed to ditch. I also snapped team photos and did whatever the riders needed. Then I had a few hours off so I went for a run. (Oh, I ran three times in Tahoe. Chi Running is awesome.) Finally, I wrapped up my day cheering on the cyclists at Spooner Summit. This was toward the end of the ride and after the cyclists had finished a 9 mile climb.

In total, I spent about 7 hours and it was great to be able to help people succeed. I had never done SAG at an event, but I've always always appreciated it. There have been plenty of events where some TNT person called out "GO TEAM" and it gave me the push I needed to reach the finish. Last night at the victory celebration someone said that seeing me at Spooner was like a "Ray of sunlight. All the cheering is great, but when it's someone you know cheering for you it's a big lift." Her taking time to say that made my weekend.

It is a huge lift to see a familiar face along the course. I'll always remember seeing Coach Ellen at mile 19 of my first marathon and seeing Steve cheering at Nike Women's Marathon. I hope I was able to provide some joy to the riders along the course.

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Hello From The High Sierras

The drive to Lake Tahoe from San Diego was nearly perfect. We had the lovely weather and we reached Tahoe just as the sun began to set. California is an incredibly beautiful state. Sometimes people think of California and they think about Los Angeles, San Francisco, traffic and smog. It's so much more that. It's beaches and deserts and forests and redwoods and mountains.

I snapped this somewhere along Highway 395. Instead of taking the slightly shorter trip on the 5, we took the rugged inland route through the mountains and the national forests. We were only a few miles from Yosemite and Sequoia, but I couldn't convince Steve to detour to let me see them. It would have taken hours and we'd have never reached Tahoe. On the way home, we're definitely going to take a quick trip to see Devil's Postpile.

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Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon

I did not want this "race" to end; I wanted to walk another few hours in the Redwoods. The course wasn't crowded with runners; there was a lot of time to simply enjoy the woods.



I hope to come back and do this race again.

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Heaven Looks Like This

After a hectic early morning of travel, I arrived in Humboldt, California for tomorrow's half marathon. We're staying at the cutest B&B, the Gingerbread Mansion. It's lovely here and smack in middle of the beautiful California redwoods. The redwoods are every bit as awesome as you might have heard.

The area has a very small town feel which I love. Well, except for the fact that medical (and recreational) marijuana is Humboldt's big industry due to the extremely high THC content in the local crop. In other words, Humboldt weed is the good stuff.

Still it's a conservative small town. I knew what I was getting as soon as I landed at the local airport and bait shop. Okay, it's not the bait shop, but it's a pretty darn small airport. In the ladies room there is the following sign:




Please notice the wording - not just California law but Common decency demands that you wash your hands. When is the last time you saw a sign that appealed to your common decency. In a small town, that's where you get signs like that.

Anyway, it's lovely here. A small, Victorian town snuggled in the majestic forest of redwoods.

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Revised - The 2008 Race Calendar

For the last few months I've been revising the 2008 race calendar. I added on a bunch of races mostly in beautiful places. Last year, when I'd consider a race I thought - is it pretty there? Now I only ask, is it flat?

It struck me that I hadn't mentioned all of the changes when I realized I had another race this weekend. On Sunday, I'm doing the Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon up in the gorgeous California Redwoods. At least I hear it's gorgeous. This will be my first trip there. This is strictly a girls trip and it should be a very, very slow "race". We're planning to stop and take pictures along the path. At the start of last week's race I told Marcy that I just wanted to get through La Jolla, but I was looking forward to the Avenue.

For 2008, I ended up dropping the only short distance races I had on my calendar, because I needed the longer miles to train for La Jolla. I'm also dropping my century ride, Disneyland and Reykjavík. I'm really bummed about missing Disney.. Nike Women's Marathon lost my interest when they went to a lottery system. It is a nice race, but it wasn't worth the lottery hassle.

Anyway, here's the new calendar - 13 medals is the goal for 2008. That's one more than I originally planned to accomplish.

January 20	Carlsbad Half Marathon	✔ Complete
February 3	San Francisco Half Marathon	✔ Complete
February 10	San Dieguito Half Marathon	✔ Complete
April 6	Carlsbad 5000	Hill training for La Jolla
April 13	San Diego Mud Run 5K	Hill training for La Jolla
April 27	La Jolla Half Marathon	✔ Complete
May 3	Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon	✔ Complete
May 18	Bay Bridge Run/Walk
June 1	America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride	I didn't like bike riding in traffic
June 22	IronGirl 10K
August 3	San Francisco Marathon	I'm going to run on the Golden Gate Bridge. Whee!
August 17	America's Finest City Half Marathon
August 23	Reykjavík Marathon	Not enough vacation time available. :(
August 31	Disneyland Half Marathon	Family wedding
September 6	Big Bear Half Marathon	Added this one because Steve likes Bear Shaped finishers medal
September 13	Heartbreak Ridge Half Marathon
September 28	Lake Tahoe Half Marathon	Added just because it seems pretty.
October 12	Long Beach Half Marathon	Added because it's a local event.
October 19	Nike Women's Marathon	The Lottery was stoopid.
November 9	Big Sur Half Marathon on Monterey Bay	Added because it's at Big friggin' Sur.
December 13	Rose Bowl Half Marathon

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News Flash - It's Cold

Growing up we were never allowed to say,"I can't." My Dad would always respond, "Can't means won't." Sure it was annoying, but it instilled in us a "Can do" attitude. When my nieces would say that they couldn't do something, I would always parrot back, "Can't means won't."

