Halloween

All of the election discussions that had been going on in the weeks leading up to Halloween had put more than the coverage of the war and the state of the European economy on the back burner. By Thursday night, I still hadn't decided what I was going to be for Halloween, so I was saved when Jack brought home an energy drink cooler. We spent Thursday evening knocking out the top and bottom and scraping out the insulating foam before I slipped it over my head and was transformed into a... Monster!!

Halloween night was spent at Cripe's house for a party with the majority of VOTS and a few fellow grad students. We've got a pretty creative bunch, with several Michael Phelps, a group of droogs from Clockwork Orange, the cast of Kill Bill, and many others, but Josiah definitely took the cake with his speed camera costume. After a good evening hanging out at the house, we took a stroll down Mill Ave. to admire everyone else's costumes. All in all, a very fun night.

Even though it had been a late night, Jack, Hannah, and I still got up (not so early) to go biking at the McDowells. We parked at our normal spot along the road, snuck under the fence, and were almost to the trail when we looked out over the course to see that it was filled with bikers. We had figured that there might be a bit of traffic in preparation for the 24 Hours of Fury (which we were also training for), but we weren't prepared for the massive multicolored string of riders along the course. As soon as a few bikers got close to us, we noticed the race plates on the bikes and realized that we had forgotten about the Dust Devil race that was going on... on all three of the competitive loop trails. So, we got in the mix of racers and made our way to the parking lot and headed up instead to Pemberton. I was feeling great, and rode ahead of Jack and Hannah enjoying the beauty and solitude of the empty trail. Hannah was feeling a bit under the weather from the Halloween festivities and it got pretty warm through the course of the late morning, so we took plenty of breaks and had an excellent ride along the easy trail. I had never been down the back stretch of Pemberton, and though it was a bit rocky, I absolutely loved the fast downhill, and Jack snapped pictures of our awesome verticals (ok, more like 6') as we hopped over the waterbars. After a good 15 mile ride, we took a Jeep trail back to the truck, got smoothies at Jack-in-the-Box on the way home, and called it a day.

Round #2 of Halloween commenced Saturday evening at Josh's house for the SoLS grad student party. It was another great night of awesome costumes ranging from a group of cross-dressing Red Hat Society ladies, Team Zissou, and a massive eyeball.

After two late nights, I was tired on Sunday, but exhaustion has never kept me away from my true love. I headed out in the late morning to work on the Fire and spent the rest of the day making her look good, putting in the new hatches, and taking measurements for the new equipment and final repairs. No crazy adventures, but a good weekend overall.