DC day three

We trekked out Sunday morning to seek out MORE American History. Not hard to find in DC!

We hit the American History Museum and saw the American flag that was the inspiration of the Star Spangled Banner. We also did the Abraham Lincoln exhibit. There were some neat items on display like the hat he wore the night he was shot, his suit coat from the inauguration and all sorts of other items. Of course Kris, Liz and Joan (Kris's mom) all wanted to see the First Lady's inaugural gown exhibit. I, of course, could do with out it but got to pick where I wanted to go which was Julia Child's kitchen! The First Lady's gown exhibit was a dud. Only about eight gowns on display and no, Mrs Obama's was not there. The Julia Child's exhibit ROCKED! It was her WHOLE kitchen. They also had little snippets of her TV show running. Very funny lady. We all decided that our favorites there were the flag followed by Julia's kitchen!

Next we headed to the Holocaust Museum. So, I really didn't want to go to this museum as it is a DEPRESSING subject. I realize this is history and I know history that is forgotten is bound to repeat itself. Let me just say, I feel bad for what happened to the people and how tragic it was but do we really need three floors to remind us of it? I mean there are only so many pictures or films of people being killed and falling into a pit with other dead bodies and then buried or burned that I can handle. The most moving thing I saw was the story of this young lady at the time that had been in the camp for three years and was liberated by an American soldier whom she later married. The stories the survivors told were amazing and emotion. You could see the terror, hate and sadness in their eyes and to me that was enough. It was a very somber museum and one place I would not need to go back and see again.

We headed back to Union Station for our Monuments by Moonlight tour. This was really amazing to see and our tour guide was a blast. They take you by all the important buildings in DC and then would let you off the trolley at certain points to get closer views of the FDR Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, plus other sites. If you get a chance to do this tour it is wonderful and well worth the money. You can pick up the trolley at Union Station but reservations are recommended!

Kris giving the Rangers a hard time!

DC day two

After a quick breakfast at Starbucks and people asking us for money we headed out on our adventures for the day.

Let me just say this about the homeless. LOTS AND LOTS of homeless people in the Capitol Hill area panhandling. Shaking cups at you as you walk by or even coming up to you asking for money. Some are slumped over the newspaper stands in the morning sleeping on their feet. Some are living in BIG cardboard boxes on the sidewalk with sheets over the top of the box. Others wonder around talking to God knows who. Very sad and I am guessing the numbers will grow.

Ok, back to our events of the day. We went to moleville, the Metro, and headed to Ford's Theater. Very cool place but they did not even mention that this theater is not the "original" theater in their presentation. It is in the "original" spot but is a replica but still cool to see. The other thing I found interesting was that the National Park Service takes care of the property and tours. I guess they do more than just parks! The theater box in the picture is decorated the same as the night that Lincoln was assassinated. The ONLY ORIGINAL item in the box is a picture of George Washington in a gilded frame. Again, still cool to see.

We then headed to the Old Post Office Museum to go up in the clock tower tour. We passed all sorts of buildings on the way to this museum and one was the IRS building which we found humorous. The clock tower tour was a self guided tour with the highlight going up into the clock tower to see the views! Very cool. There was a National Parks Ranger up in the tower answering all the questions that were asked. The highlight while we were there was the Presidential helicopter take off from the White House. I guess there are always three helicopters that fly together so you never know which one the President is in once they are up in the air. We saw the other two join the one that took off from the "backyard" of the White House. This would be as close as we would get to seeing him. We later learned the First Family was headed to Camp David.

(The tower on this building is where the clock tower tour took place)

Arlington Cemetery was our next stop and of course we went to "moleville" first then under the Potomac River, yes, under the river..UGH! Anyway, we did the sightseeing bus there as it is a LOT of walking. Amazing place and very moving. From seeing the Kennedy's graves to the changing of the guards this is all very surreal to see. Why did they pick this place for the cemetery? There is a house at the top of the hill at Arlington called the Custis-Lee house. This is where Robert E Lee and his family lived. During the Civil War they needed a place to bury the dead and so it was decided to bury the hundreds of dead as close to the Lee plantation as possible so it was a constant reminder of the war. The Lee's never lived in the house after the war and later a Lee family member sued the government for taking their land to which the government paid $158,000 to the Lee family. The view from this hilltop is amazing.




We headed back to the hotel to freshen up before meeting up with one of Liz's, Kris's sisters, former students, Leo. Leo works in the Congressional budget office in DC. We ate outside on a patio at a little French place. I had the rabbit that was recommended by Leo and it was not to disappoint. Very good food. We parted ways with Leo, but would see him again at another tour during our stay, and headed to our next stop which was to see the Capitol Steps. They are a comedic, musical, group that poke fun at all the current events going on in the world. Very FUNNY!

It was then off to bed after a LONG day of site seeing!

DC day one

We are back from vacation and boy LOTS of walking was done. I am also half mole it seems also. You ask yourself, Mole? YUP. The Metro that runs in DC is mainly underground and underwater in some places. You take an escalator down the the lower levers anywhere from 4-8 stories underground, hop on the train going the right direction and then up an escalator to see what the world reveals as you pop out of the underground...just like a mole! Anyway, I digress.