Tomorrow is the half marathon. While I'm sure I can do it, I'm not sure I want to do it. Here are 5 good reasons to skip it.

• It's cold and windy and rainy here. It's an unholy combination of bone chilling misery. Who thought February would be a good time to hold a race in San Francisco?
• I've finally gotten over the cough I picked up last week.
• We walked quite a bit today and my legs are a little tired.
• Rest would be a good thing. I start training for the century ride this week and I'm doing another half marathon next Sunday.
• If I do the half marathon it'll be a big inconvenience for everyone.

If I was smart, I'd simply skip this event. However, I'm no quitter. I'm may be stubborn as a mule and dumb as a bag of hair, but I'm tenacious about it. I've laid out all of my gear for the event. I'll take a look outside in the morning. If it really, really looks bad I'll skip the event.

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And Now The Calendars Just One Page

Hmm. It's been two weeks, you say? I don't know how that happened. December has been a whirlwind.

I'm visiting my parents for the holiday. The trip from the West Coast to the East Coast was a challenge. There was ample time to meditate while we sat on the runway for hours. Then there was some "quality time" in the terminal at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Sure, I ended up in a different airport than the one I had on my itinerary, but it was fine. My dad drove to get me at 2 a.m. He's a trooper.

When it's all said and done, I did make it home for Christmas Eve unlike some people I met in at O'Hare. If you look closely at the blurry camera phone photo, you'll see the cots that were set up in the airport terminal. That's no way to spend the holiday.


I hope that all of you find your way home for the holidays. Merry Christmas!

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Itinerary

I'm not saying that I'm doing any of these marathons but, here is a list of some international marathons that interest me.

March: Rome, Monte Carlo,
April: Paris, Zürich, Madrid, Vienna,
May: Prague, Edinburgh, Stockholm, Beijing,
June: Mount Kilimanjaro, Saint Petersburg, Mont Saint Michel,
July: Perth, Gold Coast,
August: Reykjavik, Berlin, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Isle of Man,
September: Sidney, Warsaw, Moscow,
October: Venice, Istanbul, Auckland, Munich,
November: Athens, Florence, Palermo,
December: Milan,

I'm just putting that out to the universe.

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I'll Take This Under Advisement

Steve has been advocating skipping the Spring Marathon season and training for a Century Ride instead.

A century ride is -
100 miles.
On a bike.
That I would need to pedal.

Actually, the pedaling is fine. I like pedaling the bike. On the other hand, I have a rather delicate tush. Steve and I rented bikes to explore the Aran Islands in Ireland. After about 90 minutes on the bike I had a tender bruise on my butt bone. Do you see how happy Steve looks in the photo? That's because he doesn't have a sore bottom. A day later we flew home to San Diego. The 12 hour flight was an adventure of fidgeting trying to find a sitting position that was both comfortable and not putting weight on my bruise.

Today was the Team In Training Alumni Celebration. It was great to see everyone again, especially since everyone did really great in their marathons. Over the course of the party several folks came over to tell me that me ride in the Aran Islands should not deter me from the Century ride. Amicus briefs were filed to point out that my problems in Ireland were the result of a poorly fitted bike, a saddle designed for men, and lack of appropriate cycling shorts, etc..

Personally, I think it's that I have a super sensitive "Princess and the Pea" tush. Unless I can find some sort of super soft, Lazy-Boy recliner bike saddle I'm not sure this Century ride idea is going to work.

However, I'm willing to listen to arguments to participate in the Century. Potentially, I will be riding in "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride" in Lake Tahoe on June 1, 2008. Just be sure you understand that I have not committed to this.

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Hello Reality, Did you miss me?

We're back home from Ireland. It was a busy trip with the marathon and the zigzagging across the Emerald Isle, but we managed to see a lot of country. Hopefully, Steve got some good pictures. I always forget to take out my camera and snap a photo.

Now I'm trying to get my head back into my real world. That involves mountains of laundry and getting ready for another half marathon this Sunday. In other news, I start a new job on Monday which is 95% yippee and 5% worry. This was the first vacation of my adult life where I didn't have to go back to my old job. I've spent most vacations worrying a bit about the work that was piling up at home.

Here is a photo I took at one of my favorite spots in Ireland. It's at the Meeting of the Waters in Killarney National Park. We spent a day walking on the trails there. It was a glorious place. Kudos to Steve for insisting that we spend an extra day hiking there.

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Greetings from Ireland

Ireland is lovely. Other than getting caught in a bit of a rain - okay, a downpour - it's been dry and warm.

The marathon was fabulous. I'll post photos of my swag when I get back to California.

The Guinness does taste better here.

