Wake me up, when September ends...

Sometimes it seems that my life is just one big adventure, and I know it seems that way to many of the people that know me. My labmates are always eager to hear about the weekend's adventures on Monday morning, and I rarely cease to entertain them about either an amazing new spot that I found or some crazy debacle that I found myself in. It seems to be the story of my life, and one that I am quite happy with.

But, a few weeks ago, during a conversation with my dad, he asked me if I ever got bored or jaded with the adventures. I responded with the negative, but then it got me thinking... I somehow manage to get myself into some sort of adventure pretty much every weekend, and haven't really had a week without one in a long time. So, I decided to take it easy over the weekend and see what it would be like.

I had an enjoyable night hanging out with friends up in the north Valley on Friday, but ended up staying much later than anticipated, and woke up grumpily on Saturday morning to Hannah's knock on my bedroom door at 6 a.m. Fortunately, Jack had had a late evening as well, and so I wasn't the only one groggily loading my bike into the truck as the three of us headed up to the McDowell's to meet Angel for a morning ride on the competitive track. The sun was shining brightly, but it wasn't terribly hot as we warmed up on the backside of the long loop before we made our way to the parking lot. By that time, I had shaken most of the sleepy out of my system, and was happy to be out riding. We had a great trip around the 9 mile loop, stopping occasionally to wait for each other at the top of the long hills, and then returned to the parking lot where Jack took another long loop, Hannah and I took the sport loop, and Angel played around the area before heading back to her car. The sport loop is like mountain biking candy, and I can't get enough of its easy rolling hills, fast curving descents, and all-around flow. Yummy. After a successful 15 mile ride, we headed back to the cars and waited for Jack to return before having a filling post-ride Denny's breakfast.

I spent the remainder of the day watching football, reading, and napping. Even in Tiller's last year, my Boiler's haven't changed much... they looked great in the 1st half, but I almost couldn't watch the 2nd as they fell apart against the Fightin' Irish's offense. In the evening, a whole bunch of my grad school buddies and I headed out to Tempe. Even though my once staple Mamacita's has changed hands and no longer offers $2 Coronas or good music, it's an old habit that we can't seem to break, and we started the night there before lots of pool and dancing down on Mill Ave. until the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday, I stuck to my guns and didn't go out on any adventures. I slept in, which I have to admit was very nice, read a lot, got things done around the house, and went to the lab and even worked for a bit. As the sun began to set behind the White Tanks, I left the lab and headed to the grocery store to finish off the day. Looking east, the sun reflected beautifully off of the Superstitions, and I felt more than a tinge of guilt that I hadn't taken advantage of the beautiful day. I immediately wanted to hop on my bike and at least get in a Greenbelt ride or something that would absolve the feeling of a wasted day. Alas, the sun soon faded with the day as I left the store, and I headed home without any good adventure stories for the weekend.

It just goes to show me how adventure and nature, and just getting away from it all is so important to me. My adventures relax me and reenergize me for the week ahead, and without them, I just don't feel the same. So long as I keep them varied and new, I don't think I will ever get jaded with them. And fortunately for me, Arizona and the West have plenty of places to get lost in, and I look forward to exploring as many as I can while I am out here. Until next weekend...

Blunders

Sorry for the long hiatus between posts... been a bit busy here in the crazy life of this crazy rower.

Friday (Sept 19th), was a bit of a bittersweet day. It was Matoba's last day here at ASU. Matoba has been one of my mentors since the beginning of my PhD, and his advice and understanding have been instrumental in my growth as a scientist. After seven productive years at ASU as a post-doc and research professor, he accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Louisville and the Brown Cancer Center, and though we are all excited about the new opportunities he and his family will have there, we will also truly miss him. Friday night we had a party to wish him well. It was a grand affair at the Mor residence with the entire lab and some of the labs over in Biodesign, as well as all of their families. Lots of eating, drinking, and playing with the plethora of kids. Oh yeah, and spiking Matoba's hair into a mohawk. Good times.

After the festivities, I joined Hannah and Angel and we drove up to Prescott to set-up camp for the Gilmore Adventure Race. When we arrived at the transition area in the middle of the cattle ranches, a full horizon of stars greeted us in the cool (although a little smelly from the cows) air, surrounded by mountains. It was a wonderful contrast to the hectic weekday life, and I snuggled into my sleeping bag happily excited about the next day's adventure.

We woke to a prodigious day full of bright sunshine and dozens of teams milling about getting ready for the big day. Everything was looking great until we realized that we didn't know where the keys were to the car's bike rack, and both Angel's and my bike threatened to become immortalized on top of the little Subaru. For better or worse, the locks on those things aren't the greatest, and I managed to loosen the bolts enough that we got them down without too much hassle (let that be a lesson if you think your bike is safe in a Thule rack). And then the day went down from there...

