Happy birthday Yampa and a quick trip to the Old Pueblo

I took a whirlwind trip to the Old Pueblo to go to the bike swap on 4th Ave Saturday and took the Coconino along with for the ride. I was super stoked to find a couple of new loops at Fantasy Island making a total of 23 miles within the confines of the 3 square miles that makes up Fantasy Island. The bike swap was amazingly crowded with tons and tons of bike stuff for sale. Some of the bike stuff was crap and some was new super blingy stuff. I made the drive home with a stop at the grocery store for a NY strip steak for Yampa's birthday dinner. I seared it to perfection and then laid it over a bed of IAMS puppy food for a delicious celebration of 1 year of life. Cheers Yampa it has been a fun year.

I had planned to go mountain biking until....

First day back in Flagstaff after vacation to Hawaii and a quick trip to New Mexico to see family and pick up Yampa from my parents. It sure seemed like a front was moving in while we were driving back yesterday and sure enough the snow started flying last night and we woke up to a winter wonderland. My plans for the day are now to run a bunch of overdue errands to get back into the swing of things and to ride the trainer in the garage. I took 15 days off of the bike and now will begin again in hopes to do well in some events early next year. I am going to attempt better self control and eat better over the winter. That means less of two main food groups. Beer and ice cream. I also have to start hooking up with people to ride down in Sedona. I did not find it exceptional last winter so maybe some others with more knowledge of that area can turn my opinion around. Last week was pretty interesting with the Presidential Election. I refuse to rant on about my political views or talk bad about people's views that are different than mine but I do want to say that I have always been proud to be an American and there will always be political decisions that I don't agree with no matter who is in office. This past weeks election was monumental and showed a resurgence in involvement in the political process. There is much information about how the Obama campaign was run and it is quite impressive. Impressive enough that it was very highly regarded by many Republicans. We'll see what happens when Obama takes office. Keep your fingers crossed.

Making a mockery of a perfectly good sport

The title and picture speak volumes

We're back and it's cold

We just got back from Hawaii about 1 hour ago and it is pretty cold here in Flagstaff compared to Maui. We flew out last night at 11:30 Hawaii time with was about 2:30 am AZ time so we're pretty burnt right now. As I write this Anne is busy snoring away in bed but I am going to push through today as to get back to a normal schedule. Our trip started out in Maui where we did all of the traditional tourist stuff which was pretty fun. We spent time on the beach, went deep sea fishing (and caught 3 tiny skip jacks), boogie boarded, took surfing lessons, snorkeled and went diving and drove the "Road to Hana". Anne and I then separated from her parents and went on to Kauai where we went kayaking and hiking the Na'Pali Coast which were both amazing. We also went to check out Wiamea Canyon which is like a tropical version of the Grand Canyon. Throughout our stay in Hawaii we ate a bunch of Poke which is ahi tuna sashimi but it is tossed with dried chiles, sesame oil and seeds and seaweed in some cases and it is super good. We also tried the Tako version which is Octopus and it was alright but the tuna was much better. I decided to post many different photos from along the way. I have to go hunt for some surfing pictures and when I find them they may or may not get posted. We'll just have to see.

Last ride for a couple weeks

Today was the last ride that I am going to be able to do until about November 8th or so. I will hopefully be refreshed and ready to hit it at that point but decided to ride some good stuff today. After riding as many trails as I could this summer I decided to ride my "new" favorite trail today. I am going to pretend that nobody know about this trail and keep its name a "secret". The first two pictures should be pretty easy to recognize the location it was taken and then the trails spits you out into the gigantic logging area where the temperature goes up about 10 degrees. Then I hit Ft. Valley where I connected Lower Moto to what some people call Easter Island and snapped a pic at the namesake rock section.

I just needed a quickie before the snow comes

Well before I head off to Phoenix tomorrow and come back to snow on the ground this weekend I decided I better go out for a quick ride on some sweet single track that I was told about yesterday. I actually knew of its existence but did not know exactly where to connect to it. The trail was in pretty good condition considering that it is mostly a motorcycle trail and some sections have just been torn up by those things. Mainly it is irresponsible riders that have no concept of preservation and preventing the eroding of our multi-use trails. Motorcycles are just capable of so much more damage that hiking shoes and mountain bike tires. It is amazing how awesome the trails are when people have to rely on their own power to propel themselves along. Anyway, I took a couple photos of the trail and the fall colors at the base of the San Francisco Peaks with Snow Bowl nestled in at the SW corner of the Peaks.

Better late than never...

It seems sometimes that things move at a different pace here in Flagstaff. I have recently ordered multiple items from one particular bike shop here in town and in multiple instances have been told 3 or 4 days and it has turned in to 3 weeks to receive my order. Most recently I ordered a bike rack for the truck and wanted to have it before the Pines to the Mines race/ride a couple weeks ago. I was promised that it would be here during the week before the ride. Of course it did not show up so I borrowed a rack and looked forward to the following week when I would surely get it before the Tour of the White Mountains. The White Mountains trip came and went with the borrowed rack still attached to the truck. Well yesterday I called down to the shop and the rack was actually there. I was so amazed that I installed it and threw my Coconino on it and snapped a photo. I have also included a photo of everything I pulled out of the garden this week with hopes it will ripen inside the house. It looks like the cold weather is blowing in for the weekend. I checked the forecast out and it shows 20 percent chance of snow in town on Sat. and Sun. I think I will be heading to Phoenix for the last race of my season on Saturday and then back up the hill to some hunkering down through the weekends cold weather and probably watching some football and baseball. Have a good weekend and go pedal something.