Love to all - Photos and Stories soon!

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Scotland Revisited

This post is just for my traveling compadres. Whenever I think of the Scotland trip, I think of how Carla once described it: "The perfect mix of people, places and personalities. I wouldn't change a thing. It's too bad we could never duplicate it." She's right. That trip was an absolute gift.

It's hard to believe how different all our lives are from three years ago when we took that trip. There have been so many good things - 6 marriages, 1 baby one the way, at least 10 job changes, 3 major moves. Sadly there was also the passing of our fabulous host, tour guide and raconteur - Ru's father.

I'm going to steal a little bandwidth from Larry's server and link in a few pics. He'll forgive me. (I hope!)

The first photo is practically a postcard photo that Roger took of Dunnottar Castle outside Abedeen.

The second photo is a bunch of us at Dunnottar.

The third photo is all of us in a pub in Oban. Ru's mom is in the shot, but his dad is sort of hidden. And is Ru cupping my bum? I don't remember that!

Photo 4 is one Larry took of me and the other boys.

The fifth photo is one of Carla and I. I love this photo so much. I had that photo posted next to my desk in my office for a long time.

The last photo is one we asked a stranger to snap for us. It was our last night in London, just before we hopped on the London Eye. If you look closely you can see that I'm wearing the crazy sandals that Tina and I bought in London. I'm still wearing mine, Tina!

It was a great trip. I miss you guys.

P.S. To my Scotland Trip Compadres: There are planes that fly from where y'all are to San Diego. Come visit me!

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The Amazing Suitcase

Last night Steve and I were talking about which suitcases to take with us Ireland. I am a devotee of the carry-on bag. It doesn't matter how long the trip is, I only take my carry-on suitcase. Checked baggage seems to get lost and I hate waiting for bags when my flight lands. More importantly, I don't like to have to ask for help with my suitcases. Too many bags makes shuffling through the airport difficult.

Steve asked if I could really squeeze two weeks worth of clothing into a tiny bag. Everyone who went on the Scotland trip is laughing and laughing. That trip was longer than two weeks and I squeezed everything into my carry-on. My companions joked that the bag had some sort of compression function, because it seemed an endless amount of items could come out of that bag.

With all that stuff meticulously compacted into that bag, it was ridiculously heavy. I'm very strong and I would have had a hard time heaving it into the overhead bin. Luckily, on every leg of the journey some poor, sweet man would generously offer to lift it for me.

The conversation always went like this:

Sweet Man: Let me put that in the overhead bin for you.

Me: Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that. It's so heavy.
Sweet Man: Puffs Chest w/ Machismo Oh, then you should definitely let me do that for you.
Me: Taking a seat and getting comfortable Gee thanks, I appreciate it.

Then the poor, sweet man would practically give himself a hernia trying to heave that thing into the bin. This was always to snickering amusement of my traveling companions. And I was truly thankful. I could have lifted it, but I was grateful that I didn't have to do so.

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Road Trip Diary

Really, we just wanted to eat breakfast at Cracker Barrel and get a drink at the Sonic Drive-In.

Yuma, Arizona is the closest place with Sonic and a Cracker Barrel, so Jen, Debbie and I packed into the car and drove East. Of course, we picked the hottest weekend of the summer to drive to the desert - we're crazy like that. A few side trips en route made for a fun 2 days.

Here are the high points -

Went to my first Pow Wow. Apparently, it's Pow Wow season in Southern California. I'd like to go to another one when I have a bit more knowledge of what's happening.



Ate (and ate and ate) at Cracker Barrel.



Went to the Center of the World in Felicity, California. It was closed.

Finally made it to my beloved Sonic Drive-In. Ordered a Route 44 sized (44 ounce) Sonic-Diet-Cherry-Limeade-with-Diet-Cherry-Syrup-and-extra-cherries. Also ordered a Route 44 sized cup of the fabulous Sonic crushed ice. Oh Sweet Sonic - I've missed you since I moved to San Diego. I was crushed to discover that I did not receive a Sonic-Diet-Cherry-Limeade-with-Diet-Cherry-Syrup-and-extra-cherries. It was some mystery drink. Then I accidentally spilled the entire a Route 44 sized mystery drink on Debbie. Returned to hotel to clean up Debbie and the car. Returned to Sonic to get correct drink. Entered state of bliss while finally drinking Route 44 sized Sonic-Diet-Cherry-Limeade-with-Diet-Cherry-Syrup-and-extra-cherries.


We ran out of gas while trying to reach the Desert Tower on In-Ko-Pah Road in Jacumba, California. Called tow truck and sat down to wait. That's when I realized that my bladder is not Route 44 sized. I propose changing the name of In-Ko-Pah Road to In-No-Potty Road. Proceeded to beg a stranger for use of a bathroom. A Giant Lizard ran across my feet while I was "indisposed." The Horror!

We decide to forget about visiting the Desert Tower; proceeded directly to famed Wisteria Candy Cottage. Decide the candy isn't actually all that great. We ate it anyway.


Wrapped up trip at Mount Helix. Looked out from the mountaintop at my beautiful San Diego.

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