Over 7,500 miles in 1 month, part 3

We headed from California back to Ogden, UT to spend an evening of sushi and comedy with our friends. The next day we headed to Utah Valley and spent a couple of days visiting with Phil's family and mom for a bit on Saturday. We also stopped in and saw my Aunt Carol and Uncle Dennis to thank her for the beautiful quilt she and my mom had made for us.



Then we visited some friends in Salt Lake City.  We were lucky enough to get a tour of the beautifully renovated Marriott Library where I worked for many years.



We also spent a day snowboarding at Snowbird.  We had a beautiful, bluebird day to enjoy some turns on the mountain.



After that we started working our way back home to Asheville.  We were able to meet up with some friends for dinner in Boulder on our way through Colorado.

As always, traveling and seeing new places and old friends is amazing.  But we sure were happy when we got home to our little farmhouse!

Over 7,500 miles in 1 month, part 2

While in the Pacific Northwest, we had amazingly beautiful cool weather. Our friends were kind enough to show us around the Olympic Peninsula. We went mountain biking in the mountains, hiking along the Hoh River Valley and along the coast.  It was awesome.  In the picture above you can see how green it is even at the beginning of winter!



After spending a week there, we went to Portland, Oregon.  Malia's sister and husband live there.  We rode our bikes down to the speedway for the light festival in 20 degree weather.  The ride itself was a lot of fun, the lights were so-so.  Malia's sister and husband bundled their young daughter up and loaded her into their cargo bike...he owns the company metrofiets.  The bikes are sweet.  We checked out the neighborhood's old school that was closed back in the 50s or early 60s and it has since been remodeled into a hotel that had a public bath and restaurants that was open to the neighborhood residents.  I thought it was such an awesome concept!  (Instead of tearing down an old building to build a new one!)

The next day we headed down to Crescent City, CA to check out northern California and the famed Redwood trees.  We took Maddy for a walk in the Prairie Creek State Park.  It was so amazing to walk in the forest with such massive trees.



We also took Maddy to an awesome beach, where they allowed the dogs to roam and play with each other.  It was a great way to stretch Maddy's legs after hanging out in the backseat of the car for SO many miles!

Over 7,500 miles in 1 month, part 1

When we began our trip, we didn't quite realize how many miles we would cover, but in the end we figured it was over 7,500 miles. We thought it might be Roja's third and last cross-country trip, but she proved to be quite the champion car and is still rallying around!

We made it to Richfield in time for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with my family.  The next day we went for a hike with everyone who wanted to go up a canyon behind Spencer's house.

We also spent some time playing Rock Band with the kids and Mat really honed his rockstar personality!



Then we headed back to Ogden to pick up Maddy from our friends who were willing to watch her.  We all hopped in the car for a leg of the trip took us to Seattle, WA.  We camped in a small state park in Oregon where we were the only people staying for the night!

road trip anticipation...

Tomorrow morning we begin our journey out to Utah for Thanksgiving. We love to travel and this is no exception because this is just the beginning of several weeks of exploring the west. The past several months we've been tossing around many ideas and options. All we know that we are doing, so far, is going to see my family to spend Thanksgiving weekend with them. Then we are heading up to Bend, OR to hopefully do some mountain biking, if the weather cooperates and then on up to Seattle to take advantage of the early snow they are having with some snowboarding adventures. Yay!

Our car is all packed with our bikes inside and a spot for Maddy to lay down and be comfy for the trip across the country.

Florida...here I come!

I'm going to Florida for probably the shortest trip ever. I am flying into the Orlando airport on Friday afternoon in order to hop in a car the next day to drive back to Asheville! Mat's co-worker is coming back early for a job interview which means he would have been driving back the 12 hours by himself. So, thanks to Allegiant Air and their $50 tickets I am gonna go on a road trip with Mat before our big road trip out west! And when I say before, I mean one day before!

4 weeks down, 2 to go

Hard to believe, but it's been over 4 weeks since Mat headed down to Florida for some extra work. I've been staying busy up here and can hardly believe that we have 2 weeks until we are heading out to Utah. Yay! We are looking forward to the travels. Check out flickr, if you haven't been there for awhile as Mat has been taking some amazing pictures down in Florida. Twelve more days until Mat comes home. It's almost like the countdown for Christmas!

ahhh...lovely ride

This picture is of Maddy and I at the top of our climb, now we just have downhill to go.  Yay!  We couldn't stay inside even though the house needs to be cleaned and papers need to be organized, it was just too beautiful outside.  So we went for a ride out at Bent Creek and joined many others in the fabulous weather. (note: all our leaves have dropped, so we are entering stick season, not the most attractive way to see the trees, but it allows for awesome long distance views that you only see in the winter around here!)

It was a quick, fun ride back down to the trailhead.  Since I was riding by myself, I decided not to go on this one trail with a lot of whoop-de-doos just cuz' I've gotten too much air before and messed up on the landing, so I didn't want to chance.  I did come across a log that I'd been eyeing for a while.  Usually it is kind of wet and slippery looking, but yesterday, it was dry and looked like I could attempt.

So I tried, and got up on it, surprised myself, so I hopped off.  It didn't seem too bad, so I tried it again and rode it.  Yay for my balance, then at the end there was a rock placed to help with the dismount, but I didn't realize it was there, so I wasn't lined up correctly for it and I went off the side and must have turned my handlebars.  Because next thing I know, I am kneeling on the ground with the handlebar wrapped around my knee.  All I could think was, "oh no, I sure hope I didn't do anything serious, cuz it will take at least 6 weeks to heal and Mat and I are going on a road trip in 2 weeks in search of mountain bike trails!!!"  But I was able to get up and ride my bike out.  So nothing was broken, I just have some attractive bruising and swelling.



I don't know if you can see or not, but on the right side there is some swelling and then on the inside of my leg is an attractive bruise where it was jammed against the top bar.  But, hopefully, no long lasting issues.  I still have a slight limp, but I think it just has to do with the internal bruising, thankfully!