Not much to report from this end. Kristen had her last class on Wednesday, so we went out Friday night to celebrate. We ate at a Scottish restaurant, the food was OK, the beer was better. We both passed on the haggis.

Saturday morning we biked in to town. The weather was great, in the 60s, although a bit windy. We checked out the farmers market and ate a little lunch on Pearl Street. Later in the day we picked up a few pumpkins to carve for Halloween. Back at the house we had a nap, then continued to laze around the house for the rest of the evening.

Sunday I went into work, trying to make up some time for the upcoming holidays and snowboarding season. Kristen headed off to see Allison and "The Bean" in order to do some pumpkin carving. Maddock had a creepy Halloween costume, and seemed to enjoy helping with the pumpkin.

Friday night Kristen and I packed our bags and headed to Katie and Jordan's for the yearly half-marathon trip. The drive to Grand Junction went smoothly, although Kristen had some kind of complicated coffee drink with three shots of espresso that livened things up a bit.

Saturday morning we dropped Rocco off at the dog kennel. He was initially excited to go for a drive, but then wasn't too happy when he discovered the destination. After a tearful farewell, we headed over to watch Jordan coach a football game. The weather was beautiful, and once again we got a little sunburned. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch, then headed to Moab.


It's not too far of a drive, and we drove over the race course on our way to the hotel. The scenery is truly amazing, it's still impressive every time we see it.


We stayed at Sorrel River Ranch this year, which is right at the finish line of the race. This saved us from having to take a shuttle to our lodge after the race, which isn't too much fun when you feel like you're going to die. The place was beautiful.


We headed into Moab to pick up our race packets, grab some groceries, and to eat dinner. Town was really packed. This is the best time of year in Moab, it's cool enough to be tolerable. It's the definitive mountain biking center of the universe, and an epicenter for Jeep enthusiasts. The weather was much nicer than it was last year, and town seemed to have about three times as many people in it. We got out of there as fast as we could, it was a little too crazy.

We played a round of board games, then headed to bed pretty early. The next morning we ate a quick bite, threw on our running clothes, filled our water bottles full of vital nutrients, and boarded the shuttle to the start line. While last year had overcast skies and snow on the nearby hills, this year saw clear skies and much warmer weather.

At 8:30 the gun went off and 1,200 people started down the canyon. Our group quickly split up, with each of us laboring toward the finish line at our own pace.


Afterwards the consensus was that we all enjoyed the race. I was about a minute slower than I was last year, but still did better than I expected. Kristen knocked off about 12 minutes from her time last year, Katie knocked off over 16 minutes, and Jordan shortened his time by over 20 minutes. Very impressive indeed.

We spent the rest of the day trying to recover, and eventually made it into town for dinner. We didn't hold back and had some very non-runner-friendly food. It sure tasted good. Back at the lodge, we tried to keep our eyes open, but turned in pretty early.


Monday involved driving back to Grand Junction, then on to Boulder. The aspen have mostly lost their leaves, but every once in a while we'd find a pocket of color. The drive went smoothly, and we arrived home to find two lonely and demanding cats.

Gah! Two weeks without a post!

That's mostly because not much has been happening around these parts. The weather is slowly getting cooler, and I can see the end of "shorts season" approaching. It may already be here.

Two weekends ago Kristen and I laid pretty low. She had school work on Saturday, and we went for a big 13 mile run on Sunday. We both survived it, so it looks like we'll likely cross the finish line at the half marathon this upcoming weekend. We really didn't do much other than relax.

This weekend Kristen and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. We're both pretty surprised we've lasted this long, what with her Tourette's syndrome and my constant Nam flashbacks. We grudgingly headed to the mountains on Friday, stopping in Boulder canyon for dinner at the Red Lion. Kristen claims her steak was the best she's ever had, so I'm counting that as a victory.

We stayed the first night in Nederland. The weather was supposed to be cold, so we gave up our plans for a run or a bike ride, and went for a hike on Saturday instead. The reservoir had quite a mist coming off of it, we hiked a good portion of the trail around it. There were a few guys fishing, but not too many people were out and about in the gray weather.


We also hiked around the town a bit, seeing the Wolf Tongue Mine, which we'd somehow failed to notice before. I really wanted to poke around inside, but the "No Trespassing" signs and vehicles parked nearby dissuaded us.


We ate lunch in town, then headed to Blackhawk for some gambling. We're pretty high rollers, but managed to survive on the penny machines for quite a while. Kristen and I both lost about $20 each after many long hours in front of the machines.

We took off fairly early on Sunday and took the long way back to Boulder. It had snowed during the night, making the aspens particularly colorful.


We looped up toward Gold Hill, taking a few side routes to check out various houses for sale. The fog was amazingly thick, limiting visibility to 10 feet or so in spots. At one point we ran across a few dear on the side of the road.


We stopped in Gold Hill for a quick lunch, then headed back to town. I managed to get the new vehicle pretty muddy in the process. The weather really made winter feel right around the corner.


The rest of Sunday involved installing a new garbage disposal, the old one had given up the ghost. Kristen did some schoolwork, I did some programming, and the cats spent some quality time with us.