I still don't like talking about the actual race, as it ended up being such a disaster. Most teams are made up a diverse group of people who each have a special skill or talent to bring to the team. Our talents are... well, special maybe, but not in a positive sense. I have special navigation skills that were responsible for making us trek several extra miles in the first leg of the race and completely miss one of our first points. Hannah has special running skills that make her legs fall to pieces. Angel has special biking skills that allow her to be shaken to bits on her fully rigid bike. The ODP Special, ladies and gentlemen. We had joked at the beginning of the day that things couldn't have gotten worse than the blow-up self-bailing kayak fiasco of the Lake Hodges Adventure Race, but after 8.5 hours of getting lost, scratched up, losing/finding a camera, trekking ~8 miles, dodging giant kamikaze grasshoppers, biking ~20 miles, hike-a-biking down a 30' waterfall, and finally rolling into the finish line 1/2 hour late with only 4 navigation points checked off for the entire day to the applause of the entire crowd of seasoned racers - I definitely felt that we had outdone ourselves. Hannah has a very good description of the race, but for once, I'm going to be trite on the subject and just leave it as a good training day in controlling frustration in a very beautiful setting near Granite Mountain in Prescott.

In the end, I did win a small first aid kit in the shwag raffle, so the day wasn't a complete loss. We headed back to the Valley munching on the best tasting gas station nachos in the history of processed cheese food, and then spent the evening watching the Lady Blues battle Coast Rugby at Chaparral. Even after such a crazy adventure race, Angel played almost the entire game. I don't know how she did it, as I was completely whooped and as soon as the game was over, I barely had time to take a shower before I fell asleep.

I took it easy on Sunday, hanging out with Kohl, watching movies, just generally relaxing, trying to forget about the previous day's blunders, and looking forward to the next adventures.

New Adventures

It is nearing the end of monsoon season here in Tempe, and by now I have become accustomed to the frequent storms that dot our landscape in the evenings. On Wednesday night as I was leaving campus after a 12 hour day, the streetlights were reflected from the low lying clouds and it was just sprinkling as I left the building. It doesn't just sprinkle during monsoon season, though, and before I had gone a quarter of a mile, the sky opened up, soaking me in seconds and leaving me no choice but to continue the rest of the four miles home in the downpour. The ocean has taught me a lot of things, but one of the biggest things that it taught me was to find humor and joy in every situation. So, as I sloshed home through the flooded streets for the second time in three weeks, wiping my eyes every few seconds to see ahead of me through the blinding drops, I smiled and reminisced about the days on the ocean and how it all came about.

At the end of the summer of 2003, I was sifting through an Oxford Street bookshop in London, searching for a book to read on the flight home to the States after an incredible summer abroad. I was looking forward to going back to Purdue, hanging out with my friends, resuming practices on the Wabash River, and starting my junior year of college. What I didn’t know was that one of the books that I would purchase that day would forever change my life. As I sat in the tall grass of Hyde Park that evening and watched the planes circle around Heathrow, I opened up Debra Veal’s, Rowing it Alone, and got goosebumps in the warm August twilight. Her story captured me, and though at the time I never fully understood the reason for those goosebumps, I knew that deep inside of me, I wanted to row across an ocean. By the time that I landed two days later in a stormy Chicago, I knew that I was hooked. The beautiful blend of rowing, adventure, and the unknown held me in its grasp, and I could not stop thinking about it. For months, my obsession grew, and the more I researched, the more I talked to people, and the more serious I got about actually partaking in the adventure, the more I knew that I could not live my life without making the dream real. When Kohl and I registered for the race in January of 2004, we could hardly contain our excitement, looking forward the absolute adventure of a lifetime.

Now, five years later, the adventure is coming full circle, and I am happy to be helping the next generation of American ocean rowers. Anne came in from Colorado over the weekend with two of her friends, and from the moment that I opened up the door on Friday evening, I could feel the exact same excitement emanating from her as Kohl and I felt when we were first starting out. It was infectious, and I recalled my days when the adventure was new and the dream began all over again. We spent the entire night looking at pictures and sharing stories about the row.

The next morning after some pancakes, we headed out to see the American Fire. I remember the first time I saw an ocean rowing boat, the American Pearl, with Mack, and then the first time I saw the American Star in Toledo. Both times, I was overwhelmed by the tangible hold that the boat put on the adventure and I could not stop smiling. I think that the feeling is universal for those who are truly passionate about ocean rowing, as Anne had the exact same reaction when we pulled up to the boat. We spent several hours going over the boat, telling more stories, and letting Anne get a feel for life onboard in the late summer heat. By the time we went to lunch, where Kohl joined us, Anne was truly hooked. As Anne shared her own story of her original teammate dropping out, we suggested a few others who might be interested, and Kohl texted Mia. A few more texts and a phone call later, a partnership was born, and within the hour, the new American Fire team was finalized. We went back to the boat, where the four of us equally shared in the new excitement. Kohl and I looked on like proud parents as Anne and Mia crawled into the cabin and all over the boat and started talking about how they were going to go about their adventure.

