24 Hours of the O.P. preparation and parvo

Well...since the last post we have had some interesting times. Anne was sick with a cold and fever at the end of last week. Her parents came to visit on Friday and left Sunday. On Saturday morning I woke up to Yampa the dog vomiting in her kennel which was a little bit of a heads up but we decided to hang out and see if anything else transpired with her throughout the morning. She would not eat or drink anything and threw up again mid-morning. We deliberated and decided that we would take her to the vet. We got her there and the did a parvo test pretty much right away and it came back positive. Our options at that point were to do nothing, sign her up for outpatient care, or have her start treatment right away which included a minimum of two night at the pet hospital and maybe up to a week. Doing nothing is basically taking care of her while she dies. The outpatient care gave her about a 20 to 30% chance of prevailing and the hospital stay gave her 50 to 60 percent chance. We checked her into the hospital at that point and hoped for the best and hoped that we would not have to make the decision to put her to sleep. Luckily on Monday after just two day in the hospital she had not thrown up at all and her symptoms had not worsened so we brought her home. We are now convinced that she was sick when we got her because her energy level and personality have improved greatly since returning from the hospital. I have been trying not to catch Anne's cold and thought I was pretty successful but yesterday instead of waking up and wanting to get a good ride in since the 24 Hours of the O.P. is only a couple week away I thought that I was dying a slow death. I will recuperate and head to the desert to have a good time at the race but my goals are postponed due to sickness and lack of winter riding here in the snow. I got word the other day that my registration for the Cascade Creampuff was accepted so I will be upping my mileage considerably come spring time and hopefully will be able to finish under the cut off of 15 hours.

Today was the day

Anne and I hopped in the car today and took off for Lakeside, AZ to pick up the new addition to our family. Yampa is now a permanent resident at our home here in Flag. She did not take long to make herself at home and start peeing all over but that is to be expected she is a puppy after all. The other day I received a new oxygen sensor for the ol' Pathfinder via UPS that I had ordered from the internet and went to install it only to find out that I did not have a 7/8 inch wrench. I went over to my neighbors house to see if he had one that I could borrow and after searching to no avail he said "what are you doing anyway?" I told him about the sensor and he proceeded to pull out the exact tool I needed for an oxygen sensor. He apparently replaced one on a jeep about ten years ago and just happened to hang onto the tool. Pretty bizare. Not a huge chance of that happening. Today was also the day that open registration started for the Cascade Cream Puff 100 mile mountain bike race in Oregon. I sent my registration in so we'll see if it is accepted. It is supposed to be one of the hardest 100 mile races in the country with over 18,000 feet of climbing. I am going to a wedding the weekend of the Leadville 100 so this one is my second choice but will be fun and painful at the same time if I make it in. That is all for now.

Singleswizzle and a puppy

Since my last post Anne and I have adopted a puppy from the Humane Society in Lakeside, AZ which is near Show Low about 2.5 hours from Flagstaff. We had been looking online at Lab puppies and German Wirehaired Pointers from rescues around the region but could not find one close enough to Flagstaff. While we were searching petfinder.com under German Wirehaired Pointers we found a puppy who's mom is a German Wirehaired Pointer and the dad is a mysterious unknown dog of some type. The puppy has hair like a German Wirehaired but is probably mixed with some type of hound dog and it should be exciting to see what happens as it grows up. We have to go back to Lakeside on Wednesday to pick her up after she is spayed. I spent this weekend down in the desert of Tucson and rode in Singlespeed Arizona 08 aka Singleswizzle which is a singlespeed mountain bike race/ride that is about 50 miles long and pretty brutal. I went down to get some riding in outside and to hang out with friend David. The ride was a lot of fun as we definitely were not competing with the more serious crowd. We managed to finish pretty much dead last but to our credit their were a bunch of people that did not ride the Chiva section of the race which was a pretty tough ten mile section but technically we still finished last. David managed the illustrious title of DFL (Dead F***ing Last) which is a celebrated position to be in as he received a cool handmade trophy (made from recycled bicycle parts) from local Rudy Nadler. The event was laid back and everyone got some shwag which was pretty cool and there was pizza and Pabst Blue Ribbon at the finish line. The key that defines this race and should give people the overall attitude of the weekend is the fact that about three miles from the finished exists the tequila tree which is home to a big bottle of Cuervo that entices riders to stop and take a break and a shot to carry them home.

Red rock and burritos

We had to get out of town today for a little bit more warmth than Flagstaff can provide. Sedona was the obvious choice for a quick getaway to do some riding and some running for Anne. I did a bit of a tour of red rock country with a 30+ mile tour of some dirt roads including the Boynton Pass Road and a couple more forest roads outside of Sedona. By the time we were done with our activities it was already 1500 and time for some food so we went to a restaurant in the heart of Sedona called Oaxaca and got fajita burritos which were mediocre at best and probably fairly unhealthy but tasted good given the post workout circumstances. Hard to think about eating bad mexican food in Arizona when I know that places of heavenly food exist just one state over but when you gotta eat you gotta eat. The area around Sedona is beautiful of course but the town leaves little to be desired with it's touristy t-shirt shops, fudge shops and just general goofy crap for sale. I did take a couple of photos along the ride today one of the road less travelled, one red rock tower shot and one self portrait.

