Ahhh… A good day

If my count is accurate, I’ve still only had 2 days in the last 5 weeks were I didn’t work, including weekends. 

So I decided to take yesterday and today off (and this weekend).  Yesterday, I got caught up on some stuff around the house.   This morning, I met up with Seth and Ben for a road ride.  I wish I didn’t have to be to work at 6:45am every morning.  It is such a great way to start the day with a road bike ride.  After that I came home, ate, and took a nap.  Then I decided to ride to the stop of Sandia peak on the moto.   28 miles of curvy mountain roads and hardly any cars today.  Aaahhh… good times  🙂

Hopefully tonight and this weekend, I get to hang out with Kara (and maybe squeeze in a mountain bike ride).  What a good day!

 

Christmas… Yes, I know it’s February

Basically since the start of the year, I’ve been on call at work.  That means I get pages to respond to equipment issues 24 hrs a day Monday – Friday, and as of 2 weeks ago, about half of my weekends will be on call too.   In fact, 2 weeks ago I got the “opportunity” to, on a Saturday night, work on some equipment from about 9pm until about 1:30am.  What does that have to do with Christmas and the fact that it’s mid-February?  Pretty simple, life is too busy & moving too quickly these days….   😦

In any event, here’s the reader’s digest version of what we’ve been up to for the last 2 months: 

1) Christmas!- Bailey got a rubber ducky yellow rain jacket for Christmas from one of his grandparents that ironically enough matches his dad’s yellow Marmot rain jacket.

  

2) Happy Newyears! While his parents had a great time celebrating New Years eve at Oba (Pearl district restaurant that I’d highly recommend) with some good friends, Bailey didn’t seem as excited to wear the beads and “2008” glasses as his dad was just hours earlier. 

 

3) Showshoeing is fun. Mt. Hood has got a ton of snow this year. As I write this, they have a ~ 180″ base (that’s 15ft!). Kara got us some snowshoes for Christmas and we went new years day. Can you say POWDER?! We were able to go anywhere we wanted in the woods eventhough there was that much snow.

  

4) Portland International Auto Show. We went a couple weekends ago with some friends. There were definitely some nice rides there. Even some that I hadn’t heard of before, such as this Dutch Spyker. Yes, Kara, there are some cars that I don’t know about (though they’re available in limited quantities)!

Cannon Beach, Oregon… on a Perfect November Day

After taking Bailey to the Hondo Dog Park near our house early Saturday morning, Kara recommended we go to the Oregon coast since it was a very unexpectedly nice November day.  And after an hour and fifteen minute drive we arrived at Cannon Beach.  Given that it was November and Oregon, I don’t think we could have asked for a better day….  Actually, I’ll go one better and say that it was perfect!  🙂

    

Silver Falls State Park, Oregon

About 70 miles southeast of Hillsboro is Silver Falls State Park.   Kara and I had heard some good things about this place from a few friends so we decided to head down there 2 Saturdays ago.   We hiked most of the “Trail of 10 Falls” before it was getting dark after a late start.   Definitely a pretty place to visit.   The only downside for us was that Bailey was prohibited on the Canyon Trail where all the falls were- so he stayed back home.   Here are a few of our pictures….

             

Red River Camping to Escape the Heat!!

I’m a little behind on some postings that I planned to make, so here goes…. about 2 weekends ago we decided to head north in order to escape the summer heat in ABQ.   It’s been in the low to mid 90’s and the swamp cooler has barely kept up so we loaded up the pathfinder and headed to higher elevation courtesy of Red River, NM.  The weekend was good, as we arrived a night too late for a bear visit to the camp ground (darn!), and we only got hailed on twice- so all in all, not bad.  🙂   Here’s some pictures, mostly of Bailey as this was his first time camping.    Kara also got to play with her Sony Alpha SLR camera in between rain showers.   She got some pretty good pictures from my novice point of view, especially of the sky and waterfalls.  Oh ya, check out our new RV, jeep, and ATVs…. oh wait, those are some rich people’s.   We stayed in the tent (so good thing that bear didn’t come back!).

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Cochiti Lake

Went mountain biking with Will and Candice near Cochiti lake yesterday.   I had never ridden out there so I was interested in going along with someone who knew the way.  The loop we did was about 16 miles.   The first 9 miles were up hill out a dirt & rocky road, but the next 4-5 miles were all downhill most of which was sweet single track that had about 10 or so stream crossings.   I was amazed at how lush it was in the trees since the majority of the area is desert.   After the downhill (my type of riding), I decided the climb was worth it.   🙂 It was a bit hot too, but a great ride nonetheless.

     

Went Boating…. Almost

We made a good attempt this past weekend to head north to Lake Abiquiu and go boating on our friend Clint’s ski boat, along with Matt, Bri, and their daughter Ella.  Unfortunately, Clint was the only one who got to enjoy a boat ride, even though it was only about 5 minutes of one.  Soon after launching his boat he noticed a major overheating issue going on so we put it back on the trailer, only to realize that the impeller that’s used to draw water into the engine had disinegrated.   Though we should consider ourselves fortunate, as there had been a tragic drowning just before we had gotten to the lake. 

At this point, eventhough the temps were in the 90’s and the NM sun was still blazing, we decided to head to a remote camping site about 6 miles off the paved highway, right along the Chama River.   Here are a few pictures…