That evening, we headed to Hannah’s to watch Ohio State get clobbered by USC (it was pretty much a bad week for the Big 10), before going over to Jose’s for an ultimate Frisbee party to celebrate the start of the fall league. It was an excellent way to end an exciting day, and I look forward to watching the campaign grow each day until Kohl and I are standing in the Canaries, watching our boat and new team as they row into the horizon.

Anne and her friends left early on Sunday morning in order to get back to Colorado by Monday for work, so I decided to join Case, Fife, Trish, and Cody for a trip to West Clear Creek near Camp Verde. I had heard a lot about this gorgeous canyon, but had never actually been up there, and I was excited about the day ahead. After a few miles on the dirt roads, we arrived at the trailhead near the namesake creek underneath the yellowing cottonwoods. The five of us started out along the creek before the trail meandered up to the desert floodplain. Almost immediately, Case picked up some Indian pottery shards along the path, and for the rest of the trip, we all had our eyes peeled for the artifacts. We explored an old settlement ruin and then made our way back to the creek where we were greeted with a beautiful outcropping of red rock that boasted some excellent jumping cliffs and a large rope swing. Even though the water was still cool from the night before, it didn’t deter us from using the cliffs and rope for the purposes that their creators intended: living life to the fullest.

After a good time at the outcropping, we pulled our Camelbacks over our shoulders and continued along the dusty trail, finding plenty of artifacts along the way. There was a rumor of a sliderock, but the trail didn’t follow the creek exactly, and we meandered along the red canyon walls crossing the water only occasionally. Several miles of the beautiful landscape passed and I took notes in my head of places to explore further on the next trip out there before we came to the last creek crossing. We stopped for lunch and a dip in the clear water to cool our sweaty bodies before resuming the hike. Seven miles in, we were supposed to follow the trail up towards the rim of the canyon, but the trail conveniently disappeared. We hunted for it among the cacti and until we finally followed a wash to where the trail reemerged from the scrub. It was a long, strenuous hike up to the rim, but I found a whole arrowhead in the scree, and the view from the top was spectacular. From the top, it was another three miles along a dirt road to the next trail, which wound its way back to the car as the sun sank lower behind the mountains to the west. I almost stepped on my first tarantula as the September harvest moon starting rising out of the eastern rim. We lost the trail once more in the last half mile, and walked the remaining bit of the hike with the moon lighting our way back through the tall cottonwoods. All in all, it was an excellent, scenic hike, and I can't wait to come back to explore it some more.

We ended the weekend at a local pizza joint in Camp Verde before making our way back to the Valley. When I got back home and plopped down on my bed after a very full, enjoyable weekend, the moonlight streamed in through my window. I can't help but think that the same moon is shining down on the Atlantic somewhere, waiting for new adventures.

Wild, Wild West

It was another exciting week in the world of this graduate student. We started the week off with the most fun colloquium I have ever attended, due to an underground game of "seminar bingo," compliments of the best comic ever. Teaching was also a lot of fun, especially when one undergraduate who I had previously thought was smart turned the diagram of a microscope on her quiz into a pepper-sneezing monster. I could not help but laugh out loud when I looked at it. But, for the most part, I have a really good group of kids, and I thoroughly enjoy teaching. And my mentor finally returned from his tenure-induced disappearance to have a meeting with me and justify that the work I am doing is actually what I should be doing in order to advance my research and graduate career. It was a rather refreshing way to end the week.

