Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, and this one was no exception. I got a bit shorted on the holiday last year, as I was busy preparing for rowing across the Atlantic, so I was very excited when I boarded the plane in Sky Harbor for a full long weekend with the family on my grandma's farm.

From the moment that I touched down in the brand new terminal in Indianapolis (which is gorgeous by the way), I became a kid again. Since we were really little, Thanksgiving has always been a holiday of food, family, and lots of adventure (real and imaginary) for me, my sister, and all of my cousins. We spent Thanksgiving Day at my Aunt Carol's house. After an incredible meal of turkey, homemade noodles, and all the fixings that could fit in the kitchen, all of us "kids" headed out to the woods where we spent the rest of the day jumping the creek, climbing deer stands, chucking hedgeapples out of trees (actually a really addictive game that we made up... you kind of have to be a rural, Midwestern kid to understand), and just generally exploring.

On Friday, it was back to Grandma's to begin the yearly tradition of making forts. We've done this since we were old enough to walk out to the pastures by ourselves, and I think we'll probably keep doing it until we have kids of our own. As we've gotten older, we've stopped battling aliens and other enemies, but there is just something timeless about designing and building things that I don't think will ever lose its fun. Since the farm was recently timbered, there were several tree tops out in the woods behind the house where we normally build our bonfire, so it was a perfect place to set up this year. We usually all get together and build one huge awesome fort, but since there was so much to work with this year, we all decided to build our own and be creative. Scott and Mitch went underground and built theirs into a pit left from the roots of a fallen tree, Emi got really artsy and wove a circular fort, Devin built a multiroomed mansion, and I opted to build an elevated fort in the cut top of an old hickory tree - which was a lot more difficult that I had first imagined, as it's kind of our unspoken rule that you can only use naturally occurring building materials. By the end of the day, I barely had my floor finished, but it was still a good time.

After supper, we all loaded up to go watch (a.k.a., embarrass) Devin in his final Brazil Christmas Parade as a Northview Marching Knight. We had a great time watching the band and all the cool floats, and fighting little kids for the candy that was thrown from them. We then spent the rest of the night tending to the bonfire out by our forts and enjoying each other's company in the frosty fall air.

Saturday was spent in much the same manner as Friday, with all of us trying to finish our forts. I think we may have to go back to the one fort idea, as none of us were very close to finishing by the end of the day, but we had some pretty cool frameworks built that just might withstand a year of the elements... only time will tell. That evening we took a trip to the Coxville Tavern for dinner, as Emi and I had wanted to go there for a long time. It turned out to be a pretty cool little place full of history there in covered bridge country. After visiting with some of our other family near Rock Run, we headed back to Grandma's and Emi and I curled up in the bunk room one more time.

Sunday morning dawned to about two inches of freshly fallen snow, which was absolutely gorgeous. I really miss the changing seasons, so it was truly refreshing. Emi, Devin, and I spent the morning checking out our forts (not weatherproof) and talking a walk in the lower pasture before heading out. Although the snow was beautiful, it didn't help matters much for getting back to Phoenix, and after several hours of delays, gate changes, and an hour sitting on the runway at O'Hare (I have yet to get an on-time departure from there September-April), I was headed back to the Valley of the Sun.

Catching Up

Yes, I realize it's been awhile since I've blogged... been pretty busy around here, but in a great, fun way. Things are going really well in my life... lots of awesome adventures to be had and awesome results in the lab.

Ben, Josh, and I took a little camping trip the weekend of Nov. 15th up to Bell Trail in the Wet Beaver Wilderness. We backpacked in four gorgeous autumn miles to The Crack swimming hole, where there were several groups of likeminded people with tents and hammocks strung across the rocks and trees. We managed to find an awesome spot, though, and set up on a small beach next to the creek below the sandstone cliffs and caves. After setting up camp, we hung out at the swimming hole. The weather was warm and the sun was still above the canyon walls, so I decided to take one last flying leap off of the rock for the season. The cold water took the air right out of my lungs, but it was worth it. We played around the area for awhile before climbing up and exploring the canyon walls, enjoying the incredible views from the top and scrounging for some firewood. After our exploring, we spent an hour or so trying to make fire out of flint/magnesium and Ben's knife. We got some good sparks in our cedar bark nest, but not enough to explode into flame, and eventually got out the lighter. We cooked up an amazing meal of chicken, pork, and rice and then spent the rest of the night doing our best to polish off a bottle of RC Cola and a handle of Jim Beam. The light of our fire reflecting off of the canyon walls eventually died down and gave way to the light of the moon, and we finally crawled into the tent in the early morning.

