Falls into winter

I had an enjoyable Thanksgiving at my Aunts house in Norfolk, VA with a small group of family. The turkey was great and the veggies, root like and yummy. The dogs ran and ran and ran themselves ragged. I played disc golf Friday at the local course. Most courses seem short after playing Bryan park all the time and Seneca occasionally.  But it was nice to get out and walk around. Especially with the gorgeous weather we've been having. I hope everyone else had a good holiday as well.

I came home Sat. and unpacked and did laundry and relaxed some more. Sunday I went for a bike ride early in the morning. My old co-worker and his roommate rode with me and it was a good ride, like usual. With temps in the high 60's and the sun out, it was as good as it gets. At any time of the year. Really. It was great. I also took Maddog to the dog park in the afternoon so he didn't get too depressed not having his cousin to run around with.

I went to Walnut Creek last weekend with my old-coworker and met another guy there. Another crazy good weather day, and it was lots of fun. It almost seemed sorter than I remember. I don't think we went more than 12 miles, which is what the Richmond trails are. The hills are much more significant, but I felt good. Tired, but not exhausted.

I haven't been climbing in quite a long time now, and sometimes I get this strong urge to go back to the gym. Most of the time it subsides and I don't go and don't worry about it. I've been riding quite a bit and enjoying it now that the smallest hill doesn't wipe me out. My lungs and legs can push farther for longer and with practice comes a small skill set. I'm getting farther in the rock gardens and getting through turns with less braking. Kirk once asked me if I'd ever be more of a rider than a climber. If you go by how much someone does something, then I'd have to say I am more rider than climber now by a lot, and mentally I'm probably as close as I'll get.

Given the opportunity to go climbing, or go riding, at any point, I'd probably still say climbing though. That may be because I haven't been in so long and just want something different, but part of me really does like the problem solving aspect of bouldering, and the cold hard rock under my fingers. My crash pad and climbing shoes still live in the trunk of my car, "just in case."

Another part of me thinks I could actually be stronger now for a couple reasons. First, my legs are stronger from biking which would help no doubt. I've also lost a few pounds since the last time I climbed, and got a new personal best in pull ups the other week. Both the weight and pull ups I'd like to attribute to my food choices. Eating better and more sleep, I think have upped my potential. One of these days I'll get back out onto a rock and we'll see how it plays out. Hopefully this winter I'll spread my time a little more evenly on hobbies.

Deadskins vs 49ers

Oops, I mean Redskins. I guess it's all the same. My college roommates had some extra tickets for the 49er game and invited me to come along. I went to one game last year with them, where it was raining and cold. While still fun, this years weather was much more conducive to tailgating.

And the game, well it went just like the past 3 redskins games.

Winter is (t)here

Vernon, NJ was even more rude than expected. We drove north Saturday morning with an early rainy start. The closer we got the colder it became, while still raining. We called about an hour ahead of our ETA to make sure they were still open. As it started to snow where we were at that point in time, we asked if it was precipitating. They said no. We hoped they knew what "precipitating" meant because there was slush falling from the sky.

 

I believe the snow was following us, because as we pulled into the parking lot, the slush turned to snow and we geared up as best we could. We were prepared for some "precipitation" but after about 2 hrs of riding, we couldn't see the trail anymore and had to finish early. The roads became treacherous at best and impassable at some points. Luckily, the impassible parts were headed in the other direction. Multi-car pile ups of people with 2 wheel drive cars getting stuck going up or coming down hills. It was a mess!

Thankfully, the Subaru Outback with all wheel drive was awesome! and got us safely to my old college friend Liz's place, just in time for the power to go out. All the leaves still on the trees made it impossible for the limbs to stay in place with all that snow. We cooked by gas stove, and ate by candle light and just hung out. It was a great time. All said and done, there was about a foot of snow where we stayed, and ~16 inches at the bike trails.

It did stop snowing and the sun came out on Sunday, so the roads were much better, but the biking was still canceled. Thinking we might be able to ride in northern VA by my friend Scott's house, we headed out in the morning. Unfortunately, all the trails were closed do to more precipitation, of the watery kind, that fell all day Saturday in NOVA too. We were just not meant to ride on Sunday.

It made for a good road trip and I got to use the all wheel drive, but it was a lot of driving for way too little riding. Next year, we won't wait until the last weekend of the season to go to Vernon, NJ.

Panoramas

Here's a couple pictures I put together after way too much work looking for a decent free stitching program. The first three are from Northern NM in August on vacation. The last is from mid October in the Shenandoah National Park.

