Moab Rocks!!

I got tired of my old header so I made a new one rather than create a substantive blog post. This is my last free weekend before orientation next Wednesday. Maybe I will find the motivation to blog when I start school again and maybe I won't have anytime...we'll see.

Moab was sick, really really awesome sick. We biked Slick Rock Trail and Porcupine Rim Trail (with no shuttle...brutal ride to the trail head), and hiked in Arches National Park. I didn't want to leave..seriously. I improved my riding skills by a bunch and learned how much more I need to improve by another bunch. Overall, sweet trip.

Buckskin Gulch: Chocolate Pudding Edition I

My first week off of work, and I am slacking in the blogging department...tssk tssk. Mission heat biking acclimation isn't going to do itself.

So I have a recommendation for any adventurers out there in the Four Corners area. Get off your duff and make a reservation to hike through Buckskin Gulch..it is worth it.

I have done slot canyons before and I have hiked along rivers many many times, but never has the grandness of the extremes been this visible. It was deeper, longer, muddier, and more beautiful than any of canyon predecessors that had come before it.

When cliffs rise up 400 feet and you can't see the sky all while you can touch both sides of the canyon with your arms spread out, this is a cool feeling. I had a tired cranky moment about 7 hours into the hike where I thought, "I am tired of this dark narrow feeling and I just want to see the sky for for a minute". Then I promptly punched myself in the face and started to appreciate this amazingness of the above ground tunnel I was hiking through.

Without further ado, I present you a picture story...my best writing.

We started the day a little later than planned so the sun was up bright and hot. We dropped into Buckskin Gulch via the Wire Pass entrance. The hike quickly drops into some small narrows and past huge red stone rock walls. Here is our group of 10.

After the Wire Pass trail head dumped into Buckskin, we quickly learned of the challenge of the weekend. Mud holes. Yup, the water spots I envisioned wading varied more from chocolate pudding to chocolate peanut butter consistency. It was ice cold and would try to suck your shoes off. I gave up trying to get clean after the second one when I realized that there was no water to wash off in and that another mud hole was lurking around the corner.

We stopped for lunch and hoped that the worst of the mud was over...it wasn't. The next section of Buckskin Gulch is unbelievably narrow, high and beautiful. There were some fun down climbs, a lot of loose travel over boulders and then a whole series of fun deep mud holes to explore.

We finally rolled into part of the canyon that widened out enough to safely camp in about 8 hours after we started. It was a long, hard but amazing day and we were ready for food, a shower and bed. Except there was no water to wash in...so muddy we stayed. We saw a small rattler snake near our camp but we were too tired to care. My knee was a little achy by the end of the day, but overall held up to my 35 lb pack with 5 liters of water quite nicely.

Most of the better photos by Dale Wiggins).

Day 2 to come....I am off to Moab Utah now for more adventures and will be back sometime next week.

When Everything Falls Into Place

Tomorrow is my last day of work. It sounds so crazy to me.

Almost exactly two years ago, on May 7th 2007, I posted my first official blog entry (after my introductory post) as seen here.

In this post I wrote about my feelings of unsatisfaction I had with regards to my job and my purpose in life. This was one of the main reasons I started blogging, to force myself to analyze and confront emotions that I am very good at ignoring. This is what I said then.

Life, $, and the Pursuit of Happiness:

This is something I struggle with frequently. I work in a very 'high tech' company at the top of its game. Its competitive, corporate, political, and incredibility results oriented. We call ourselves a 'meritocracy' which means that your success at work is based upon the work you do and not who you know. While the entire concept of this is very questionable (is this ever completely true?), there is no doubt that they pay you well in return for sucking your soul out in your 6x6 cubicle. The question is, is IT worth it?

Money makes the world go round. Stop kidding yourself, its important. I deposit a lot of credits in the bank of happiness doing activities that are paid for by my soul sucking job. But sometimes I wonder if is isn't the cause of what is creating the large void to be filled in the first place. And maybe part of the missing passion of my job comes from the feeling that I don't really deserve the money in the first place.