There are always multiple fun things going on for every given weekend, and it's always a struggle for me to determine how to maximize the ~50 hours of fun. I started it out by joining a few friends for a climb at Climax, one of the new climbing gyms in Tempe. Although the gym lacks the competitive big ropes that Haydon and I always end the climb with, it does boast brand new holds and walls (they're so sticky, you almost don't need chalk) and a real air conditioner (as opposed to the swamp cooler at PRG). The climbing and post-climb Dos Gringos was a great way to start off the weekend before I had to decide between hanging out with mountain bikers in Sedona or ultimate players in Prescott. So, like any good compromiser, I did both. Saturday morning started early with Jack and Hannah on South Mountain. We had a nice, easy ride on Desert Classic out to Telegraph Pass. Ok, at least I did. Hannah started hating Jack and I sometime in between the time he wouldn't let her stop at the water tank and when Jack ran over a rattlesnake. But, we made it the 9 miles out in 1:15, and started up the Pass just as Hannah ran out of water. Oops. The long climb was hot and involved lots of bike carrying, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I don't know if it is because of the experience I've gained or the fact that maybe, just maybe, the weather is cooling off a bit, but either way, I'll take it. Jack and I gained the top and watched Hannah painfully make her way up for a bit before Jack felt the gentlemanly need to go help out our damsel in distress. After a brief rest, we all spun up the blacktop past the TV towers until we got to National Trail. I really do love this trail, even if I can't clear half of the stuff on it, and I was stoked to be on it. Jack was stoked as well. Hannah... well, Hannah was just mad at the world by this point and in dire need of water, confidence, and maybe some pixie dust to help her fly more gracefully. The trail was exactly as I remembered it, and I was having a blast improving my skills over rocks and down tricky sections, trying to increase my control and handling of the bike. I got a bit tired towards the end, but not as much as Hannah, who had one spectacular endo over a pretty big drop, and the two of us took it easy the rest of the way down the mountain until we finally caught up to Jack at the trailhead. After two more fast, easy miles on the fire road, we were back to the truck where we gulped down some liquids and headed for home.

At home, we watched some college football and relaxed for a bit before I showered and got dressed up to go to Prescott. Yes, you read that right, dressed up to go to Prescott. As in, us cowpokes hadn't been to town all month and we had run out of the basic necessities and needed to take our monthly bath, tidy up a bit, and hitch up the wagon. I (Bonnie Lou Ann) met up with Dixie, Vernon Caldwell III, Hay-zeus, and Wyatt (aka, Fife, Case, Dixon, and Clint) and we took I-17 to Bumblebee where we left the paved road and wound our way up the mountains to the town of Cleator, which consists of a few old wooden buildings in the middle of nowhere. But, one building housed a bar that served cold drinks. We met up with Skyler and a few of his other friends (who didn't play along with our western theme) for a beer before continuing on to Crown King for a burger and a brew out of Mason jars in the oldest saloon in Arizona. We really looked like locals in our boots, cowboy shirts, and big belt buckles. From there, it was on to the 40 miles of dust and dirt to Prescott. We had a blast getting into our character for the evening and listening to all sorts of country music as we bounced along the primitive road (that Jack and some other friends and I are planning to bike before it starts to get snowy up there). None too soon, we finally found our way back to the paved road of Senator Highway and finally dropped down into downtown Prescott. We rassled up some grub and moonshine from the general store and checked into the brothel to watch some college football on the picture tube before shining up our belt buckles and moseyin' into town. We spent an amazing night pub crawling down the infamous Whiskey Row. We started the night off with a shot of Southern Comfort at Matt's Saloon, tipped our hats to the band, and proceeded to trip the lights fantastic on the dance floor. We had really looked like locals up until that point, but I'm afraid that I didn't spend enough time at JD's Dance Ranch as a teenager and Angel's two-step instruction months ago didn't stick. But we had a lot of fun none-the-less and didn't run into too many people. We hit up every single bar on Montezuma Street all the way down to The Bird Cage before returning to close down the evening at Matt's to dance off our hangovers. When the band played their last song and the lights came back on, we wandered back to the hotel and I crashed hard.

We woke up to a great continental breakfast, packed up the dusty truck, and made our way back to Phoenix, opting to return on the paved roads. We got back to the Valley around noon, so after hanging out with Jack and Guane for a bit and a short nap, I spent the rest of the evening getting covered in paint and epoxy and spending some quality time with the American Fire. She's really starting to look better, like she wants to go out for another row or something... she really is a beauty and it felt good to be working on her again, I love that boat so much. I ended the weekend with some of Guane's amazing meatloaf and called it a day.

Labor Free Weekend

The first week of school actually went fairly well. The colloquium wasn't too boring, I managed to get a bit of free food, I didn't run over any undergrads on either the bike or Biodesign van, and... I found out that I really do love teaching. It's sort of like coaching with the exception that if they screw up I'm not supposed to make them run. If I can just remember that, I think that the semester will go by just fine.

And, the start of the school year means a plethora of school-sanctioned drinking activities, and all of us grad students were happy to oblige. From the Biodesign Fellows meet-and-greet to the weekly Thursday Four Peaks (where several of us got caught in the monsoon/tornado thing that whipped through Tempe and had an incredible escape to Josh's house in the storm), and finally to Friday's School of Life Sciences Happy Hour at Macayo's. I started the weekend with my fellow grad students for free food, cheap drinks, and mingling with our professors until their bedtimes, at which time we discovered the Jack Daniel's promotion. After a few Jack-aritas, I cooled off in the Depot waterfall and we then proceeded to Mill Ave. for some billiards, dancing, and more crazy antics until our bike gang ended the night at Ben's pool.

