Hillbilly Living Room

 I must admit, after being a bit wary of Minnesota my first few months here, it's starting to grow on me a bit. (Not that I'll ever get used to the horrible drivers, but I think I can live that. Maybe...) However, city life just wasn't my thing so when the lease was up, I moved to the country. I just went ahead and skipped right on past the 'burbs and found the most remote place possible with a reasonable commute. (After all, I must limit my exposure to the horrific driving of the Minnesotans.) Usually the first half of my commute involves more passing of tractors than cars so I think it's gonna work out just fine...

Fortunately, I can afford a bigger place in the country. Unfortunately, I'm a bit short on furniture. 

Big E suggested I buy one of those camp chairs for two. I think he was kidding, but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea. Now if I could just build a campfire in the living room...

Living in the boonies comes with a few perks:

Of course, there are a few oddities as well:

There's something about me living in the boonies that always seems to involve dead rodents.... I've upgraded (I think) from rats to flying squirrels to bats.

In the meantime, Sam is enjoying some cyclocross riding without the extra dozen or so pounds she had to lug around on the Gravel Conspiracy.

So many kinds of riding, so little time....

Gravel Conspiracy

It's done- three days of gravel road racing, somewhere between 290 and 300 miles, a little bit of bush whacking and tons of fun.


I'd been half excited about and half terrified by this race all summer. Honestly, I was looking forward to all the miles of riding. Granted, there were going to be two days in a row longer than I'd ever ridden in a day, but I was oddly psyched up about that many hours on a bike. On the other hand, I was completely convinced I was going to be stomped to death by a moose.

I know, I know, I need to get over this whole animal fear thing. First it was the pig at Ragnarok and now it's the moose.

Anyway, I survived day one without being stomped to death. I even went to the front once after of few miles down the road, just because I figured it would be my only chance, ever in my life, to either lead a race or ride by Big E and yell, "Why you going so slow?"  I mean, if I was going to die by moose stomping, I had to at least accomplish these two things first, right?

After camping out the first night, we set out for our longest day on Saturday. The boys definitely didn't roll out in a nice, easy paced pack like they did the first day so I was alone from the get go. (Great, perfect opportunity for that moose to get me.) After riding alone most of the morning, I was happy to see Joshua, The Head Conspirator (HC), at mile 70.

 

 I was tempted to linger there for awhile and drink hot cocoa, but when he told me Big E had left a few minutes before, I hurried my butt up.

 

 This is me laughing because I told them I was trying to catch Big E because I figured he'd have a flask. Really I just wanted to be near him and his big biceps so he could protect me from that killer moose. 

So, I took off down the road, hopeful to catch people and found myself alone, yet again, for another 35 miles or so. The route got more remote at that point and I was headed down a forest road covered in fallen trees. It briefly occurred to me that maybe this remote road wasn't such a great idea alone, but my headstrong side pushed ahead. Then the road ended, right there in the middle of the woods, where all the angry moose live. Not to mention bears and wolves. 

Thankfully for me, right at that moment, while I was deciding whether to risk bushwhacking alone or to just turn back, three guys popped out of the woods, followed by Big E. He did not look happy. Apparently, they'd been bushwhacking for an hour. Since their route hadn't gone anywhere, we all headed off into the bush another direction.  Eventually this group of five became about 12 as we picked up more guys who'd been lost.

Now, I know this might be every girl's dream to be lost in the woods with a dozen fit men. It might even be mine under different circumstances. Unfortunately, it's not all that exciting when they're all grouchy. On the bright side, I knew had Big E, his biceps and 10 other people to protect me from the big bad moose.

Long story short, we backtracked, made it out to the main road and headed into Ely.  The HC headed out with the moving truck to initiate a search for anyone behind us who might be lost in the dark. I had high hopes that he'd find them quickly because all of our dry clothes were in the truck. I was so hopeful, in fact, that I jumped into  a hot bath at our rented house, thinking I'd get to wear dry clothes when I got out. An hour and a half later, I lay in bed naked, deciding whether to skip dinner or suck it up and put the wet kit back on. Of course dinner won out. 

The next morning, I'll admit, I wasn't too wide awake at the start.