I go back and forth over my thoughts on this but here is the bottom line. Money can't buy you happiness, and maybe some day I will quit my job and get paid badly to do something that really inspires me, but in the meantime, I will just take my pay check and use it to counter balance my life by reaching out and grabbing at opportunities that cross my path.

Now, on the eve of actually quitting my job, to pursue my new dreams, it is all becoming full circle. I am incredibly proud of the effort and resolve that I put in to make this happen. I am incredibly thankful for all the support I have received from my family and friends both physically and emotionally. And most of all, I am so lucky to have a best friend and husband who is willing to let me take this journey even though it impacts our life in many ways. So here's to being sentimental for one minute, and really appreciating that life sometimes works out just as it is mean to. I really believe that.

Black Canyon Biking

Two weekends ago, before I hiked 21 miles down Buckskin Gulch (which was awesome btw, pics and recap coming soon), Sarah and I took a trip up to Black Canyon to do a little biking. I had never been up to this area before, but it is only about 30 miles north of the Phoenix metropolis so it is a nice quick drive up there.

We took off from the northern most point on the Black Canyon Trail and rode south. The trail immediately starts to climb up a ridge along tight switchback along a canyon with sheer drops on one side. It was instantaneously beautiful. I can't believe that I have never been to this trail before.

The trail then drops down and crosses the Black River before climbing once again up a large switchbacked ridge. The trail was created to be totally rideable as long as you are decent at navigating 180 degree turns. We got slightly heated during this climb as there is no shade here and it was a pretty warm day. I think more riding on this trail will have to wait to either cooler or much earlier in the morning times.

The trail drops back down to the river level and we decided to turn around at this point. As we neared the high point again, Sarah's somehow broke her derailer which made for an interested ride back to the car. She was able to ride the long downhill before resorting to pushing up the last couple of ridges. Overall, a great day on the bike. I was a little less comfortable on my clipless pedals with a narrow trail and a cliff on one side so I had a couple of nice tip overs in some rock gardens. Ah, oh well, live and learn I guess.

Bees Knees

Things are looking up my friends. I can count the days left spent in by 6x6 personal box on less than two hands and I have a 3 day trip hiking the Buckskin Gulch Canyon this weekend which I am pretty jazzed about.

I had a very laid back but nice weekend wherein I learned about the death process of bees. It may sound traumatic, and actually it was. I know the bees rights people may send me nasty letters and I can only hope for a PETA sponsored youtube ad, but I was responsible for the complete devastation of literally hundreds of bees this weekend. See we have a slight bee infestation problem. They built their honey comb nest in a unaccessible part of our attic right above our master bathroom. For over a year now, we have had honey residue dripping down onto our toilet. It sounds worse than it is, because we never had any bees in the house or outside to really bother us, only our neighbors. But this past spring, the bees invited their friends to come live with them due to probable bad mortgages they had made on their other houses. And all the sudden bees dead and alive started appearing in our house.

This my friends, is a problem for me. I have the good luck and appealing smell necessary to always get stung by bees. So when our neighbor's yard guy came over and complained on Saturday that he had gotten stung 5 times because of the bees covering the wall of our house, I wasted no time in calling for the bee murderer, aka Jimmy The Bee Guy. He came, he sprayed, he told me we need to cut our ceiling out in order to remove the giant honeycomb sitting on it, and then he took my hard earned $175 with the pleasant refrain that it would take a couple of days for all the bees to die. What he failed to mention is that all the pissed off angry bees who had been gassed with nerve toxins would fly into my house and run crazy like into walls, the tv, windows and the floor all the while making terrible distress sounds which freaked me out.

I of course was home alone this weekend with my lovely husband being out of the state so disposal of the bee carcus job came down to yours truly. I don't like killing most living creatures, but let me just say that I don't feel sorry for bees or rats based on past experiences. They are basically all dead now, and Tom has promised to be in charge of honey comb removal project before new bees move into it.

Anyway, all in all it was a pretty beeeusy weekend and I did some wicked awesome 'cliff where you could fall to your death' biking on Sunday. Beeeusy...haha. Get it?