Some old and some new

I received a disk in the mail yesterday that had a ton of pictures from Robert and my trip into the Pecos Wilderness backcountry taken by Robert with a camera that is far superior (and way heavier) than mine. I had to post the photo with the end of trip celebration at the trailhead and also one photo of myself at about 13,000 feet near Middle Truchas Peak above a pretty good drop off. The next shot is one of my Ibis singlespeed that is getting some well deserved new parts to celebrate its heading to Tucson next weekend for Singleswizzle also known as Singlespeed Arizona 08. This event is a 60 mile singlespeed race/ride that is part bike ride and part survival course organized by the reigning National Singlespeed Endurance Champion Dejay Birtch. I have not partaken in this event before but it is supposed to be a pretty fun time in the desert. The Ibis is getting new brake cables, a new handlebar that has more of a rise for comfort and is wider for better leverage, and a shorter stem to ease the pain in my aching back. The last picture is of some new parts that I have for my Coconino 29er that has yet to be built. A Fox F29 fork and King Hubs are going to be the foundation of the parts picks. They are pretty sexy mountain bike parts so I don't mind looking at them even without a bike to put them on yet. I will post a finished photo of my singlespeed when its upgrade is complete. This week I also had a real good time trying to diagnose some vehicle problems with the ol' Pathfinder. I believe that I have narrowed it down to bad wiring on the oxygen sensor which is allowing water to temporarily effect the signals being sent to the computer. I am expecting a replacement to arrive by UPS on Tuesday and believe it will only be a moderate pain in the ass to replace. At least it runs well when it not super wet outside. Enjoy your Sunday.

Digging out

Yesterday the snow was beginning to let up by about noon to leave Flagstaff quite a mess. It was also the night that college football crowned a national champion so we had to make a concoction called Nacho Mountain which my parents used to make and now Anne is a firm believer in. The most basic form is yellow corn chips, cheddar cheese, green chiles, and a bit of garlic salt on the top. You then throw all of that in the oven until the cheese is melted and viola dinner is served. I worked up a good appetite shoveling so the dinner sure tasted good. Today we went up to Snowbowl to get some turns in the 40 inches of fresh and it was sure nice up there. My car is struggling these days with all of the slush and water on the roads. It has issues which may be from water getting into the wires going to the oxygen sensor but I am not completely sure how to remedy this besides taping the crap out of the wires. Hopefully the Pathfinder with perform tomorrow so we can get up to the ski area again. If it is running bad it may just be time to go to the shop and see if it is something else that is the problem.

It's Official!

Today Anne and I saw something missing when we logged onto our online banking at Bank of America. That's right our mortgage account for our Tucson house is officially gone! YeeeeeeeHawwwww............!!! No more worries about that house and no more double payment months on both the mortgages and the bills. That takes a load off. I have to admit that I loved living in Tucson and loved our home there but things change and Anne's job here is good so what can you do. I got a new snow shovel yesterday in anticipation for the winter weather that was expected to hit today and low and behold it arrived. We are expecting some pretty high winds this weekend so I think after the storm passes we will be heading up to the mountain for some turns. Christmas break will be over for schools here and in Phoenix so things are looking good for hitting the slopes this week. This afternoon I will be hanging some pictures in our house now that we have all of our stuff here in Flagstaff. I rode the trainer earlier today which was not too exciting because as you can probably guess there is not much cycling outside in Flag these days. Hopefully the first week of the new year has treated everyone well.

60 degrees in the desert

Today I went for a mountain bike ride down in Sedona to remind myself what the weather was like this time of year in the desert. The temps. were way warmer than Flagstaff and the ground was dry with out too much deep sand. I was also reminded that all of the vegetation in the desert has spines of some sort to tear some skin off of ill equipped human animals. Today was the day that all of the paper work was supposed to be signed for the closing of our house in Tucson and to our knowledge was signed without problems. We will find out for sure tomorrow. Hopefully it will be complete and we can breathe a sigh of relief.

Settlin' on down...

Today, as we get nearer to the closing on our Tucson home, things in Flagstaff are starting to settle down a bit. Now is a good time to start eating better which means eating at home and it will be much cheaper also. We will slowly be getting our stuff out of boxes and actually putting things away. I decided to make a pizza with a whole wheat/spelt rising crust and a lot of veggies for toppings and it came out really well with plenty left for a couple of lunches. The preparation for the 24 Hours of the O.P. is going moderately well except for the fact that all of my time on the bike in December was on the trainer. Tomorrow I am planning a trip down to Sedona so that will at least be one mountain bike ride and I will be in Phoenix for a couple of rides and one race this month so that should keep me fairly sane on the biking front. Cheers and Happy New Year to everyone.