My initial plan had been to head to San Diego on Saturday morning, but when I tried to battle the sleep monster at 6 a.m., it won, and kept me under its control until much later in the morning. But, I was not about to waste one of my precious three days of vacation, so I joined Phil and some of the rugby guys for some extra dirty (due to the nice monsoon rains) sand volleyball for most of the afternoon before brushing off the mud and rejoining the SoLS grads for some watermelon carving fun. I've said it loads of times before, but I'll say it again: I really do love the grad school environment. It's filled with intelligent, adventurous, like-minded, and just fun-loving people. I find it kind of embarrassing that it's taken me two years to really start hanging out with all of them on a somewhat regular basis (apart from functions that involve free food), but I am excited about the adventures that I know I'll have with them in the future. We spent an awesome evening carving, eating, bowling, wearing, throwing, and drinking dozens of watermelons among other activities such as hula-hoop soccer, wall-ball, and singing to the neighbors. All in all, it was a very fun, crazy night and I headed home with a smile on my face.

Though I didn't get any more sleep than Friday night, I was determined to make it out to San Diego before high tide, so I tackled the sleep monster into submission, packed up the Jeep, and headed west. I hadn't gone on a solo expedition in a long time, so I was stoked to the max, and I didn't even mind the driving. The Shins, Rogue Wave, U2, Billy Joel, and The Killers kept me company until I finally crested the mountains and descended to the sea. I rolled down the windows to a perfect 75 degrees, and cruised into downtown on top of the world. The first stop was to Coronado to pick up a rash guard at Emerald City since I had forgotten to bring one, and then I headed up to Cabrillo Point to scout out the waves up the coast. It looked pretty flat, and the tide pools had already closed for the day (it was almost high tide), but I walked around and enjoyed the smell of the ocean and watched the sailboats come into the bay until the park closed at 5. By that time, I didn't care if the waves were small or not, I wanted to be out on the ocean. So, I headed down the coast of Point Loma to Sunset Cliffs and broke out the boogie board. The waves were only 3 feet tall and pretty mushy, but as I paddled out to the line-up, there was a transformation in me. I hadn't been to the ocean since January, and the taste of saltwater and the sound of crashing waves brought me right back home and I fell in love all over again. As I got through the soup of the broken waves and lined up to the north of the half-dozen longboarders, I just laid across the board and looked out towards the sun melting through the clouds on the western horizon. As far as I am concerned, there is no better thing than being part of the ocean, cradled in the cool, gentle swells. It is simply where I belong. I felt more relaxed just sitting there on the line-up than I have since I was last on top of the Atlantic swells. I just sat there on the board for several minutes basking in the incredible beauty of the Pacific before I even though about catching one of the waves that were swelling around me. Even though they weren't very big, the lines were long, covering the entire sandbar, and so after studying the sets for a little bit, I turned around and caught a few. And by a few, I mean exactly three the entire time I was out there. And two hardly counted, as they didn't even have enough power to get me into shore. But, I still couldn't have been happier, and was quite content to just hang out there on the line-up, which is pretty much what the rest of the guys were doing anyways, whether they wanted to or not. After a few hours, I decided to get out of the water and just watch the sun set over the western horizon as I had done so many times before. It wasn't a spectacular sunset by any means, as the clouds hid most of the rays, but it was perfect for me and allowed me to just watch the ocean. It's really amazing how much that great blue expanse of water and life means to me, and just how much I miss it.

After the sun went down, I made my way up the coast past Mission Bay. The camping on the bay seemed pretty full, so I didn't even check it out, and instead headed to Pacific Beach for some Chipotle and people watching. Nourished once more, I continued north. My intentions were to just keep going, but I could hear the waves crashing on the cove from the car, so I pulled over to investigate. You would think that based on my past experiences, that crashing waves would be a negative sound, but I still do love them, and couldn't pull myself away. I sat down on the sandstone above the cove and just listened and watched the ocean. The surf may have been flat to the south, but it was going off there at the cove, and it was truly beautiful.

Eventually, though, I needed sleep, so I continued my way up the coast. It's illegal to just park your car overnight at the beach - much to the chagrin of the surfing community - so I was hoping that with the chance of rain that there might be a free campsite open at one of the two beach campgrounds. No such luck at either Cardiff or Carlsbad. In the end, I joined the beach bum crowd, found a neighborhood adjacent to the beach that allowed parking on the street, pulled up behind a VW Westfalia, spread my sleeping bag out in the back, and curled up with Fish to the sound of waves crashing on the distant shore.