We woke in the morning to the sun peaking into the canyon and the sounds of lots of birds and the gurgling creek. Very peaceful. After enjoying the ambiance for awhile, we packed up camp and hiked out, enjoying the perfect weather.

The next weekend was a fun one as well. It was a busy one for Jack, Todd, and the rest of Dragonfire Racing as they premiered Godfrey Film's new movie, Thrillbillies, and also got ready for the Baja 1000 (Jack raced Ironman on his motorcycle, Todd was paired up with another guy in a car).

Saturday was ultimate frisbee fall league finals. Since we didn't quite have the stellar season (2-8), half of our team decided not to show up for the finals, and I was the only girl on my team for our playoff games. We got crushed in our first game, but managed to pull out a win in the second one to a team that we had beaten earlier in the season. It was a tiring way to go out, but it was fun in the end. The good thing about going out earlier in the day was that we got to chow down on the post-season feast and watch the finals while the last four teams were still battling it out.

On Sunday, Ben, Josh, Haydon, Tess, and I headed out to the Sierra Estrellas to climb Quartz Peak. I had tried to do this in the spring, but felt that with a group, better directions, and a fearless dog, we could tackle anything. The drive out there wasn't as creepy as I remembered it, and I actually had a blast taking the Jeep down the sandy dirt roads. The climb up took about 3 hours with plenty of breaks to rest, enjoy the view, and pull cholla out of Tess's paws. The view from the white quartz summit was amazing, and you could see the entire Valley from a totally new perspective. And, I finally got to meet the famous Mad Hiker, Charles, who was also enjoying the summit with a few friends when we got there.

After chilling on the top for a bit, we headed back down and I had a great time taking the Jeep back through once creepy and now familiar territory sand ruts and back to Tempe. All in all, a great weekend.

The Boy in Striped Pajamas

I went to see The Boy in Striped Pajamas Sunday evening. I had been looking up other movies times, and an advertisement for the film caught my eye. Jo had talked about a book of the same title while we were out on the ocean, and though she didn't do a great job in the storytelling, the basis of the book did catch my attention and I made sure that I added the book to my reading list. For better or worse, the current list of books that I would like to read is far greater than the time I have allotted myself for reading them - as the pile sitting on my desk clearly indicates - and I haven't even gotten around to checking out The Boy in Striped Pajamas. So, I decided to find out where the movie was playing. My first guess was correct, seeing that it was a BBC film and I hadn't heard about it yet, so I took a shower to wash off the weekend's grime and made my way up to Scottsdale.

The movie was absolutely amazing. This may be biased, as I haven't read the book, but the movie did exactly what the book was trying to do: make people think. There weren't a whole lot of people in the theater, but we all sat silently as the ending credits rolled. No one got up for a few minutes; the film had been so powerful. No special effects, no crazy cinematography, no stunts, no famous actors, and the film wasn't even based in the native language where the film took place (Nazi Germany, and the actors were British, so it took a bit to get a feeling that they were indeed in Berlin). But it made you think, and that's exactly what I've done the rest of the evening.

I'm not about to spoil the movie, as I'm pretty sure that it will be coming out to additional theaters, and I am going to recommend that everyone go see it, but here is what it made me think about.

Why are we so bad to other people? I am a very fortunate kid. I grew up in a rural Midwestern town, was nurtured by an incredible, loving family, went to a great school, and had lots of freedom to run, explore, and question the world that was around me. That upbringing allowed me to travel, grow, and learn about other places and cultures, and I grew up to be to be an outgoing, adventurous, and fairly open-minded person. But not everyone is so lucky. A lot of people around the world are brought up in homes that limit their thinking, that brainwash them into thinking that one specific religion, one race, or one way of life is above all others and is the ultimate right. They are taught that from such an early age and in such an absolute manner that it is part of them, and they don't know any other way, and more so, do not want to know anything different, anything outside of their own. Their way of life is comfortable to them, and anything unknown to them is uncomfortable and foreign and possibly dangerous. They don't stop to identify with the other, because it is unknown, and learning something new takes courage and effort (and only the greatest of adventurers would be able to do that, to paraphrase the movie). All of their lives they have been taught that their way is the only way, and all others are wrong. They have taken it as truth without looking deeper, without actually looking for the truth.