(Pictures if the underground Metro. The red dots in the pictures are lights that flash when the train is approaching)

Our adventure started with a drive to Omaha to catch an early flight to Baltimore via Minneapolis. Once we arrived in Baltimore we took a short shuttle ride to the Amtrak station to ride the MARC train into Washington DC. Tickets were $6 each for one way trip which was about 30 miles in length and about 35 mi to go those 30 miles. Once there we meandered up out of the depths to Union Station. This is a HUGE building were you can catch a taxi, trolley to see the sites, Metro, Amtrak not to mention do some shopping, grab a bite to eat or even see a movie! We headed to our hotel and checked in. Nice place but it should be. The rack rate was $899 a night! We got ours for $169 a night for non busy nights, Friday and Saturday and then it jumped up to $269 a night for Sunday-Tuesday. It is a business town when Friday and Saturday are their cheap nights!

(Union Station)

We headed out on our adventure lead by our tour guide Jay, Kris's brother-in-law. He took us over the Metro to learn how to use it and we were off. First place was the White House. It was cool to see but was surprised at how small it looks and that the grounds were not all the big. There are BIG buildings on two sides of the White House with parks on the other two sides. We snapped a few pics then it was off to Old Ebbits Grille. YUMMY! Good place to have a bit to eat. I had some grilled oysters that were awesome for and appetizer and then had parmesan encrusted trout for supper. Very good but kind of noisy and VERY busy! It was well worth it! We headed back to the hotel as all of us were tired from our early traveling and ready to bound out of bed the next day to what was in store for us.

Sorry, no bloggie in a while and also up coming ride!

Sorry kids, lots going on with work and getting ready for a short vacation I have neglected to do the, as my niece calls it, the bloggie thing....forgive me and I will do a longer blog when things slow down a bit or when I get back from vacation.

FYI----
The weather is WONDERFUL out there today, but I AM WAY TO BUSY to enjoy any of it which BUMS me out HUGE! Word has it there might be snow this weekend and some next weekend, so get out there and enjoy the weather doing whatever, if you can!

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Check this ride out if you will be in the Yankton area....I will be!

St. Patrick's Day Bike Ride
Saturday, March 14™ 2:OO PM
Start at west parking lot of Riverside Park, Yankton, SD
Route 15-2o mile to lake area and back to Ben's Brewing Company

with several rest stops including the Cottonwood Corral
Free will donations accepted long-sleeve t-shirts available for $15

Sponsored by Missouri River Cycling

(Ben's Brewing Company is having a St Patty's party March 14th

also with a band and all sorts of fun stuff planned)

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Slides come to life..........

Back in the 50-60s my dad had fun taking a lot of pictures with his camera and develop the results in slide form. We kept all of his slides until the camera went bad and of course was very expensive to fix. During that time everyone had switched over to the instant Polaroids or film.

My niece and her husband took on the task of scanning all of our family slides and my brother-in-laws family slides. It is a lot of work! Kris and I had spent a little time doing this but it was taking so long with the equipment we had and basically we got burnt out on it. Anyway all the slides were sent to California just after Christmas and let me tell you sending boxes of slides chuck full of memories out the door onto a truck and hoping nothings happens to them is very scary! Of course they made it there just fine. The great thing now is we have all of them scanned and can go look at them on a private site so we can label them as to who is in the picture and even add other comments as we like. The slides are going to go into archival sheets to keep them from getting any worse and stored in a SAFE place. Lots of memories on the slides but I was a bit to little to remember any of them really and as is the way in most families the first child has a lot more pictures taken of them then the last child does but that is ok I knew they loved me just as much as my big sister.

My dad had quite the eye for composition in some of the pics. He really did a great job setting it up and shooting and after taking two camera classes I can really appreciate the job he did. There was no automatic setting on the camera he had. It was all manual. I like to think he was a natural talent at it as I really do not recall him sitting around reading about shooting the perfect picture but again at that time is his life I was not even thought of or was maybe a VERY little sparkle in his eye. So I leave you with a few pics he took from the past......

Yup, that is me with my grandpa's hat on.

My sister in grandparent's backyard (Obert school in the background)

My dad's parents standing outside on their sidewalk in Obert. That is Hwy 12 you see in the picture. I am pretty sure they never smilled in any picture we have of them!

Snow piled up on Hwy 12 somewhere between Hwy 81 and Obert. We never get snow like this anymore!

Waterfall somewhere in Colorado (I am guessing).

Since dad worked for Gurney's there are a lot of flower pictures. Guess that is where I got that gene!
My grandpa (my dad's dad). Even though the picture is dark it still shows a lot about him. He smoked a pipe, of course that is obvious, but he was a hard working guy that was very caring, and would do anything for his kids and grand kids. He worked for the county driving the maintainer around the Obert county roads (see the old Obert school house in the back ground?). I never saw him get upset, well except when my and my sister would fight, but still he never really raised his voice and I really do not remember him saying a bad word about anyone. He was the only grand parent I knew and he will always hold a special place in my heart!