 

 

Weekends

This past weekend my old friend Lamar from highschool came over from Kentucky for the day. We drove around town just to see a little bit of Richmond from the car. Then we went to my place. We went out Friday night and did some bar hopping, hitting about 6 different spots.

The highlight of the night probably being when we pranked one of the bartenters. There was a 52 year old white man sitting next to us, who suggested we use his ID for Lamar. When the bartender saw it, he was obviously confused and when he looked at me, Lamar jokingly got mad at him, then we quickly gave him the real ID and we all had a good laugh. Especially when he cursed the other guy.

 Lamar is a really good wing man, and if I'd been on my game, it would've been more fun, but I was not. And even though I really didn't know what places were good or where to go, we found plenty of stuff very easily, which gives credit to Richmond city and it's ease and quality.

He had a 6am flight, so we didn't stay out all too late. And I had planned on meeting a friend to go riding early in the morning Saturday, but wasn't up for it first thing after going out the night before. I did manage to get myself out riding later in the day. The weekend was finished off by going down to Norfolk to see my Grandma who was visiting my aunt and uncle. Another gorgeous weekend weather wise.


This next weekend might be a rude winter slap in the face. I'm headed to Vernon, NJ with Scott where right now they are predicting a high of 41 on Saturday with chance of rain. I'd rather it be a little colder and snow so it's not so soaking. Then Sunday should be a balmy 49. We'll stay at Liz's place Sat. which I'm looking forward to. It'll be nice catching up with her.

WOC/ Cedar Run trail

What a gorgeous weekend. Disc golf Friday; then a Saturday morning mountain bike ride on the Richmond trails capped off with backpacking Sunday and Monday. Camped out Sunday night under the nearly full moon. Here's a few pictures from the White Oak Canyon and Cedar run trails. For the full run down of pictures, click here: WOC/CRT

Isa textula

Three Ridges Loop

Updated: pictures added to Picasa.

Chris came over for the weekend. Friday we drove over to the Blue Ridge Pkway and did the Three Ridges Loop. It was a bit more difficult than I thought it was going to be. It being 14+ miles instead of the ~10 I was thinking, and I had read it was hilly, but it was HILLY! Constant up or down.

We hiked a few miles on Friday and then found a camp site. We set up the tent and hammock and then started gathering wood for a fire. We almost gave up on having a fire, but after a solid hour of trying with a combination of dryer lint, water proof matches, and propane stove, we finally got things dry enough to continue burning. Seeing how house fires start with dryer lint, I thought it'd be useful starting a camp fire, but I was wrong. It was a very poor fire starter. I think I'll go with some fire sticks or something a little more proven.

We cooked a sweet potato and some peppers and onions which was dinner in addition to an energy bar. The sweet potato turned out really nicely and I'll definitely do that again. I was actually surprised just how well and evenly it cooked just by being in the fire pit and being rolled around every once in a while.

Saturday we woke up with the sun and leisurely packed up and cooked breakfast. I was hoping to try cooking bacon in the fire pit, but after having so much trouble getting the fire started the night before, and since there wasn't even a warm ember left in the morning, we cooked bacon in my camping pot on the little stove. It worked okay. I still want to try cooking it in the fire this fall.

We started hiking around 9:15am, and finally got back to the car just before 5pm. As I said, the hike was hilly, as in we hiked uphill for what seemed like the entire day. Needless to say the three of us (Me, Chris and Maddog) were exhausted. Completely beaten and nearly broken, we went out to dinner and tried to watch a movie, but called it a night early. On Sunday we sat around and gorged ourselves stupid. I made a big breakfast, then we actually got up and went to Chipotle for lunch, had chips and salsa and cookies ALL afternoon, finished off by a flank steak and veggies and more cookies and hot cocoa with Rumple Minze. 

Congrats to all of us for surviving the weekend, and a bigger congrats to Dr. Chris Lasher for finishing his PhD!

Rain, rain, go away...

Maddog and I went down to visit my cousin in Kill Devil Hills a couple weeks ago. That's always fun and the dogs get to hang out. We went to the beach of course and went out to a couple places to enjoy the night life.