 

Thankfully, everyone else seemed a bit slow to start too, so I got to ride with some company for the first 10 miles. Of course, I couldn't hang with the fast crew after that so I was back to being moose bait. 

I'll be honest, it was a long day. After somewhere between 125 and 130 miles the day before (my computer got reset by the bushwhacking!) my legs were tired. I didn't make the day any shorter by getting a flat and then adding on a few extra miles of "sightseeing." I suffered. I loved it though. I knew, even when I thought my knee wouldn't push down on the pedal anymore, that I'd finish this day.  At that point, the only thing that probably could have stopped me would have been that stomping moose, and even then I would've put up a pretty big fight. 

The last few miles were all down hill. I'd stupidly left my jacket in the truck partway through the day. I was left with a shortsleeve jersey, arm warmers, a hat and some toe warmers that I stuck to my stomach. (No, toe warmers on your stomach do not keep you warm when you're riding downhill in the cold.) Still, when I made the last turn into town and I knew I'd finally get to be warm, I felt a pang of disappointment.

Fakin' a smile at the finish right before I realized I couldn't lift my leg over my bike!

I thought I'd be elated. I thought I'd be relieved it was over. I did feel those things, but the disappointment was there too. It was over, my little (okay, my huge) adventure was coming to an end. My new friends would all be heading home and there'd be no more miles to ride, no more stories to share, no more jokes to tell. (Well, at least not until next time....)

When I told Big E this later, he smiled and said that was The HC's point all along when he organized this race. So thanks HC for putting on an awesome event that allowed us all to have an adventure and make some new friends along the way. 

All pictures, except the last one that Big E took, were stolen from The HC. Thanks for that too!

Sweet Dreams...

"If you want to have sweet dreams, you have to live a sweet life." Barbara Kingsolver

August was certainly a month for living the sweet life.  Somewhere between packing to move out of my apartment, acquiring a new office space and starting a new teaching job, I managed to log a heck of a lot of miles out on the trail. Of course, since I'm still severely uncoordinated on a mountain bike, I also acquired this the night before I started the new job:

My new boss gets cool points for finding this amusing.

Thankfully the swelling had gone down by the time I went to surprise Pop by visiting him in my favorite place on earth.

Okay, so maybe Mama Liz isn't making is look so appealing in her winter clothing, but I didn't say it was warm in northern MI, I just said it was beautiful! 

Of course, upon surprise arrival at their cabin, I was greeted by Amanda, the super guard dog:

Of course, I didn't think this licking was so cute after Pop informed me that the reason the vet put the cone on her head was to keep her from licking her own paw because her mouth is so full of nasty bacteria. Excellent. I'll be disinfecting my lips daily from now on....

The sweet life continued in MI with a lot of fun laughs with friends, some early birthday celebrations and a lot of time on my favorite trails.

I believe I once thought I could never ride this...

I mean, really, where else in the world could you be mountain biking and end up here? Not that I wasn't tortured by a few miles of uphill in the sand to get there, but then aren't some of the best things in life often hard to find?

I returned back to MN just in time to continue celebrating my birthday (who doesn't like to celebrate for a whole week) with a race on the actual day and food so good Big E licked the plate the day after.

Note to self: Don't dare this guy to do anything you don't actually want him to do in public.

Can't say it was a bad August! September started off fabulous so far too with a driveway bonfire:

complete with ghetto guac:

Sweet dreams!

True Romance

Since I'm a girl, when I asked Big E to go for a full moon ride with me on Friday night, I was sort of hoping for something like this:

You know, we have a nice dinner, then we ride our bikes out to the lake and the moon rises and all is right with the world. In fact I was hoping so much for this that I completely ignored Big E when he reminded me of the weather report during dinner. I also ignored him when he pointed out the lightning off to the west as we started our ride.

In my defense, it still wasn't raining when we reached Lake Minnetonka. But then, we couldn't smooch in the moonlight either because the moon was buried beneath clouds that should've been a warning to me to stop ignoring the weather report and the lightning.

What can I say? I'm stubbornly hopeful. Or maybe hopefully stubborn? Either way, instead of my romantic moonlight kiss, I got to ride the last few miles in something like this:

Just pretend the light in the picture is lightning and add in some 50 mph winds.