The problem is not a new one, from warring tribes of the earliest peoples to the Crusades to the Civil War to the Holocaust to the current genocides that are occurring throughout the world, to right here in our neighborhoods, right now. People generally making life a living hell for those who just want to live and love.

For example, the current protests that went on this weekend against the ban on gay marriage. Where I stand on the issue doesn't matter in the context of this essay. What matters is that the two sides don't understand each other. There is a Mormon Church that sits right on the edge of campus that gives $1 lunches to students once a week. As a grad student that is currently paying off ocean rowing debts, I know that I can definitely use the cheap lunch, as can a bunch of my friends. But one of my friends won't attend the lunches because the Mormon Church gave millions of dollars to the Yes to 102 (basically banning gay marriage in AZ) fund. She doesn't know any Mormons and doesn't want to get to know any of them because of what they stand for. I've got several Mormon friends, and they're pretty good people, generally just wanting to live a wholesome life and spread good will to others. On the other side of the story, the Mormons don't know my friend. She's a great person with an incredible personality who is currently working (way) hard(er than me) towards getting her PhD and making the world a better place. But because of their differences, the two sides will never even try to see eye to eye. They will never try to become friends. They will blindly shove blankets of hate both ways, only fueling the hatred more, never learning, never growing, never trying to understand the other side, never actually solving anything. And this is just one example. How many times over the past few months did you hear that someone hated Republicans or Democrats? How many of them actually took the time to understand the other side? How many instances of racism, sexism, or religious hatred, none of which are actually based on any truth? And that's just in the United States, and we're supposed to be a developed society.

It's awful, and we do it to each other every day. How many times have we seen hatred around the world, caused by a brainwashed fear of a difference, an unknown, blind to truth. In the great scheme of things, we're all the same human race. When everything is boiled down: race, creed, color, whatever, we all want the same things: to live, to grow, to love and to be happy in our own right. And to put down a person you don't know, to judge without the truth, to judge a population of people without understanding them, is just flat out wrong. But yet, it continues on, and no part of the world is immune to the disease. Some cases more severe than others, resulting in the deaths of millions, while others kill hope and happiness with hateful words and actions. Both have real and lasting consequences. Humans have been around this planet for tens of thousands of years. Isn't time we evolved from the judgemental creatures that we are, and took more time to actually try to understand things from a different angle, to take time to uncover the truth about the other side? To maybe coming to peace with our differences, forgoing our resilient pride for once, and realizing that the resulting bond is not a compromise, but a realizing of the truth, to see that we're more alike than we are different?

Go see the movie.... and think about it.

24 Hours of Fury

In my quest for bigger and crazier adventures, Jack, Hannah, Todd (Jack's boss), and I raced in the 24 Hours of Fury over the weekend at McDowell Mtn. Park. We raced as a 4 person co-ed team in the 24 hour mountain bike race, which is the first step in my ultimate solo 24 hour stint in the 24 Hours in Old Pueblo in February.

Jack, Hannah, and I joined Todd on Saturday morning, and had no problem finding our camp amid the dozens of tents and small RVs. Todd had brought Dragonfire's MASSIVE trailer out for the occasion, and we dwarfed even the big-name sponsored teams' camps with the tricked out big rig. The front cab had a fridge, microwave, couches, flat screen TV, bathroom, and the whole bit. The back had enough room to ride around in, as well as a loft with more couches and cots. We hauled a couch outside, set up the grill, and just smiled at everyone's envious looks.