Before I knew it, the dark night had turned to a gray misty, southern California morning. I woke groggily, but as soon as I made the short drive down to the Tamarack Surf Beach, my face lit up again. It was only 6 a.m., but there were already a few dozen vehicles in the parking lot, and a few spots down from me, sure enough, there was the VW bus with a few boards hanging out the back. Since the surf shops wouldn't open for a few more hours, and I wanted to catch the perfect breaks that lined the beach, I hauled the body board out of the Jeep and headed barefoot down to the waves. Tamarack really is a great surf beach, and there was plenty of room for all of us, even body boarders who generally aren't welcome in a surf line-up. My tiredness wore off the second that I hit the cold Pacific water, and I had to smile. This was life. No sooner than I had paddled out of the breakers, I caught my first wave of the morning. If I could wake up every morning like that, I would be a very happy kid. The waves weren't huge by any means, 5 feet max, but they had some energy to them and definitely kept me entertained. For about two hours, I played in the swells, catching at least one wave out of every set, which came in pretty regular intervals. When I had tired myself out pretty good, I rode one more into the sand, rinsed off, and just sat and watched the waves and other surfers.

Eventually my hunger overcame my fascination with the wave riders, so I made my way to the final stop on my north county adventure: Oceanside, my birthplace and home for the first few years of my life. I don't know if it's nostalgia or that the waves really are better there, but that's where I decided that I'd spend the day. The gray day hadn't really helped to dry me off any, so like a local, I squished my way in my soggy flip-flops and damp boardshorts over to Johnny Manana's for a breakfast burrito. I love local places, and Johnny Manana's is the real deal. From my red plastic chair in the colorful little shop, I chatted with a few of the early morning surfers and listened to a group of old men as they talked about weather and baseball over coffee and beer, as they probably do every morning. After I was completely nourished by the potpourri of local flavor, I went over to the pier to see what the waves were doing. The south side of the pier was looking really good, with a bunch of shortboarders having a blast, and even the north side sandbar looked to offer some decent swells. With a steady wind coming straight out of the west, it promised to be a decent day.

As soon as Asylum opened up, I rented a 7' softtop (noone rents real boards) and headed out to see just what the waves were doing. I paddled out in between sets and lined up a few hundred meters south of the pier. The waves were pretty much perfect for what I wanted to do, but for all intents and purposes, I hadn't been on a board in quite a long time, and I spent the first hour pretty much displaying to the world how much of a grom I was. Catching the waves wasn't my problem, actually riding them was a whole different story. After half a dozen nose plants, one or two good rides, and too much time spent fighting the breakers, I gave in to the fact that I should probably practice a bit, so I joined the rest of the softtops in the soup and rode the mushy waves until I was exhausted but finally getting the hang of it.

After I was absolutely exhausted, I took a bit of rest on the beach before spending the rest of the afternoon on the waves of the sandbar on the north side of the pier. By 3 in the afternoon, I was waterlogged and tired, but the stoke of a good ride justifies the next one, and I was completely addicted. I told myself "just one more good wave," about 10 times before I finally rode one into the sand and hauled myself back up the beach and called it a day. After rinsing off and returning the board, I headed back down the PCH to drive past my potential future employers at the Torrey Pines Science Park and get one last look at the ocean at the Glider Port. I knew it would probably be awhile before I came back to the beach, so I spent an hour on the edge of the cliffs watching the hang gliders float over the beach and enjoying the sound and smells of the ocean before I hopped back in the Jeep and made the long drive back to Phoenix.

Life is short, but sweet for certain.

August 21st was the last day of freedom for the full-time residents of ASU. Throughout the week, the freshmen showed up and the campus started buzzing with new life, including cars, bikes, longboards, and clueless kids who compete for us grad students' space on the roads, sidewalks, labs, and sandwich shops. As I get older, the novelty of free food has worn off, and now that I am no longer coaching, the arrival of the new students just isn't as exciting as it used to be. I now understand why the grads at the Weizmann Institute loved their campus so much: with an undergraduate population of zero, it's summer break all year long there. Alas, not so much here. So as one last goodbye to the summer, some of us in the lab took one last trip to Sack's for a little bit of nutrition before we went into hibernation for the first few weeks of the fall semester. And then I crawled into my cave and settled in for a long winter's nap.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I need to do a bit more yoga in order for the cabinet to be more fun than dodging undergrads, so I decided to run away instead. After a nice evening with Martin and friends for his going away dinner, Hannah and I packed up the Jeep and headed up to Flagstaff. It was late when we started, and much later by the time we actually arrived at the site for the race that was to take place the next morning. There were a few RVs parked near the road, but we continued on the forest road to where we had seen some tents last year, and completely by chance found a few of the Missing Link guys camped out there. I was dog tired by that time, and we crashed soon after we got the tent set up.