Thank you Beth and Terry for all the work you did!

Eating, shopping, basketball and more shopping

Lots of stuff going on this past weekend. WOW!

Friday night we hit the Taste of the Big Apple with Kris's sister and mother then on to the airport to wait for her brother-in-law to fly in from DC. His plane was late so spent a little more time there then we thought we were going to but it was all good.

Saturday Kris's family hit the mall for shopping. It was NUTS out there. The funny thing is that the people that live in Sioux Falls avoid the mall on the weekends because of all the out of towners but since we had out of towners in town with us it was the thing to do. A few things were purchased by others but not by me as I was saving my extra cash for the bike swap on Sunday. We hit Puerto Vallarta for and early supper before hitting the Augie vs Northern basketball game. Ok, I am not much for watching sports anymore except for baseball, bike racing and maybe a tad bit of golf..very tad bit..so I was BORED out of my head watching this coupled by sitting behind the students section who were standing the whole time and if we didn't stand we didn't see one end of the court. So to pass the time for me I tweeted on the Blackberry. I am sure I was viewed as anti-social but here is the deal. I was there to see Don Meyer coach and secretly hoped Northern would win...sorry all you Augie people. I have a lot of respect for this coach. Do I know him?..NOPE, but just his whole ordeal he has been through and his fighting spirit earns my respect. Don Meyer has the most wins of NCAA college men's basketball coach ever so it was a privilege to be at a game he was coaching. Here is a coach sitting in his wheelchair on the sidelines in the coaches box, moving ALL the time, coaching, recording, watching the plays, calling the plays and then getting upset about a call that had him standing up in front of his wheelchair with his ast coached hanging on to his belt to keep him from falling. He has such passion for the game even when he is fighting cancer and still recovering from his accident. Look for some great footage of him around March Madness time as ESPN has been following him around a lot filming.

The other fun thing this weekend was Snakebite, a local blogger / biker, had organized a bike swap meet with the proceeds going to F.A.S.T. (Falls Area Single Track). Great turn out! FAB had a booth there and sold some memberships - YEAH! There were some GREAT deals there also. I got a pair of Shimano sandals (SPD) for Kris for $20! They were brand new but maybe the model was a few years old but still...they retail around $80! TWD (Two Wheeler Dealer) sold a LOT of shoes! Of course some of the Lane Hogs came up from Vermillion / Wakonda so we had to meet at Monk's to make sure the beer was still good there and of course it was. We had Biking Brady, Ride Vermillion, Cycling Cathy with husband Charlie, Me, Kris and then a couple of friends Dawn and Christi came later. Lots of fun and laughter was had and plans are that some of us might do the St Patty's day ride in Yankton put on by the Missouri River Cycling group in Yankton, March 14th. Should be FUN.

Lots to do this week work wise, bike club newsletter and then our second camera class on Thursday night.

Congrats to Levi and team Astana for their win at the Tour of California this past weekend. Also way to go Lance for placing 7th! Amazing 7 TDF wins and second race back after 3 years and places 7th!

Peloton is not a type of dinosaur

As I was tweeting on twitter about the Tour of California yesterday afternoon a fellow twitterite asked me a very interesting question. My tweet was "The peloton is coming fast". Ok, so, many of us know in the bike racing world what the peloton is but this person asked if it was a dinosaur and if it was that I should RUN! So, at first I chuckled, pretty good, in fact. I then picked myself up off the floor from my rolling around in a laughing coma. You know the type of laughter I am talking about. The type that you are laughing so hard no noise comes out, but then I jumped to my feet, as only I could do, I dusted myself off and thought I need to be a good bike liaison to others that may not know the lingo. I decided to educate the individual. I told them what the peloton is and then I got thinking about it more and more. It sure does sound like it could be a dinosaur. I found myself wondering what kind of dinosaur the peloton would be. Is it a T-Rex sort of thing with it's short arms and powerful jaws devouring the competition? or a Pterodactyl type creature swooping up the competition? What do you think?

Weekend recap........

Great weekend even though it seems I am at a loss of sleep.

We hit Pierre Friday night and of course as usual there was desert waiting for us. Saturday we mushed about before we went to View 34 for supper. My cousin owns this place and if you are ever in Pierre make sure to stop in and have a meal. It is on the order of Foley's or Minerva's here in Sioux Falls. Very good food!...AND WINE!

Sunday we went to early church, back to their place then I took off with camera in hand to snaps some pics at the capitol.

There are a LOT of geese that hang around the little lake by the capitol so had to snap a few of the flying creatures then drove around bit to the railroad bridge that goes over the Missouri River and snapped a few there also.

The whole drive home Kris was "woman-ing" the crackberry giving me Tour of California updates. That made the 3 hour trip go fast. Glad that Astana is looking strong. Fun to see someone go out in a break and win but bummed some the guys I want to win lost some ground.

FAB, View 34 and other stuff...........

Had FAB meeting last night. Keep watching the website for new and exciting things happening!