Last weekend, Scott and I drove to Snowshoe, WV for some more downhill mountain biking. We got up ridiculously early, (aka 4:45am) and met in Staunton, VA, where we left his car in the Walmart parking lot and loaded up my new car.  With bikes on top, gear in back and tunes plugged in we cruised through WV to the mountain. It was quite chilly at 43 degrees when we started out but we warmed up pretty quick once we got to riding.
The maintenance crew had made several changes to the trails since last year and they were awesome. Our favorite trail "Powerline" had been extended a little with more berms and jumps as well as "Bull Run" and a new favorite "Lucid." We also did a bunch of the black runs that have "north shore" style obstacles on them. Like in this picture and video. The video is more of a bloopers reel, but don't worry nobody got hurt on this trip.

Since Tuesday it's been threatening to rain or outright raining. Not so much as a day without some sort of precipitation which cuts out my riding to work and most other outdoor activities. I was hoping to get some disc golf in some this weekend, but the forecast looks like more of the same. Hopefully it'll quit before next weekend when Chris is supposed to come visit.

Memorial Day weekend

My weekend started Thursday evening. I drove up to NOVA to a buddy's house. We got some dinner and packed up my new car to get ready for friday. Friday morning we got up early and headed for Seven Springs, PA for some downhill mountain biking. The staff were very helpful and one was quite attractive. But once we went to get on the lift we realized this wasn't going to be as good as some of the other places we've been.

We had to hold onto our own bikes as we rode up the lift. You had to sit on the lift while your bike was literally in your lap. Tires were on either side of you while you essentially sat under the bike. Annoying if not dangerous.

The trails were okay. The green (beginner) trail had absolutely no features and was almost hard to follow since it just went through the grass and almost nobody used it. There was basically one blue (intermediate) trail that was fun but obviously had been heavily used as the berms were chattery and lots of washed out areas, especially towards the bottom.

Some of the black trails (expert) were unridable. Insanely steep or huge (8+ feet) drops. At the top there were a couple fun obstacles. A ramp to a bridge and a big rainbow. So we mainly rode the few black trails that weren't totally nuts and the blue trail.

There was a 24hr cross country race going on the next day, but the trail had already been marked and set up, so we decided to try that out too. It was 11 miles and after about 5 we decided we'd had enough and went back to the downhilling. While the race course was fun, we did the majority of the part that went mostly down and then bailed out on a fire road as the course headed back up the mountain.

We went to dinner at a place called the Pine Grill, which was recommended to us by the attractive staff at the bike park. The food was actually quite good, and I'm not just saying that because we were starving. We also had some entertainment from the table next to us. A group of girl friends were out for their Friday night, having a good time. We ended up sharing a huge dessert with them.

After dinner and dessert we camped out under the clouds in our hammocks. Scott had a rain fly, but seeing how I didn't, I set up a back-up-plan-bed in the back of the Subaru. Luckily I didn't need it, but I slept a little better knowing I could run for cover if the sky opened up.

The original plan was to ride Seven Springs both days, but after the trails were just okay, and talking to some other trail riders, we decided we try out Wisp in McHenry, MD, which was just about an hour south of where we were. Wisp is very close to Deep Creek Park, MD. We could see the lake from the chair lift.

Wisp was considerably better than Seven Springs. First, someone else took your bike at the bottom and hung it from the chair lift, so we could just sit and rest. The trails were longer and a little better maintained and more our style. Some fun jumps and more flowy trails. We rode from 10am until 5pm with a lunch break and another distraction. They had a "Mountain Coaster" ride as well as other entertainment like a ropes course with zip lines and such. We took a ride on the coaster which was a single person roller coaster that you could control the speed. It was spectacular.

By 5pm our hands were toast. Blisters, a couple cuts and scrapes, and totally exhausted, we headed back to Scott's house. We got some Indian food and watched the new Tron. Sunday I came home and did a thorough bike cleaning and maintenance and got some new brakes. The brakes should be much more effective with less effort and less noisy. The squealing on the old ones was getting very irritating.  We're off to ride again in two weeks at Snowshoe, WV.

P.S. Here's a couple more pictures and videos from Scotts camera. Who needs a helmet cam? We need a helmet cam. 

Ancestral Health Symposium

There was a "Ancestral Health Symposium" described as the "Woodstock of evolutionary medicine" in CA a couple weeks ago. A bunch of "Primal" and "Paleo" people as well as PhD's MD's and a vast variety medical practitioners got together to talk about health.

Thankfully, someone brought a camera and recorded the lectures. The quality isn't the best, and they only have the slides for some of the lectures, but it's better than nothing. There's a lot of really good information from some very well respected people in their fields. The lectures vary from food, to movement, to gut health and anything health related. Most defies conventional wisdom and how most of us think about health.

Check it out: http://ancestryfoundation.org/  Click on the vimeo link, or one of the videos at the bottom right.