The race started at noon, and similar to last year's 24 HOP, I took our team's first lap. It was a mass start (no lemans), and although the first 20 minutes or so were crowded on the first bit of normally fun, fast singletrack, by the time I got past the Pemberton Wash, the field of 100 riders or so had thinned considerably. The back stretch after the major hill (about halfway through the 10 mile lap) on the course seemed rockier than normal, but I got through it without too many problems and finished my first lap in 1:06. Hannah took off for the second lap as I got some cold fluids into my hot, dusty lungs and hung out with the rest of my teammates and our fans for the next few hours. Todd and Jack both rode two laps during their turns, so my next lap didn't come around until 6 p.m. For my first night lap, I felt fast, but came in much slower than my first in 1:12. I was feeling a bit tired after the second lap, so got some nourishment in me and watched Cars with Rudy on the screen that the race organizer had set up. After the movie, I crashed onto the couches in the trailer for a few hours in preparation for my next night lap. Jack had had a rough second lap, so I woke up and got ready to take Todd's place after he finished one lap, but when he came through, he waved me off, saying he'd be fine for one more. I chilled in the trailer with Angel and Rudy while my teammates slept and then headed up to the start again at midnight. Todd didn't come in for another half an hour, having had a very tough lap that involved two crashes and a pretty hard bonk. I headed out into the cold darkness, my HID headlights illuminating the kangaroo rats hopping across the trail and leading me on to the next hill. The field had spread out considerably in the course of 12 hours, and it felt like I was the only one on the course, alone with the vast desert and a full sky of winter constellations spread out to all horizons. Those stars are old friends that have watched me during many of my adventures since I was a kid staring up at them from our frost covered roof, and their faithful eyes smiled down at me as I made my way through the course for the third time. Although I was pumping hard and my lungs burned with the cold air, I felt completely at peace, completely in my element. It was late and I was tired, but the joy of the challenge welled up in my heart, and I could not have been happier. Unfortunately, Fish wasn't quite feeling it, and the chain problems that I had experienced earlier in the race became more pronounced as the cold derailleur cables refused to shift. It made the bigger hills more frustrating, but even that could not quell my happiness, and I rode into the staging area feeling like I could ride forever. The lap ended up being my slowest (1:17), but I have to say that it was my favorite one.

I slept again while Hannah, Jack, and Todd each took a lap, and then strapped on my helmet just as the first bands of gray etched the eastern horizon. Sunrises out on the ocean were some of my favorite times, and sunrises in Arizona are just as spectacular. The arrival of the sun means warmth, light, and a renewed sense of energy. By the time I reached Pemberton Wash, I was able to make out the trail ahead of me without the aid of my HIDs, and my speed increased dramatically. I rolled back to the start in broad daylight and handed off our timing chip to Hannah and went straight for the pancake breakfast that the race officials were putting on. Two blueberry pancakes and a short nap later, I was feeling on top of the world. Our day laps were much faster than our night laps, but the team behind us was slowly creeping up on us, a mere 8 minutes behind as the boys took their last laps. We were in third place, so wanted to maintain the lead as much as possible, so when I took off at 10:30 a.m. for the last lap of the day, I was definitely on a mission. I had an incredible lap, powering up all the hills, bombing through all of the rocks, and kicking it up into my highest chain ring for the majority of the ride. I finished in 1:07, which left us solidly in 3rd place for our category.

I downed a liter of HEED, munched on some cookies, and found my way back to camp, where I scarfed down some more calories (eggs and sausage) and then celebrated with the rest of the team with some champagne. It had been an excellent race, and we were all happy with the finish. Although none of us won anything in the raffle, we did take home a great plaque for our efforts. Jack and I were exhausted and spent the rest of the afternoon passed out on the couches. I rode 50 miles in a little more than 5.5 hours, so it's just the first step in my long endurance races. Stay tuned for the next step, the Dawn to Dusk in December!

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.

Finding Fall

Those of us here in Phoenix don't get the autumn season the same way that the majority of the country gets it. We don't get changing leaves, harvesting of crops, toasting marshmallows over a big bonfire, or huddling together at football games in your favorite hoodie to keep you warm. For us, fall means that monsoon season is over and you will no longer get scorched or drenched when you walk outside. Nice, yes, but I really do miss the Midwest this time of year. So, in an attempt to enjoy the fall, we went looking for it.