Not much else going on except a few darn Lane Hogs (you know who you are!) got me to start up on Facebook. This thing is WILD and a HUGE time suck much more so than Twitter....I think...... but, it is still fun to hook up with friends that have the same interests! I even got Kris to sign up or did I sign her up...haha...well she will have fun with it also once she learns a bit more.

Busy rest of the week here at work then a camera class Thursday night at Harold's which should be fun. Then off to Pierre for the weekend. We are going to hit my cousin's new eating place, View 34. They opened around the holidays. Should be a fun time and can't wait to eat there. I have heard the food is great!

My USA Cycling officials shirts and windbreaker will be delivered to me tomorrow. It was a good time to buy the clothes since some were half price but limited sizes and the limited sizes were my size! I have been slowly picking up things we are to have so have a good part of all the office type stuff picked up and purchased the whistle yesterday at a local sporting goods shop. The Fox 40 with rubber tip. Note to self, don't blow it in the truck when your windows are closed. I have yet to figure out the stopwatch purchase yet. Still a bit more educating myself on this before I buy. We are to have one good quality stopwatch ($50-75 price range) and at least one back up that can be of lesser value. Oh, yes and I have to buy turkey bags yet. They are used on rainy days and will cover your clipboard allowing your hand inside to write on the clipboard and still protected the pages from the elements.

Sad news to report. Pastor Jacob Knutson, the pastor at Vangen when we first join the church in Mission Hill, passed away Monday. He had cancer and died in his sleep. Another one I were the yellow Livestrong band for! He was a gentle soul and loved having fun with all the Luther-Leaguers at our many events. He was also a sounding voice in our adult choir. Pastor Jake was so good to our family when my father died. He and his wife drove to Sioux Falls and stayed with us in the waiting room and drove home in the wee hours in the morning just to be there if we needed them and we sure did. Rest in peace Pastor Jake, now you are well!

Well, that is about it for now. Have a great rest of the week and weekend everyone!

We passed!

It is official, we passed! A few FAB members, Cassie, the kErnEl, Dr Dope, Hooterville Mayor, me, Dustin from Central Plains Cycling, one guy from the Sioux City bike club and I think four from the Spirit Lake area all took the USA Cycling Officials clinic and test from our regional USA Cycling guy with all the knowledge Larry Martin. It was a few hours of info, a skills component and then the open book test. Let's just say the test, about 1 1/2-2 hours, is not easy even though it was open book. There is a lot to learn that is for sure! Now it is finding some races to go watch and tag along with some experienced offices to get my feet wet so to speak. Sounds like a few of us might travel to a race in Sioux City March 22 to check it all out! Should be fun!

Commuting this time of year?

Hope you are sitting down when you are reading this. This is day TWO of commuting to work this week. YUP, I know there are a lot of you out there that commute when there is snow, rain, ice and whatever and HATS OFF TO YOU but I am a fare weather rider so this is pretty good for me plus this is quite a few months earlier commuting for me than last year. I started keeping track in June last year. Not sure with rain and ice possible next week how long this will last but it is a start. The first day my hands got cold and of course the ride home I was overdressed. This morning was perfect clothes wise but roads were a bit more frosty. I learned right away a to be a bit more aggressive on "owning" your lane when there is ice approaching. I didn't fall but was very cautious. Looking forward to the ride home even though it is mainly uphill...UGH!


Taking supper over to our shut in friend tonight. Well she isn't really a shut in but she has been at home sick with bad sinus stuff for a week and a half. With one trip to Urgent Care , two trips to the doctor and a CAT scan in a week and a half I think she is doing better. We thought comfort food would be in order and nothing says comfort food more than a good old Lutheran hot dish! Kris has the day off so she is making Stella's hot dish...not sure what is all in it but hamburger, veggies, cream of something soups and chips on top...MMMM!


Tomorrow a few of us have our USA Cycling class to become cycling officials. The class goes from 9-3:30 and then an open book test at the end. HOPE I PASS! Kind of nervous about it as I really do not know the ins and outs of the legal stuff for racing but I guess I will have to learn. Why am I doing this? I love the dynamics of bike racing and our FAB club is trying to grow in all aspects of the cycling community and with having USAC Officials in our area we will be able to hold official time trials and crits locally. ITS ALL A GOOD THING.

We have a trip to DC coming up and decided that with the new camera we needed to learn a bit more about it so we are taking an SLR class next Thursday night. Should be fun. Lots to learn on this camera. We also have our hotel secured for our trip..WOW it is expensive out there. What is odd is that since it is a business city the hotel rooms are cheaper on Friday and Saturday nights but when it comes to Sunday-Thursday LOOK OUT! I think we are paying $169 / night for two nights...YUP THIS IS THE CHEAP NIGHTS! and then it jumps to $269 / night for our three other nights and this is a convention rate! YIKES! It is more expensive than staying at a moderate hotel at Disney and that would include our park tickets! It will be fun. Now we have to decide what we are going to take in the short few days we are there. Oh, yes and locking in our airfare. Lots to do yet I guess.

Well, I hope everyone has been out enjoying the wonderful weather the last couple days in our area. Cool down the weekend and then rain / ice /snow stuff next week so be careful out there kids!