After a surprisingly great night of sleep (cool weather will do that), we got up and started tinkering with the bikes in anticipation of the Absolute Bikes Old Fashioned Mountain Bike Race. The day got off to a bad start for the boys of ML, and after an unsuccessful bleed and refill of Brad's rear disk brake, he was out of the race before it even began and was relegated to the job of photographer. At 9 a.m., the rest of the ML boys and Scooby lined up for the start of the expert men's race, with Hannah and I following shortly in the women's sport race. We had raced the same course last year, with three of us in the class and Hannah coming #2 and me #3 after I flatted. This year there were still three in our class, but I had a new secret weapon: "five pound" (according to Hannah) thorn resistant tubes in my tires, and I felt very confident in my equipment. I also felt pretty good about how my training had improved since last year, and eagerly waited on the starting line to see just how much we had improved.

The race started well, and my lungs had become accustomed to the altitude as I spun up the beginning of the forest road. It didn't seem nearly as long as last year, and although I was well behind the leader in my class when I breached the top of it, I felt good as I took advantage of the descent. Unfortunately, Guy Bell was limping the wrong way when I zoomed past him, and our second ML racer was out of the race. The start of the singletrack was exactly how I remembered it, though. It started with a sharp curve and then a rocky incline as we all made our way up through the pines and meadows. I passed a few of the girls who had beat me to the trails and a few of the expert men passed me, but the women's leader was nowhere in sight. Soon enough, I came to the rock gardens that I walked my bike through the year before. I was happy to realize that I was much better at navigating them and picking a line through tricky stretches, but with the amount of bike traffic going through the area, I still found it hard to get into a good rhythm and was happy when I arrived at the pipeline forest service road for two steep ups and downs before returning to the singletrack and the best part of the race. The last few miles is entirely composed of fast, curving, descending hard packed singletrack. Aka, pure heaven. I consider this type of riding my forte (mostly because it is so much fun), so I was flying along having the time of my life until I found myself back at the beginning of the loop. Another woman and I were battling back and forth when we got back to the fire road, so when I found some new adrenaline after passing Brad, I passed her for good. I got some new adrenaline after pulling ahead of her, and before I knew it, I had reached the top, where I met up with Bill. He was obviously having some bike issues, because as I came up to him, he was in the process of kicking it. There wasn't anything I could do, though, so I started cruising down to the singletrack. I was a bit more tired this go around, so I didn't clear the rocks as well and had to walk some sections. Fortunately, I had the downhill section to end the race with, and it was just as fun on the second loop. After 2 hours and 33 minutes, I rolled across the finish line, the first for ML and almost an hour faster than last year. I was followed shortly by Scooby, who did well in the geared expert 30 miler, and then Bill, who ended up only completing 2 laps, and then Hannah at 2:52, and finally Jason who finished the 30 miles in the single-speed category just before the time cut-off.

After the main races, the kids race kept us quite entertained with ages 5-15 competing in an 1/8th mile loop. It was the cutest thing to see pint-sized kids in spandex and helmets bigger than themselves pedaling as hard as they could. One girl on a pedal-less training bike even finished a lap and shot her little fists into the air at the finish line. Too cute. I have an uncanny feeling that my future kids will be somewhat similar.

It started pouring and hailing soon after the finish of the kids races, so we raced back to the car and loaded up to head back into town for some grub and awards. After a quick bite at Altitudes and some free pizza at the Pay 'n' Take, they handed out awards and Hannah and I officially switched spots from last year, with me taking home the silver sprocket and Hannah taking the bronze. The girl that won should have been in the expert category, and I think I'm going to enter into it next year for the sheer fact that I like longer races and there is more competition, even if I'm not quite an "expert" yet.

We headed home after awards so I could get in a quick shower before heading out to west Phoenix to the Cricket Music Pavilion with Megan and another ulty player, Brian, for the Dave Matthews Band concert. It promised to be an emotional concert, as one of the founding members of the band, LeRoi Moore, passed away just a few days before the concert. Unfortunately for the crowd, just getting into the venue was emotional, as the Will Call machines were down, and it took 45 minutes for us just to get our tickets. It's not often that you see a crowd of angry hippies, but we managed to keep our cool as we got into the pavilion midway through the opening song. We spread a blanket at the top of the lawn and basked in the incredible music and atmosphere of the concert. The sax player from Bella Fleck filled in for the fallen band member, and as expected, it was a very emotional concert, made all the more incredible by the lightning storm that was playing off to the east and a sprinkle of rain that fell during the middle of the show. The incredible musical talent of the band has always held me captive, and so many of the songs were the soundtrack to my days at Purdue and will always hold a special place in my heart. Even though it was only my 3rd Dave concert, each one is magnificently unique, and this one was no exception. I had never heard Two Step as I heard it that night, and its lyrics really hit home for all of us in the crowd as I am positive it did for those on stage as well. By the last instrumentation, everyone in the venue was dancing. It was a beautiful thing, and I drove home through the night with a smile on my face.

