Trip Home

We are planning our trip home in a few weeks. Here's the itinerary:
Aug 9 - Cubs/Rockies game in Denver, then start driving
Aug 10 - arrive in Rockford
Aug 11 - arrive in Chatham
Aug 15 - arrive in T-town
Aug 19 - arrive in L-P
Aug 23 - drive home

We'll be taking the upper route (I-80) both ways. We'd love to see anyone along the way or at one of our stops. (As I'm writing this I kind of feel like I'm going on tour or something weird like that!) Anyway, contact myself or Nick if you'll be around or if we can meet up with you at some point. See you soon!

Lost Lake

As soon as summer school ended on July 10, we headed out for a week of camping. Nick had spent lots of time researching the best place for us to land and he sure picked an amazing place. Lost Lake campground (near Crested Butte) was accessed by going over one dirt-road pass (Cottonwood Pass), then going for a bit on 82 and 133 through Carbondale and finally on to road 12, which is Kebler Pass (another dirt road). After winding our way on road 12 for about 15 miles, we came to the campsite. Well, after we went about 2 miles on another winding, dirt road, then we came to the campsite. There were lots of lower sites along the dirt road, but the top is where the beauty was. We ended up staying at a lower site the first night because the sites around the lake were full. (The bugs were so bad I ate dinner in the tent. The dogs were begging to go to bed in the tent because they were swollen with bug bites. Nasty!)

We got up at the butt-crack of dawn the next morning and staked out a site that people were leaving. I even got brave enough to ask if I could park my bike on their site until they left so that I could claim it for us. The lady gave me a "you go girl!" and the site was ours. It was beautiful...right on the lake, big enough for our tent, Torrey and Alana's tent, and also a shade tent to store things under, and fortunately, had very few bugs! Here's the view from our site: We had no real plan for the week, which is what made it so appealing for vacation. We had planned out meals ahead of time and split the duties with Torrey and Alana, so we basically only had to cook and do dishes about 5 times between breakfasts and dinners...lunch was always on our own. I appreciated the elevation of our campsite (about 9,200 ft) because my triathlon this weekend is in Leadville (almost 10,000 ft elevation). So I got a few runs and bikes in at high altitude, with plenty of relaxation. We hiked Beckwith Pass (about 7 miles round trip) and spent most afternoons sitting in the lake in our lawnchairs, fishing, having a beer, reading books and just enjoying the views and peace of the land.

We went in to Crested Butte a few times to get ice, fish, hike and shop. Each journey in to town was entertaining because there was a huge herd of sheep grazing on the land and road, so you never knew when you were going to meet up with them and their sheep dogs. We had dinner at a place called the Brick Oven Pizza one night...amazing pizza! Lunches were at a small park in Crested Butte when we were in town and somehow, for the first time in their lives, our 3 crazy dogs were complimented for being "so well behaved." Right....pretty sure the people were out of their minds...may have had something to do with the high elevation??

One day we ventured out to Gothic, a small town just north of Mt. Crested Butte. They currently house college students and scientists who do research in the mountains. We found a waterfall along the road and for some unkown reason (I blame it on Nick or Torrey...for sure not myself nor Alana), it was decided we should climb to the top of the waterfall. Hmmm, not our brightest idea. If you look in the picture above us and to the right, you can see the waterfall. I made it higher than this picture, and Nick and Torrey made it even higher than I did. Something made me pretty nervous though when Nick couldn't get down without Torrey's help because he had a blind descent...Let's just stay on marked trails, shall we? :-)

The trip was amazing with so much hiking, biking, fishing, time to read good books, time to just sit and look at the flowers and mountains, good conversation...I could go on and on. We have lots of pictures on facebook for everyone to check out. Thank you so much to Nick, Alana, Torrey, Wrigley, Rusty and Sophie for one of the most relaxing experiences of my life. On this trip I learned to drive our car (finally!), fish with my cheap Wal-Mart pole and was pushed to the extreme on our hikes. What a great time...how lucky I am to live in this place!

Vail Grind

Wednesday was the Vail Grind race at Vail Resort. The name says it all, the course was an absolute GRIND. Did not fit my riding style at all with a long about 2.5-3 mile punchy style climb, followed by a 2 mile technical and steep downhill. I bonked big time about halfway through the first of 2 laps, and then just struggle to maintain some type of momentum to the finish. I finished I think 19th of 30 some. Feel like I should be in the top 10-15 every race, so kind of dissappointed. Some pics are on the link of the last race blog that I wrote. Heading to Crested Butte for some camping.
http://www.mcclarrinonphotography.com/gallery/8855216_Z3ABJ#586878917_DMHTC

Happy 4th to all, and most Beautiful Ride!

Happy 4th of July! This morning I left for a ride at 7:30. It was gorgeous outstide. I decided to do about 20 miles so that I could get back and watch the Tour De France. I started heading up Valley road along Gypsum Creek, plan was to go up ten miles, and come back down. However the scenery was so absolutely gorgeous, basking in the morning sunlight, that I just couldn't turn around. The majority of the ride was on dirt road, all along Gypsum Creek, and slowly climbing. I have never been up here before, but this was one of, if not THE, most beautiful ride I have ever done! Road ride that is anyway. I just couldn't stop, I kept wanting to see around the next bend in the road. The properties and ranches up there were just absolutely stunning, set in the valley, with sheer rock walls on one side, and luscious pine forests on the other, with the creek flowing down through the middle of each property. Excellent fishing and hunting locations! I even found a little place for sale. 59 acres of stream side property! This would be close to my dream property, at least as close as I have seen yet. I only saw 3 cars the entire 40 mile ride. I eventually had to turn around cause it was getting too muddy for my skinny tires. I will for sure be heading back up this way sometime soon, and will try to get some good pics.

Gotta go mine for gold so that I can buy that real estate someday.........

Rafting and Tennis Stars

As a wedding gift, the lovely wife bought me a rafting trip on the Colorado down through Glenwood Canyon from Grizzly Creek down past South Canyon. We took Wednesday and left after summer school. It was a half day trip that started at 1. Natalie was fairly nervous, as she had never been on the Colorado before, and you see some pretty large rapids driving up I-70 through the canyon. We had a beautiful day for it, high 80's low 90's and sunny! We got placed on a boat with 6 others, (5 of which were originally from STL and big cardinal fans!) the other was a girl from Romania. Natalie and I sat at the back of the boat next to the guide. The trip was through Colorado Whitewater . They did an excellent job organizing the trip, and our guide was interesting as well. Made for a fun day. The video below is one of the rapids we went through. Not the biggest, but a large man-made rapid. This is actually the Glenwood Springs surf hole for kayakers and surfers. It's a pretty awesome wave, and you can see what happens if you don't hit it with enough force in a raft. Fortunately for us, we hit it with plenty of speed to just blow right through it.

Sticking with the Wimbledon theme (ANDY RODDICK WINS!!! and will face FEDERER in the final!!! GO RODDICK!!!!!) The lovely Natalie and I went out to play tennis after summer school yesterday. Let's just say we were both a little rusty...... I do believe that her brothers and sister would have made fun of her just a little bit.... I also was not very good. Just makes you appreciate it all the more the things that they do at Wimbledon. It was fun though, and after almost making through the first set it started to sprinkle, so we called it a day and headed home.