The closest place to find the fall around here is Sedona, and that is exactly where Jack, Hannah, Angel and I headed over the weekend for some mountain biking adventures. We woke up far too early on Saturday morning after a fun night of carving pumpkins with some fellow grad students and headed north on I-17. We arrived at the Bike and Bean shortly before 9, got some advice on a good day's worth of trails, and then headed over to the Bell Rock Trailhead. Out of the 2.5 years that I've lived in Arizona, I've only ever been to Sedona twice, and have never even begun to explore it. The amount of people that flock there has deterred me in the past, but in the lull between seasons, we were hoping that it wouldn't be as crowded. It turned out to be absolutely perfect: mostly sunny with a few clouds scattered about and the crisp cool air being moved about by a light breeze. We started off on a long uphill stretch on a wide multi-use trail to Bell Rock and then took off to the singletrack Templeton Trail headed to Cathedral Rock. The scenery was to die for, and I couldn't get enough of it. At one point, as we were going down a small gravely hill, I couldn't help put take my eyes from the trail to marvel at the red rock and blue sky around us. I was talking to Hannah about just how awes... Crash! I skidded out mid-sentence and rode the rest of the day with a scraped and bloody right leg and elbow, but I just laughed it off and kept going. As we made our way to Cathedral Rock, I got my first taste of riding on slickrock, and I have to say that I am well and truly addicted. The stuff grips like crazy, and is just a blast to ride on. We wound our way around the rock formations and down into a small wooded valley where we found fall nestled in Oak Creek. The leaves were changing brilliant colors and we even found a rope swing and played like kids the big kids that we are in the beautiful area. As we made our way along the creek, Hannah had an amazing catch to what could have been a really dangerous crash over several big boulder steps. Her bouncing over her handlebars and catching herself upright and dodging the next drop was spectacular. We rode several more incredible miles around in a loop until it brought us back to the creek and around Cathedral once again. I can't begin to describe how fun, beautiful, and relaxing it was to be riding up there. Maybe those people who talk about vortexes are on to something... or maybe just that it's an incredible place, but either way, I was in heaven.

We continued back towards the highway for a bit until we found the H.D. Trail that would put us back on the northerly part of the Bell Rock Trail. From there, we took off on Little Horse Trail that offered some more slickrock, wonderfully technical bits, and lots more fun as we explored the northeast part of the trails around several red rock formations. Eventually, we came out to a Jeep tour area where the trail/Jeep road was made up almost entirely of slickrock. It was a blast to gain experience on the stuff, and makes me really want to go up to places like Moab and Fruita. We had been biking for about four hours when we all became ravenously hungry and found our way to Broken Arrow Road that led us to town. After a short stint on the dangerously busy, shoulderless Hwy 179, we turned into a little shopping center to find a Mexican restaurant, where we downed multiple Cokes and big juicy burgers. Hannah and Angel had to rush back to Phoenix, but Jack and I took it easy back to the truck (by necessity, as Jack's tubeless tire had a not-so-slow leak). We wanted to stay off of the busy roads as much as possible, so we tried to find an aptly named Mystic Trail that was supposed to start just outside of town. We finally found it at the end of a maze of new construction and multiple Lutheran churches and took it back to where it met up again with Bell Rock Trail. The last mile or so was incredible, with a very impressive view of the red rock and ALL downhill. Poor Jack had to limp down the beautiful doubletrack, but I fairly flew down, smiling from ear to ear as I jumped small waterbars and ate up the wonderful speed.

After an incredible day biking and soaking up the fall weather, we headed up Hwy 89 to Flagstaff. Jack's nephew, TJ, is a freshman at NAU and it was going to be his first game dressing for the Ice Jacks hockey team. After chilling with him pregame at one of the bars near campus, we headed to the rink. It's been awhile since I watched Chris play hockey in Chicago, and I found that I really do miss it. There's just something hardcore about the game that I really enjoy. TJ got several minutes of playing time each period, and the Ice Jacks whooped up on Santa Clara 13-0. TJ didn't score, but he had a lot of good looks, and Jack and I had a great time watching.

