August Update

Alright, so it’s been a while, and a lot of things happened. I am feeling a little scatter brained but I have a lot of things to get down. My girlfriend drove out to Cali to visit for 3 weeks with her dog Wilber. Wilber stayed outside with the other dogs on the farm. It started off sketchy the other dogs weren’t as accepting initially, then they got along fine and no problems, then Wilber started chasing the horses with Doser, and that became an issue. Then he wasn’t listening very well like he used to, but in the end I think he became a better dog. But anyways, I had a bunch of fun with Katie here, we had a bbq on an island in lake natoma, we played soccer like 3 times a week, and got to go all over with my family. When my family came, they spent a day in Folsom, going to the lake, and downtown area, then they spent a day at discovery kingdom, then I took off work Friday to drive with them up to Lake Tahoe/Carson City – we got in pretty late gambled a little at the hotel, and went to sleep. Carson city doesn’t really have anything to do as far as I could tell from driving around. We drove along lake tahoe, walked around the town by the casino, ate at fire and ice (like mongo, but more choices/not as taisty). Drove close to the lake and parked at a trail, thought we would walk to the water, but ended up just being a wooded trail walk. It was flat and easy, but good warm up for my family. We decided to get on the road as it was a 3-4 hour drive to Sonora, where our hotel was (not close to yosemite). The drive was up and down mountains winding roads with no lines, and steep inclines. Got to Sonora – took forever as expected – ate some subway – went to the pool – hot tube was broken water was cold, so we went back to the hotel room. The next day we went to Yosemite – hiked up the Vernal falls trail – my parents almost didn’t make it to the bridge .8 miles up cause the incline was too steep and they are out of shape. When we got to the bridge, me, Katie and Tricia kept going to the bottom of the falls. There was a pool under the falls with rocks to jump off of. There were other people doing it and it looked like fun so I did it. Got some good videos. The water was really cold. Katie jumped in and she was not expecting it to be as cold as it was. It was funny. Went back and drove back to Sonora. Next day we drove down to Santa Cruz, and up to the Big Basin National Park. Showed my family the huge redwoods and walked around in the forest. Then we went down to santa cruz, looked at some surfers at steamers, and ate some burgers at Betty Burgers. Monday was my birthday I turned 23! We spent the day driving along highway 1 and stopping at all the beaches. Showed my family the tide pools and I think they got a kick out of them. We saw some seals jumping while driving, and some whales off in the distance. Stopped at the marine refuge in Half Moon Bay and saw a bunch of seals there just hanging out on the rocks. Drove a little further to Pacifica where we stayed the night. All in all good birthday, although I didn’t get to hang out with my friends. Tuesday was IDF in sf. Had my dad drop me off and they went around the city as i was doing things at IDF. Drove home, and didn’t have much time with katie before she left Wed morning. My family left on thursday with my dad and sister driving katie’s car with wilber back to IL. The following weekend I went with Gene, and Florentino down to Monterey to finish up our scuba certification. Stayed over at Gene’s parent’s house which was nice and free. They fed us well too. It was a bummer Gene hurt his knee and couldn’t dive with us. But i’m sure we’ll be diving a lot soon enough. The certification was really easy, kinda sad how easy it was. Visibility sucked though. Couldn’t see 5 feet and with all the newbies around sand was getting kicked up all over the place. The coolest thing we saw was a Sun Starfish with a bunch of legs, it was soft unlike what I expected. The water was pretty cold but with all the stuff we had on I was hot. The hood was a huge pain as far as breathing goes, I think I could do without it. This past weekend was labor day weekend. I drove up to OR for a triathlon. For the tri I bought a bike, a nice bike, one I have been wanting for a while. Fugi full carbon fiber frame, 105 shifters, ultegra rear derailer, the works. Got a real good deal on it, originally over 2k on sale for 12 something and I got %15 off that – bringing it to 1189 or something like that, then I became a member giving me %10 store credit which I bought a lock with and have $76 more to spend…I was happy until it got stuck on the big gear during the race. Apparently the 102s were made for 3 gears and mine is a compact with 2 so if I shift too far it’ll get stuck…wish they would have told me that before…but oh well. The drive to OR took forever I blew out a tire before I even got to Sacramento – contemplated buying rims, but just got a replacement tire for the day – drove up to Medford or so and stopped at a rest stop for the night. Finished the drive in the morning and got to OR by 11ish. Hung out with Eric and Christy, got lunch and our packets with Laura and Brant. Then just watched a movie and rested for the tri. The tri was a good learning experience. I underestimated the current in the Willamette, thought my shoulders were good on my wetsuit, but they got tired, and I thought my goggles were alright, but they leaked a lot…all of these factors slowed me down. The bike was alright, 15.8 mph average speed for 24.8 miles, not bad. The run could have been better, I was tired 9:20 pace for 6.6 miles. In the end I lost to Eric and Christy by 2 min, beat laura by 20 and Brant by like an hour. We were all spent for the rest of the day, so we played it pretty low key, lounging around for the most part. Monday I took the long way back, left OR around 10:30 and didn’t get in to Shingle springs until 12:30. Drove through the redwood forest, along the coast, avenue of giants, and almost to San Francisco before coming back up, cause there is no good way to get from the coast to Sacramento…but thats what I chose. I am sure there are other details which would be interesting – and i’ll leave with intentions of writing more blog posts soon…