Have a great weekend!

TV training....

Lets see what has been happening in my life.....hmmm....well, not much really.

We hopped on the trainers last night and watched TV. We decided to ride at a comfy pace and then at commercials we would turn it up a bit and then once the commercials were over we would go back to normal pace. Pretty funny. We ended up cussing out the commericals! We always try to make it fun when we ride those darn things. It was an ok workout to start back up with. I did find that my ankle was not happy with me. It is one I have broken, once, and sprained many times at least 8 times. Anyway I had my biking shoes on. I do not have clip-in pedals on my Cannondale road bike, maybe that is the problem? Anyway it was getting kind of painful toward the end of the ride. I have had the shoes for two years and decided last night I might need to get some new in soles for them as they looked depressed a bit. Oh ya, I am extremely flat footed also so need something with a bit of an arch. The funny thing is I don't remember this being a problem last year at all. Maybe the ankle just needs to get back into cycling form also.....damn appendages anyway!

In other noise a few FAB members hope to have one of these bad boys (see below) by late Saturday afternoon! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I pass the test!

Lots happen with FAB this year so join and become part of the movement to make cycling better in Sioux Falls! If you don't live in Sioux Falls then join your local bike club and make your community a better biking community!

Recharging, good food and crazy people!

We recharged a bit in Yankton this past weekend. Pretty laid back, enjoyed the weather, good food and beverages.

Saturday we drove out to the lake to see bald eagles, we saw one, we did also see two deer and also crazy people ice fishing with cars parked on the ice. It was 55 degrees out and stuff was melting like crazy. I really don't get the ice fishing thing anyway, don't get me wrong I like to fish but only when it is NICE out! Anyway we hit the bike trail along Lewis and Clark lake and decided that it was going to be to sloppy for the bikes so we walked it with Abe in tow. He was a MESS by the time we were done but he sure had a LOT of fun. We took the new cameras along and of course had fun with them. The ice on the lake was making all sorts of noises! Let me just say it was strange walking in sand on the beach with BIG chunks of ice on one side and some snow on the other side of me. What a great day it was to be outside and enjoy mother natures teasing of the spring to come...in a few months that is!

Stopped in to see Ben at Ben's Brewing Company. He was all fired up about the game on Sunday and I am sure he is happy with the out come! We tried out his new honey ale. It is good. Really light and a very drinkable beer. I have to say I kind of like 3rd street ale better. Ben is brewing good beer so stop in and see him! So, you say, you don't like beer and like mixed drinks instead? Well, he has that now also, starting today!

Yankton has a new Italian restaurant called River Rose Bistro. We went there Saturday night. VERY VERY GOOD FOOD! Take a peek at their menu here. It is not run by the same people that had the River Rose. They are still new so we didn't get our salad and bread but as it turned out that was just fine as it is a LOT of food. We ordered the cheese board for two. VERY good. I had never had hot grapes before. They actually put grapes in the oven and bake them a bit. It really makes them more sweet and VERY good. The cheese and meat were also very good. The next course would have been the salad which we were not served but the looked HUGE! For the main course I ordered the linguine with clams in a white wine sauce and Kris had the risotto with pecan encrusted chicken breast. Very good also. We both ate have and are having the other half for supper tonight! We had decided we would have desert. Kris opted for the bread pudding with a raspberry sauce and I had tiramisu (sp?). It had more of a caramel taste to it then the normal espresso but was still good. They made the gaff with the salad right by taking $4 off for the salads and bought our deserts. Oh, ya, the wine was great also!

We got home mid afternoon Sunday. Abe totally CRASHED. He was so funny lying on the floor, then the couch, snoring away. Poor guy, he was still trying to recoup from his walk, I think! We chilled and watched the game at home. Great game to watch if your team was not in it. The commercials this year were not all that great.

One thing that is scary. Kris bought stuff to learn how to knit! OMG, will that happen when I turn 50?

Busy busy.....

First off HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE! WHOO HOO!

I have been swamped at work and will be for the next few weeks which is all good but during all this swampiness we have had to do inventory. As many of you know I LOVE doing INVENTORY in a unheated room. Good thing the temps have not been so bad. I was double layered up yesterday but not today only double layers on the upper part of the body. Years past I remember being out there with gloves on to try and keep warm. Anyway I am SICK of it especially when I have TONS of other things to do.

This was the first FULL week back for my c0-worker. She had been a little slower getting totally back in the groove. I felt bad for her in the beginning but she has not done anything to get herself back in the groove to working until this week. Pretty much think she is milking the system so to speak. I know that sounds harsh but when you are out of the hospital back the end of September and you are just getting back to full time...not sure that is right.

Heading to Yankton after work tonight. I think there will be relaxing and of course get some work stuff done. We are planning on heading out to the dam to see if we can snap some shots of the bald eagles nesting along the river and them take Abester on a drag with us. We do plan on hitting Ben's to try out his new beer, a honey ale I believe, and maybe fill up a growler or two for Super Bowl party back in Sioux Falls.