It had been a long week, and though there were many grad student activities and mountain biking opportunities on Sunday, I slept solid until 10 a.m. It was absolutely refreshing. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the pool and hanging out with Jack and some friends and gearing up for the start of the school year.

Citius, Altius, Fortius.

"It means stronger, higher, faster, and its been the motto for the Olympics for the last 2,500 years. But it doesn't mean faster, higher, and stronger than those you compete against, just faster, higher, stronger." -Bill Bowerman, Without Limits

After my family left at the beginning of the week, I hit the ground running with things going on in the lab and preparing for the start of the school year, but I made sure to get some quality time in to watch the Olympics.

At the end of the long week, we decided to give Martin one last Arizona adventure before he returned to Florida to finish up his PhD. Our adventure of choice was Christopher Creek, and though I was just there a few weeks ago, I was excited about going back. I know I seem to have many "favorite places," but Christopher Creek is definitely high on that list. Hannah and I had the pleasure of introducing both Emily Hadyon and Martin to the canyon. There were several people at the start of the canyon when we got up there, and the water was a little low, but it certainly didn't diminish our fun. We slid, jumped, and log rolled our way down the canyon to the first of the larger falls, where the bit of downclimbing required for continuing further filtered out the boys scouts and others less adventurous than ourselves. Rather than downclimbing, though, I opted for the even better alternative for getting down: jumping of course. I've jumped off of a lot of cliffs in my day, but if I were to name my favorites, the 35' jump there near the falls is one of them. Wth my new lack of fear (enhanced by the fact that I'd jumped that one before), I easily climbed up to the ledge, waited for the cameras, and leaped off into nothingness. I love it. Haydon followed suite, and we had another great jump together. And then Martin got the courage to do it as well, and we all agreed that it was an awesome jump. Hannah refrained for this go around due to her still healing knee, but she made a great photographer.

We continued on down the canyon, with all of us jumping down near the double falls and then stopping for lunch along the cool rock formations and having a ton of fun that only adventurers like us can have. Then, we finally got to the biggest of the falls. The slings that we put in last time were still there, but we didn't bring ropes, so at that point, we had two choices: hike around or jump. Since Tyler had jumped last time, I had been itching to try it as well. When I stepped to the edge, I got really excited. The water levels were lower, and there was no way to depth check, but since we didn't even get close to finding a bottom last time and there were no boulders at all, I felt fairly sure that it was completely safe. With slightly more trepidation than the first jumps of the day, I pushed off of the granite past the few rocks sticking over the edge and flew into space. I really can't get enough of this jumping thing. It was an excellent jump, even with the Camelback, and when I resurfaced I was all smiles. My friends who looked down at me from above didn't think the same way about the jump as I did and they climbed around. I swam through to the second falls where we had rapped through the waterfall the last time and enjoyed the ambiance of the scenery on the top of the falls while the others climbed down to meet me. Then all of us took great flying leaps into the deep pool below. It was beautiful in so many ways.

Since we aren't simply satisfied with easily hiking down the canyon, after we were done with the big jumps, Martin found a really nice log that we decided to turn into a bridge. The bridge didn't go anywhere, but it was fun to attempt to balance on, and we continued to drag it downstream to a tricky part of downclimbing made more difficult by the fact that we blocked the route with a log. But, as I said, we certainly do keep life interesting. Near the end of the canyon, we hiked on the opposite side of the canyon than we had the last times, and played on the log that made a real bridge across the creek.... and then we jumped in one last time. At the very end of the canyon, we got in once last ounce of fun as we made a game of "who can haul themselves out of the creek on the algae covered slickrock." I'm pretty sure that Hannah won, but we eventually all made it. After one final swim section, we hit the trail that led us back to the highway. Although I could spend days in amazing canyons like Christopher Creek, we were, to quote Hannah from another trip, "almost out of water, and by water, I mean food." So, we jogged back to the car under the guise that it was good for our adventure race training, but really, it just meant that we got to food faster. Martin fired up his limo and we raced back to Payson to Tiny's restaurant for a lot of cheap, homecooked food and some amazing bread pudding for desert.

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly working on the American Fire, getting things done around the house, and escaping the late summer heat by watching the Olympics and Without Limits a few times (I really love the movie, and it captures everything that I love about sports and athletes).