Monday, June 26, 2006

OK, so I've been thinking about doing this since the "ten year challenge" came along on all the other 'blogs.
Here's what I have for the ten year challenge (all give or take a year): I bought 1610 Center Ave, in Iowa City, I got Lucy from the IC animal shelter, Sandy and I "hooked up" at the Sawbill 40th anniversary/reunion, I became a "technical planner" at the Iowa City Pop Secret plant. That's all I have off the top of my head. It was a fairly eventful time in my life.
So, now on to the present...
Sandy and I just got back from Colorado this morning. We were out there for Ride the Rockies ( ridetherockies.com ) and also her parents 40th anniversary. We did the bike ride and then spent the weekend in Glenwood Springs at the Hotel Colorado with her family.
The ride went really well for both of us, the altitude wasn't really a big problem and the weather was very cooperative. Sandy spent most of her spare time buying clothes and getting massages, I spent my time finding/drinking chocolate milkshakes and reading.
Here are some selected photos from the week:

Here are Emily, Alex and Daisy having a time visiting with the old people. Tom dragged them along to Durango to see us the first and second days of the ride. You can see how much fun they were having, and this was before I made everyone go to the Durango and Silverton narrow gauge railroad museum...
But then suddenly there was a commotion!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's someone's tent blowing away! Please excuse all the exclamation points, but this was one of the craziest things I've ever seen. There was a bunch of yelling and whatnot and when I looked up there was a tent flying through the air over the gym we were camped next to. If you look carefully you can see it slightly below dead center in the above photo.
First it kind of hovered over the gym for about a minute slowly going higher and higher then it started travelling horizontally. I'd say it went about 2-3 miles to the north out over the valley that Durango sits in then it slowly descended out of sight. Here it is out over the valley

It's the blackish dot over the left upright on the goalpost.
Enough of the flying tent.

Here's a nice picture of us I took on day two of the ride. Sandy is paying more attention to the weird guy that was offering to take the picture for us. We let him take some pictures but they suck.
We spent that night in Chama NM home of the Cumbres & Toltec scenic railroad, a remnant of the D&RG's former narrow gauge system. I took a lot of pictures of steam locomotives and whatnot but most of you would be bored with them so I won't post any here. We did take a short ride on the train with about 275 other bikers.

Here's me the next day as we left New Mexico. The picture is from the wrong side of the sign because the view was better. I know I look like a dork.

Here's a shirt I though Rob would appreciate.
In some ways it was unfortunate that I chose a quiet spot near the rodeo stands to set up the tent in Alamosa.

How was I supposed to know there is a weekly steer roping competition in Alamosa? Actually it was kind of fun to watch (not so much for the little steers who usually end up getting their heads and hind legs jerked in opposite directions between two horses) and I met a guy from the TransAmerica bicycle trek '87. We talked about our respective Seattle to Atlantic City bicycle rides, I think his name was Jerry. Ironically Jerry was smoking while we watched the roping ("Trek" was a fundraiser for the American Lung Association for those of you that have forgotten)

Back to the biking, here's Ms. Sassy shortly after we ate some free baked potatos in Moffat CO, it's the center of the second largest potato growing region in the US. We rode the remaining 44 miles that day on potato power.

Here she is riding up a 17% grade the last day as we approached the Royal Gorge suspension bridge, highest suspension bridge in the world. FYI a 17% grade at 7,000 feet above sea level when you've been training at about 800 feet above sea level is no picnic.
We had to walk our bikes across the bridge to continue our ride. The bridge was built in the 1920's and has a wooden deck, you can see between the boards if you look down. It's about 1,200' down to the river. I was "uncomfortable" so there aren't any photos...

Here's Sandy heroically riding across the finishing line at the end of the ride in Canon City, home of Colorado's Supermax prison.
Enough of this, I need to go to bed. If you made it this far you probably need to go to bed too. Good night.

5 comments:

Betsy said...

Hooray!!!!!
Did the flying tent kill any bad witches?

Carrie and Rob said...

Nice blog CornJob. I've been to Eddie McStiff's a few times - they have good beer except the blueberry which is just shitty. Congrats on finishing and not being dead.

-r

Carrie and Rob said...

i really enjoyed the tale of the flying tent as well as the photos of sandy's cute cycling attire (i think she should model for title 9).

-c

W.F. Decker said...

I thought you were going to Glenwood Springs, but you mention Colorado Springs instead. Am I confused, or were you?

Anonymous said...

Funny! Why weren't there more pics of us? Kidding! BZC