Did our part to stimulate the economy last night. New dishwasher and garbage disposal. Quick $1100 spent with the install. Amazing how it all adds up in a hurry. We got a Bosch that has stainless steel interior with easy cleaning basket area. Imagine the nice bike I could have bought for that price! Oh, well. It won't get installed for a few weeks as it needed to fit into our schedules plus they had to order it.

Not much else going on. Ready for the snow to GO AWAY!

HAVE A FUN AND SAFE WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Interesting bumper sticker

Saw this bumper sticker on a truck the other day.

"I'm nuttier than a squirrel turd"

Winter meeting and weekend recap

We had a great turn out for our FAB winter meeting! I am guessing around 45-50 people.
Our memberships for all members runs until the end of Feb so it was the time for some of us to renew for the coming cycling season. The Mayor has some pics of the event here.

For 2009 we have 40 signed up already!
20 are 3 year participants
8 are 2 year participants
12 are joining for the first time
WhoooHooo! We also have out of the 40 signed up already two yellow jersey members!

Out winter meeting committee (David) did a GREAT job organizing. The place (Pizza Ranch) worked pretty well I thought and the speakers were diversified enough so that it was informative. Our speakers talked about club racing, multi week long distance rides, sorter camping rides and then Ragbrai. All very informative. Of course there were also door prizes that local bike shops donated. As always thanks to Scheels, Harlan's Bike and Tour, Two Wheeler Dealer, Spoke n Sport, Prairie Cycles, and Cycle SD for their help in growing our cycling community!

The rest of the weekend was spent just doing misc stuff nothing to wild. This morning I am starting to feel like a cold is coming on. Zicam is on board already and going to have to push the fluids.

Busy work weeks coming up and also two days of inventory the end of this week...UGH! Inventory for me will be in a room with NO heat and with a cold this will be a blast. I will be layering up!

I think we are heading to Bridge City this coming weekend. Should be a fun time.

Upcoming events

There are a few upcoming bike events happening in our city.

The FAB (Falls Area Bicyclists) are having their winter meeting. Pizza Ranch, E 10th, 1:30pm or 1330 or for you morse code dudes: .---- ---... ...-- ----- .--. -- (I think), this Saturday January 24th! We will have speakers, door prizes and some exciting club news for the up coming year! Food is on your own. The buffet is $9.75 for all you can eat which includes tax and soda / pop. Get out there and support your local bike club. If you are not a current member or want to renew your membership it is a GREAT time to do so!

Snakebite is having a bike swap Feb 22nd you can read about it here. Good time to get rid of those old pieces parts and maybe pick up some new to you pieces parts! All the proceeds are going to FAST (Falls Area Single Track), good cause!

Get out there and support local cycling! It makes it safer for all of us!

Abe is my co-pilot

Frozen falls

The frozen Sioux River at Falls Park of Sioux Falls, SD the name sake of our city.

(Yes, first official pics with the new camera but with not a lot of color going on with the subject, not that great of picture-it is a work in progress and need better subjects, well at least until spring! Should have tried shooting in black and white..hmmmm...I guess I can always change it with a photo program.)

TDU stage 1

Ok so, I was watching the text feeds from the TDU on Cycling News last night, in between trying to get the dishwasher to drain. Even though I was FRUSTRATED with the dishwasher and didn't get it to work, YET, the racing updates did get me excited for this years bike racing season!

Tour Down Under feeds on Twitter were good then nothing for almost 3 hours then they started up again. I thought that was a bit odd but to most people, I am guessing, the middle of the race stuff is not that important to them. You know, the letting the rabbits go, catch them and make stew out of them before the finish. People want to know who crashed and then the winner of the big sprint finish, if the course lends itself to a sprint finish. Well, I for one, like to watch or read about the WHOLE race! There are so many dynamics / strategic moves going on it is just plan fun to see how it all plays out. One fun thing that happened during the race that was that Johan Bruyneel was tweeting from the Astana team car. Very fun. I had not expected that and of course everyone wanted to know if Johan was driving. He was a passenger, so he says. It gave us a different perspective on a few things. Not that he was giving away race secrets but just a peek as to what was going on. Anyway, most of you that are into racing know who won Stage 1 of the TDU but I will not spoil it for you. You can watch Versus short little micro broadcast today at 4:00-4:30 (I think those are the times). Watch for the BIG downhill in the stage, if they show it. According to a tweet from Lance the racers reached 63 mph on that downhill and I think going 27 mph on a downhill on my mountain bike is FAST! 63 mph on a bike is JUST PLAIN SCARY in my book! On to Stage 2!

Scary drive.....

Fun and scary weekend.

Hit the Taste of Big Apple on Friday night before meeting up with the wild Starlight riders at Monks. Fun was had by all. The usuals were there, The Mayor, Cycle SD, One Speed, Double G, the kErnEl, Snakebite with wife, Russell the Muscle, and me. It was a good time. Stories were told, beer was had and fun ensued.

Saturday morning was a fun breakfast with friends at Dean-O's. Then out and about looking for a UV filter and CF cards for the new camera arriving today (can't wait!).