It was a late night up in Flag, so I slept in on Sunday and then spent the afternoon working on the Fire most of the day and just hanging out. All in all, a fun, relaxing weekend, and gave me plenty of energy to tackle the busy week ahead.

The Call of the Ocean...

It's been just over a year ago since the Unfinished Business team came together to complete our dreams of rowing across the Atlantic. Since we finished at the end of January until just about two months ago, I had taken a complete hiatus from the sport that I had grown to love since my first timid strokes on the Wabash. After taking several million strokes over the course of 51 days, I was in need of a different kind of adventure and a break from the past seven years in which rowing had been my number one priority. As the saying goes, if you love something, let it go... And like the truest form of old love, even after months away from the oars, the passion is definitely still there. I really can't live without rowing, and it was only a matter of time before I got back into it. As a testimate to this passion, I've done the one thing that I never ever thought I would do... joined an erg class. Yes, erging... for fun... by choice. My friend Kelly teaches an erg class down at the lake, and Jack and I have joined once a week. It's modeled after a bike spinning class, and we row at different stroke rates with accompanying music, and I have to admit, that it really is.... (gasp) fun. I don't think that I've ever thought erging 10k was fun. Satisfying and competitive? Yes, but fun? Never until now. Maybe I've matured since the days down in Lambert Fieldhouse, or maybe the stakes in our little competitions are much lower when the outcome won't decide whether you get kicked out of the varsity boat or not, but either way, the hour-long workouts are very refreshing. Strokes at high ratings remind me of every single piece that I ever pulled out in the musty basement of Lambert, the collective power of the few dozen girls sweating beside me rising above any pain that we experienced, knowing that we would turn that power into gold medals in the spring. Strokes at low ratings with the resistance set high and a good chill song take me right back to the ocean. Looking out over the dark rippled reflections of Tempe Town Lake could almost be the vast expanse of the Atlantic, and an unexplainable calm that just feels like home washes over me. There is no doubt that rowing is in my blood, and will be for the rest of my life.

On the adventure side of things, it also feels incredibly good to be involved in another ocean rowing project. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love all of the smaller adventures that my friends and I find ourselves involved in on the weekends, but for the past five years of my life, I have been involved in one ocean rowing adventure or another. Although finishing the '07 race brought so much incredible pride and joy into my life, now that it's over, I've had to fill a void in my life, and the '09 project suits that spot perfectly for this point in my life.

Anne came in from Colorado for the weekend, and she, Mia, and I worked on the Fire most of Saturday. It was a long, productive day epoxying, sanding, cleaning out the cabin and hatches, removing old sponsorship stickers (and reminicsing about the stories behind each of them), and pouring over equipment lists and the plans on how to procure all of it. I gave them a tour of the West Marine store, and I think that they felt exactly how Kohl and I felt when we first started looking for equipment: like kids in a candy store, oogling over everything from bilge pumps to electrical panels to lifejackets. The sun set on us while we were still working on removing old stickers, so we called it a day having achieved quite a bit. I'm definitely enjoying the project manager part of ocean rowing, and watching Anne and Mia learn and grow is an incredible feeling to have, knowing that they're following in Kohl and my footsteps.

We had a good night out on Mill Ave with a few of my grad school friends before Anne left early Sunday morning. I had planned on going out to join some friends up on the Verde River where they had been camping all weekend, but as I've said before, ocean rowing is addictive, and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon looking up equipment and trying to figure out potential sponsors. Then, in the evening, I joined Hannah and several of my other mountain biking buddies including Scooby, Chris, Ryan, and Josh for the first team meeting of ZumBala. Although I enjoyed my year with Missing Link, they're more of a social team than a racing team, and if I want to get better at biking, I'd like to be with people who can teach me, so ZumBala was a natural choice. All the guys are incredible people, and excellent riders. We already have some great sponsors set up, are planning on having support at all the races, and foster a family-like atmosphere that promotes both racing and the comradarie that is so special to me in the community of mountain bikers. And, one of our guys, Bruce is head of a company called 360 Adventures that does guiding for mountain bike, climbing, and hiking tours throughout the Valley, and as members of the team, we have the option to become guides for them (ie. get paid to do the adventures that we would normally do anyways). All in all, a great meeting and I'm looking forward to racing and riding with the new team.