Monday, July 27, 2009

More Camping and a little more riding

This past weekend we headed out to do some more camping. I was hanging out with my brothers a couple months ago and in passing it was mentioned how much fun it would be to go camping for the weekend sometime. Now, if that conversation had just been between my brothers and myself, it probably would have ended there, but lucky for us Becky was in the conversation and that woman can get things done. Instead of a "Ya, that sounds like fun, we'll have to do that sometime..." it turned into an email that was like "OK, I got a campsite for the weekend of the 26-27th, who's in charge of bringing what?", and like that we actually had something planned.

Chad's wife Heather is pregnant with baby numero tres, and was perfectly fine, spending her time sans children and husband at the spa, so she didn't join us this trip. So that meant that Chad and his two boys, Luke and Boden were going to be there, Clint was coming down from Beantown to spend sometime in the great outdoors and then there was Becky and I. Then in a great last minute twist, Becky invited her Dad Larry, who had been chilling home alone for the past two weeks with his wife out of town and her brother Eric. We had quite the crew and we had quite the weekend. We all, Chad, Clint, Larry and I, brought our bikes with the hopes of getting a ride in. Chad and Larry brought kayaks, and I of course brought cornhole so we were set.

Friday night we got there in time to set up camp, get a great fire going, and cook dinner, chili cheese dogs, over the fire. Some of my favorite times camping have just been hanging out around the campfire and Friday night was no let down. We had a great time laughing and talking and just relaxing outdoors, nothing much better. We were just starting to think about turning in for the night, when it starting to rain, which made the choice easy. We scrambled to throw everything, and I mean everything, under the picnic table and we all headed to our respective tents. We were then treated to a spectacular lighting show in our tents and it rained like crazy. Our tent held up though, kept us dry and by the time we woke up, the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful Saturday. We walked down to the lakes beach and hung out there for a bit, the boys, Luke and Bo getting some fishing practice in. Then we had some lunch, and headed out for a kayak around the lake. We were short one kayak so I wound up towing Eric around on a little inflatable tube. It was hilarious. The kayak I was using was crazy old, had no rudder and no hull shape which meant I had n real way to control the boat. It was so bad that after awhile, we gave Eric a paddle and from the tube in back he became my rudder. Not the most graceful kayak excursion ever, but we made it back in one piece.

After that, it was time for some cornhole. I successfully created 3 more cornhole addicts in Chad, Clint and Eric. Chad and Eric were on the same team and dominated. I was hoping that it was beginners luck at first, but they both were star cornholers. It took like 5 games before Clint and I finally won one. We had a blast.

Then Luke started tugging on my arm to go bike riding. Now, here's a kid who's just turned six and for his birthday Chad and Heather got him a sweet six speed Trek mountain bike. Lots of kids his age are still rocking training wheels and he speeds around on this "Big Boy" bike like he's been doing it for years. He's awesome. We rode around the campground for a pretty long time. It was cool to see how well he can ride a bike. His balance is great, he's fast and he loves it. He kept saying how much fun he was having. It was great, not much beats the enthusiasm of a kid doing something he loves. It was finally time to pull back into our site for dinner but not before Luke made me promise that we'd ride some more "first" thing in the morning. I happily obliged.

After another night of good campfire food (cheese quesadillas with peppers, onions and cilantro) and some adult beverages, we hit the sack. It rained again during the night. Becky and I again fared well in our tent, staying totally dry, but this time some of our camping compatriots weren't as lucky. I think Clint, Eric and Larry were a little more damp than they would've liked but we all survived. As planned, within about 40 seconds of me being awake, I found myself riding bikes with Luke. It was a refreshing way to wake up for sure. It was cool to be riding around like a kid, with a kid. In all this training, and the lead up to this 100 mile race, it's easy to forget how to just ride a bike around for the sake of riding a bike. Riding around with Luke, going somewhere, but yet nowhere in particular was a blast. Before we knew it though, it was time to pack up and head home.

It was a great weekend and many thanks go out to Becky for making it all happen. If you want to see some pics of the weekend, including Luke on his bike, click here. Becky uploaded the photos to the Internet but not my computer so I don't have any to post in this post as of now. If I do later I'll update it.

So that was the weekend. Now it's Monday morning and I start my new job today. I can't wait, I'm very excited for the possibilities that T-Mobile has to offer. I'll be training Radio Shack employees on how to sell T-Mobile. It's the same industry that I was in before and I'm doing Training just like I love to do. As an added bonus, Radio Shack is Lance's new team partner for 2010, very cool. Hopefully I can score a Radio Shack/LIVESTRONG jersey somewhere down the line. I'll keep you posted.

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