Saturday afternoon became REAL interesting. We decided that we were going to go up to the NSU (Northern State University-Aberdeen, SD) basketball game. They were having a reception for Coach Don Meyer. We also decided that Abe would ride along with us in case we decided to just stay in Aberdeen in stead of driving back late on Saturday night. So, we took off heading north on I-29. Things were good but the wind was bad and of course coming out of the northwest. I think we might have gotten the SUV up to 65mph once. As we are driving there were people just FLYING up the road. There were patches of snow on the indy from where the wind had been blowing and started to drifting on the road. We slowed down a lot when we got to those areas because I was thinking about black ice. SO we cruised along and of course people were HUGELY over driving the conditions and then we saw vehicles in the ditch. Looked to have just happened. Guessing these people had their cruise controls on which is a huge no-no in those conditions. So we get up the road a bit further and started to notice a lot more vehicles in the ditch. Ok, so most of you know going out in snow does not bother me as long as you can still see so I was fine, AT THIS POINT. We just slowed down and were going around 45-50 mph people are STILL flying by us. There were a couple times that there were flashing lights from plows, tow trucks and Highway Patrol in the passing lane on the indy with cars in the median and of course people driving FAST in the passing lane coming up on these accidents. Kris's comment at one point was, "We are going to see someone die!" We saw a bad roll over that involved an SUV that was still on it's side. We had slowed WAY, WAY down by then maybe doing 40mph. The road looked clear but then the back end of the SUV did a hoolie-wobble and then another and that was it, it was black ice. We turned around at the Elkton Sinai exit drove and headed home. At the rest area south of Brookings I decided to hit the rural roads instead of I-29. I just thought it best to get off the road where people were just plain being stupid! 106.2 miles and 2.5 hours later we made it home safe and sound.

I did feel bad we didn't make it to Coach Meyers reception / game with all the finagling Kris had to do to get rid of her pager that night but we both knew turning around was the right thing to do. Amazing how animals can tell when you are a bit nervous. Abe was pretty much watching everything while we were on the interstate. He would not settle down. Once we got on the rural roads he settled right down and went to sleep. Wish I could have!

Tour Down Under!

I am stoked to watch the Tour Down Under (TDU) starting this weekend. I am a little bummed that Versus coverage is SO LIMITED and will only be in 30 min segments, the best I can tell. Going to have to watch online, I am guessing! I hope this year will not be riddled with dopers trying to beat the system. The sport needs to move on and get past all that mess and have good clean racers that adhere to ALL the rules. I know, some of you out there still think they all dope. I, for one, know there are clean racers out there and I truly believe there are great teams doing their best to curb the dopers also by running clean programs. Word has it that the TDU racers could possibly be tested three times a day! Twice, by the powers that be and once by their team. They will have to do a lot of testing on a lot of the racers to catch up with Mr Armstrong. I think he is on testing #13 since he announced his come back. I guarantee no other racer has had that many out of competition test run on them in a 3-4 month period.....EVER!

Excitement will be the word for me for this upcoming pro bike race season. Is it the Lance factor? Maybe, but I was excited last year also for any American racer and of course Thor, the big Norwegian sprinter, to have a good year.

It will be a fun season to watch!

Ole & Lena......just gotta love them.

Ole and Lena had really 'packed on the pounds' by over-eating during Christmas and the New Year's Holidays, so their doctor put them on the same diet. "I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least 5 pounds."

When the Norwegians returned, they shocked their doctor by having lost nearly 25 POUNDS each. "Why, that's positively amazing!" the doctor said. "Did you follow my instructions?"

Then Ole and Lena nodded and said, "We vant to tell you though, we taut we was gonna drop dead dat turd day." "From hunger, you mean?" "No, yust from all dat skippin!"

MORE COLD TEMPS AHEAD

Ok, so, it can snow all it wants, although getting one inch here and there sucks for scooping, but I can deal with that. I HATE THE DAMN BELOW ZERO COLD WEATHER CRAP! Just can't get warm and stay warm when it is this cold out plus our office is cold all the time. My feet (don't have on the wool socks today) and hands are ice cold. I am turning into an alligator or croc right before my eyes as the old skin is scaly even though I slither out of the bathroom in the morning from the lotions and potions that I apply to the scales. I still find pieces of myself all over the place. It would be a CSI DNA nightmare I am sure....haha

PLEASE TELL ME SPRING IS AROUND THE CORNER!

Lance's sweet ride.........

Twitter had a bunch of tweets about Lance's new bike making it to Australia for the Tour Down Under (TDU). Well, in case you are on the edge of your seat, it made it in one piece. From what I have read it is a stock Trek Madone frame but they took it off the line to receive a custom paint job. It has been reported that the bike has no stickers, it is all painted. It also has a few special numbers on the bike.

The number 1274 is the amount of days from his last pro race.

27.5 stands for the 27.5 million people who have died from cancer in those 1274 days globally. VERY amazing, scary numbers. All of us know someone who has died from cancer, beat cancer or are still fighting cancer. Are we winning this war at all?

Muscles...yummy!

Had a good weekend.

We rode the trainers Saturday morning...not so good. I only went 20 min and Kris made it 30 min. She kicked the trainers butt that was for sure.