Of course, I added to the romanticness of all of this by nearly riding head on into the curb. Rumor has it I made some sort of tortured cat noise right before I somehow managed to get my body off the bike before I faceplanted.

Thank goodness, because it would really suck to end a romantic evening with a road-rashed face.

Instead, it ended in the bar with a little whisky, hot cocoa and Bailey's. Who says a little rain has to ruin an evening?

Let Them Eat Cake!

 For every sad moment in my life, I'm blessed with thousands of wonderful moments.  Not many people have a guy who will make them birthday cake when it's not their birthday! I'll admit I cried, but I still blew out on the candles and made a wish.

The weeks have been filled with pizza eating and being cool:

 

 

 

Big E, aka Ponch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mountain bike racing:

Greatest race face ever...

 And a girl's night when I'd planned to throw my panties at the movie screen, but decided the reserved crowd at Magic Mike might have me thrown out. Oh well, I hooted and hollered anyway.

 Thanks to all of you who commented, sent me nice emails or gave me big hugs after my last post. You're all awesome!

Birthdays.....

My First Photo

I love old photos. The originals. The ones with mom's tiny, perfect handwriting on the back. The ones with the date printed right there on the side. This one says Aug. 71 on the side so I was less than a week old. On the back, mom simply wrote, "My First Photo." There are hundreds more photos, most with her writing on them, detailing moments of my life.

She didn't keep a journal. By the time I went away to college, it was much easier to call than write so I have only one letter. The writing on the photos is what I have left of her voice. I'm left to imagine what it sounded like.

I'd venture a guess that July 25 was probably the day of her life when I talked to her most. It was her birthday. Today she would be 68. I was there for at least 18 of those. I'm sure I called her on 21 more to sing happy birthday. If I imagine hard enough, I can hear her laugh. My singing always made her laugh.

The day she died, I accidentally dialed her on my cell phone as I walked into the house. I hung up before it rang, thinking I'd call her later. She was already gone. Someone was already on the way to my house to tell me. It was only a few minutes later that I was curled in a ball on a friend's kitchen floor, hysterical, trying to figure out how to take my first breath without her. It seems odd that I could live miles away from her for over 20 years and still feel her absence so severely all in one brief moment.  It was as if I felt her get immediately sucked out of my life and for a few brief moments I had to cling to myself to make sure I didn't lose a little bit of me too. And who am I do say that I didn't? Can you really be exactly the same when someone who profoundly affected your life is suddenly gone?

Although I'm left to imagine her voice, thankfully I actually know the last thing she said to me. It was either "I love you," or "I love you, too." This is how we always left it, even on her birthday. 

Even Monday Can Be A Favorite Day

 

Wouldn't it be awesome if today could always be your favorite day? If every one could be just a little bit better than the one before?

I know it's not realistic because we all know bad things happen, but I do think there are ways to try to make today the favorite as much as possible. For instance, sometimes making today your favorite day just means forgetting about yesterday. If it was crappy, let it go and start over. Pretty easy way to make today better than yesterday at least. If yesterday was great, let today be awesome in a different way. A lot of us hate Monday because we have to work, but you never know, Monday could turn out pretty amazing if you get a great new client or snag a promotion or win the lottery..... Just a thought....

On that note, some photos from my favorite days of the last few weeks:

Obviously, I should just put my shoes on before I leave the house to lead the group run because I showed up at Urban Tri last week with these in my backpack. Sometimes you just have to go with it...

Speaking of going with it, most of my favorite days lately have involved conquering my fears on the mountain bike, which usually involve bridges.

Of course those are all pics from my phone that I sent to people to say, "Hey, I finally did this!" Actually I think I sent them all to my friend Joe. I'm still trying to make up for the day he had to witness the worst breakdown on the trail EVER. Oddly, I think that day ended up being a favorite, even though we ended up riding in thunder and lightning. A lesson learned from the bridges- sometimes it's best to just look ahead toward your destination and not worry about how scary it is to get there.

Of course, how could a day not turn into a favorite when I discover that my favorite biking snack is available at Costco for a mere 43 cents a piece?

Somehow, even this day ended up a favorite (Don't worry, Pop, I pulled over to take the picture):

 

Mostly because it ended up with this. (And thirty degrees cooler.)

Now go on, make today your favorite....