GPTW & Chasm Creek

Still kicking it. T MINUS 9ish days and counting. I am starting to wrap up things at work and beat people into submission until they agree to take over my projects. I am not that important in the grand scheme of my company but I have met with great resistance in transitioning my projects because I am the only one in my team doing what I am doing and it may be *gasp* 'a lot of work' to try to do what I do. Vindication I tell you. And you thought my job was blogging. That is only a part of the day I tell you ;)

I have also had a bunch of my coworkers express real and true sorrow that I am leaving their humble abode. This gives me warm tinglies all over. Afterall, I am a valuable member of the party planning committee and part of the GPTW (true acronym for "great place to work") value system. When you work at large machine companies, they actually have to have GPTW as one of their core values in their mission statement. I always have been of the opinion if you have to say it, it just might not be true. Like how all the generic brands have the word "Quality" in them...hmmm....

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Since I have been negligent with my blogs and/or photos lately, I thought I would add some pictures from a recent Sierra Adventure Race near Campe Verde Arizona that I volunteered for.

AB and I volunteered to test the orienteering course during the long paddle portion. Rick (RD) was even nice enough to show me how to actually use a compass to take bearings. It was pretty cool.

The Great Verde River.

I also got to play on the course photographer for the orienteering section which was at the end. I was amazed at how fast some of these teams blew through it.

Yoga Slackers on the move...they came in 2nd I think.

The winners Team Big Fish sprinting to the finish. I could barely keep up on my bike they were moving so fast.

Cooking meatball subs as the post race meal.

After we finished volunteering, we decided to go check out Chasm Creek which was the far point on the course. It ends at a little waterfall area in a canyon that was just beautiful.

Great light and beautiful colors on the hike back to Chasm Creek.

Dead trees = nice nature's sleeping bags.

AB checks out the little waterfall at Chasm Creek Canyon.

Five Years of Bliss

I went shopping over my lunch break day and I spent my five years of sweat and servitude at my company in one $24.99 moment of toilet paper and paper towel bliss. That's right, our 5 year service award which I received two days before putting in my quitters notice was a $25 gift card to Target. Oh how high I rose up the ladder of success before throwing it all away.

Maybe If I had stuck around for another five years or even heaven forbid ten years, I could have bought the super pack with the double rolls and still had enough left over for my favorite bag of Target brand Parmesan Cheese Hydrogenated Potato Products.

Happy Friday. Only 14 days left until my parole starts.

Urban Assault Ride

Urban Assault Ride: Road Bikes 1, Mountain Bikes 0

This past weekend was a return to action for me. Time to get back out on the bike after a long hiatus in Ohio and time to get the competitive juices flowing once again.

I spent Saturday morning struggling through one of those ride where you and the bike are not one. I changed a flat tire on Friday night in my garage, and that $7.99 tube lasted exactly 4 minutes on the trail before flatting. Then after putting a new tube in the tire, I somehow ripped the valve off during the inflation part of the process...no clue. Anyhow so I spent $15.98 to ride those four minutes...swell. My four Team ODP adventure racing buddies had a swell ride after that though as we dragged my recently post ACL reconstruction beginner biker buddy AB up and down some non beginner hills.

Sunday was the Urban Assault Ride in Tucson which is basically a bike scavenger hunt through the whole city. I rode with BJ my cousin's husband, and he came pimping with a town bike loaded with fake purple fur weaved around the frame. I had my blazingly fast full suspension mountain bike with about 30 lbs of pressure (air kept leaking out). There were tons of people at the start, with every kind of bike and outfit imaginable. It was a cool vibe since the event was sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, and they know how to party. We had to answer a quiz to get our starting position, and due to BJ's great googling skills, we ended up in the first start group.

The first secret location we had identified was at a parking lot halfway up A Mountain. I have never road raced and so it was an interesting feeling as a whole group of us raced down roads in tight formation. It was easy to see that all of the road bikes were blowing by us. Since it was already hot and I had gotten little sleep Saturday night exploring 4th street's best haunts, I was quickly redlining. Once we got to the checkpoint and turned back downhill, I felt better. At each checkpoint we would get a bead to put on a necklace.