Met some friends for lunch then we did a BUNCH of errands and then met up with friends for supper at McNally's Irish Pub. If you like muscles, then order their drunken muscles. YUMMY! They are cooked in garlic, Guinness and butter. I will definitely order those bad boys again.

Sunday was a LAZY day. We had breakfast at the Dinner. Seems we can never stay home and eat anymore. Then hit the groc. store before heading home. I was a lazy bum and just watched TV all day.

Watched some of the Golden Globes not sure why except that there was crap on TV. I did see January Jones was nominated for her role in Mad Men. Ms Jones was raised in Sioux Falls. Her mom worked at Scheel's when January was first getting into modeling and acting. We talked a lot about January when I would bump into her mom at Scheels ,very nice lady. Glad to see Ms Jones is doing well.

Busy week up coming with FAB board and FAB newsletter meetings at night and of course work is nuts also....which is good.

Seems the weather is not so good north of here with blizzard warnings. I think we are in a winter weather advisory. We are to get some snow but the wind is suppose to pick up and the temp is to drop all day...UGH! The only good thing, we are a day closer to spring!

Keep your plate off the list!

Biking Brady has implemented a new strategy. He is going to post license plates on his blog of people in vehicles that have put bikers, riding legally, in unsafe predicaments!

BE SMART AND PLEASE KEEP YOUR PLATE NUMBER OFF HIS BLOG. WATCH FOR PEOPLE ON 2 WHEELS !

More spinning.....

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Not all that much going on. I am addicted to Twitter. If you have no clue what it is then check it out along the right side of my blog. I have found that I have not blogged as much since the Twitter bug bit me, a good thing? Not sure yet.

Tragic news. Christi of Dawn and Christi fame found one of their cats had passed away on Wednesday night. She had just gotten home from work and found her in the doorway to the bedroom. She rushed her to the vet to see if anything could be done. Peanut, lovingly know as the Phantom cat, was already gone. She was only 10 years old and had lived a great life, in a loving home with those two and her feline buddy Pawz. Sad to see her go. She was just starting to spend more time out with us when we were there visiting last. She will be missed. If you have ever had pets that are a major part of your family you know how the loss can make a persons heart ache and how tears of pain can fill your eyes in a second and stream down your face. Keep them in your thoughts. Hang in there you two and RIP Peanut!

We are going to try and do a spinning workout again tonight. Maybe try to find out what happened to "big blue" (Kris's nick-name for the large lady in the spinerval DVD). or we might try watching a TV show and ride at a regular pace and mix things up a bit during commercials. We will have to see. Not much else going on this weekend but more cleaning, sorting and organizing our dump! ....I THINK.

Everyone have a good and safe weekend!

Kicking our arses.......

So, late last week I got the bikes up on the trainers (don't laugh Snakebite). We decided last night it was time to hop on them and try out the spinerval 1.0 workout. UGH. It kicked our collective arses! We made it 25 min of the 45 min. So they call the group on the video Team Clydesdale. The people look to be quite the mix of very fit to not fit at all and all sorts of body sizes and shapes. One lady is quite large. They showed her a couple times only and of course Kris wanted to see how bad she was suffering doing the work out and I told her that the reason they didn't show her is that she collapsed and they hauled her away already. We laughed, but my hat goes off to her for doing the video. Being a large Marge myself, not so sure I would do a video, well at least not a biking video....hahaha (keep it G-rated!). Well, anyway, we decided it was a good workout but we were not really prepared equipment wise. No towel close and no water bottles ready or a fan turned on either....not thinking I guess, but will do that the next time. We also decided that we would get burned out just doing that one video so will try coming up with some game / workout type things while watching TV. FYI-Abe is NOT a fan of us riding in the house. He went upstairs and was out of site until we were done riding. ...poor guy!

Kris made soup for supper last night along with beer bread...YUMMY! The soup was mildly spicy but not bad. Find the recipe here. She could not find red lentils so used regular ones.

Holiday recap......

Sushi platters at Tokyo on New Year's Eve. Yup, four of us ate all this and then ordered one more order of fried cheese stick with crab and salmon. Oh ya, we washed it down with a few carafes of warm Saki!

Hit Dawn and Christi's after sushi for hot tea, YES, HOT TEA, Mexican Train Dominoes and Rumikube and then at midnight sipped some sort of asiti (sp?) out of a gravy boat. Pretty funny!

(Kris drinking from the gravy boat)

Headed to Yankton Friday and met up with Rose at 7 for drinks and supper. Good place. Kind of a trendy atmosphere (little more upscale than Monk's) that is located across from the World Famous Ice House...ironic?

(Rose)

Cleaned and took down Christmas at the Clubhouse. Had a fire in the fireplace Saturday afternoon then headed to Ben's Brewing Company before supper at Murdo's. FYI-Ben's 3rd Street Ale is great. Get in there and try it, if you haven't.

(Ben)

Sunday headed home after a little more cleaning!

We feel good about what we got done over the holidays. Did some sorting, throwing and cleaning. Part of the New Years Goal-lutions? You betcha!