The next five checkpoints were basically in a big loop around the entire city. The standard feeling was that periodically, road bikers would pass us, but we made sure to not let the mountain bikers by us. At each checkpoint, they had fun activities set up that we had to complete. One was riding mini trikes around an obstacle course. Another was a blindfolded piggy back ride around an obstacle course. Because of my amazing biceps and the fact that BJ is a skinny man, I carried him...and passed a ton of people. Hah. We also did a ring toss, and a bike ride around a cone with a bowl of water balanced on our heads...no joke. The final event was a blowup obstacle course full of water. The water was much appreciated because it all the sudden is hot as hadies here.

We rode as hard as we could the whole time, but there were periodic road bikers passing us the whole time so we felt like were were towards the back of the back. When we finished though, I looked around and realized that almost all of the bikes lined up at the finish were road bikes. Small victories are victories I say. We ended up finding out that we finished 14th out of 96 coed teams. Not too bad for having a really good time the whole time. We also got two free NB beers at the end and a bunch of snacks. I recommend this race to anyone in it's path.

Maybe someone needs a road bike at some point...

An opportunity to get back out there.

So I have been bummer lately that due to my inability to run, I have had to give up many of the adventure racing type competitions that I so enjoy. I know I can always walk the trekking parts, but I hate being non competitive in something I am spending money on.

Well, this weekend I finally found an awesome substitute. There is a bike scavenger hunt in Tucson called the Urban Assault Ride which is sponsored by New Belgium Brewery. It is a biking only scavenger hunt through town that also has a lot of strategy involved in both the clues given to find where checkpoints are located, as well as the fun obstacles that must be completed at each point. They give you 5 known checkpoints that you can plot ahead of time to determine the fastest way to bike in between them. They also give you a crossword puzzle that you need to fill out and then use the clues to come up with a 6th secret checkpoint. At that checkpoint they also give you another set of clues to figure out a 7th checkpoint on the fly. The order in which you leave the start is also created by who places the highest on a 20 question quiz we had to complete today due by 5.

Already it has been lots of fun. There appears to be a lot of fun activities we will have to do like bike limbo and slip and slides, etc. I will let you know how it goes. The winning duo gets a set of cruiser bikes and you know what, I am in need of a new around the town type bike. Bring it on you spandex road weenies...the mountain bikes are coming.

Procrastination Inspiried.

I am finally back in the land of sand and sun and it feels good. I miss the desolation of the desert when I am away for long. I have a burning desire to go climb a hot dusty mountain or bike down a rocky cactus strewn path. While I love home and love my family, this place has definitely become part of the fabric of me.

It have a strange feeling right now, and by now, I mean for the last couple of months. It is like I am in the process of closing up one chapter of my life and beginning another and I have weird moments of nostalgia that are intermixed with the immense feelings of relief. This is normal I am sure, anytime you shake off the old to make room for the new, it brings back tons of memories, both good and bad. I really am closing up shop on this career I have had as an engineer, for the past 10 years (including college). I have never minded the challenge of it all, but in the end, it just wasn't enough for me. I want more. I have more to give than what I currently give to the world and I am happy that I realized it in enough time to actually make a difference.

There are definitely some material things that I will miss, money being just one of them. It is easy to take for granted free diet coke and color printing, awesome health insurance, and the ability to have an off day at work without anyone getting hurt. But more than often, I just marvel at the thought that I am actually going to be starting on this dream that has been just a glimmer in my mind for so long now. At first the glimmer wasn't even concrete, it was more like a whisper in my mind that said "there must be more than this". It took three years to become a concrete path towards the medical field and another 2 years to become an achievable reality. I hope that everyone has one dream in their mind, something that may be scary to even acknowledge, that one day they are able to achieve. It is a great feeling.

Here are a couple of photos from the last 10 days in Ohio.

The Wedding. The happy couple is in Hawaii, but apparently one volcano bike ride wreck may have added another knee injury to the mix. My bad luck is contagious.

My new rock band. I think I am bringing them down.

There was a surprise 30th birthday party for my buddy Chris while we were at Tom's family home and our theme was to dress like he does. We raided his old childhood closet and came up with these old gems.

Easter at the farm. This followed the egg hunt and what I like to call "how to gain 3 lbs in one day".