Sun Devil's Revenge

Last weekend Georgia soundly defeated Arizona State in the arid, hot desert. After the game, I added my two cents and kicked a picture of the Sun Devil, Sparky. Ever since then, the little nymph has been out to get me and the entire Bulldog nation, and I have proof.



First I got a fever that got up to 101.6 last Friday. It felt like there was fire in my blood. It was Sparky. The fever came with a bad headache and aches and pains throughout my body. It sucked. It also induced some pretty strange dreams, and the fact that I dreamed about a Gator is further proof that the Sun Devil was at work.

In my dream, I was at David and Julia's wedding (which actually took place almost 3 years ago) and Tim Tebow was there. Yuck. I asked him what he was doing there and he said that some of his gang friends were friends with David. I don't know which was more shocking - the fact that my brother (a very good person) was in a gang or that Tebow (who ... well where should I start ... he's found a cure for cancer, captured Bin Laden, worked as a missionary, and won the Heismann ... when he does a push-up, he doesn't push up the earth goes down ... yada yada yada) was in a gang. Anyway, as I pondered this he ran off with a butter knife.

Saturday started out okay. UGA VII is the cutest damn dog I've ever seen. And Corso picked 'Bama, so that seemed good. And, I got to see the quad where I spent two years of my life on College Gameday. But, some strange things happened too. I realized I have no idea what a Hoosier is but maybe it has something to do with cow milkers based on the motions of the fans at the Indiana game on TV.

Sparky's revenge was most evident during the Georgia-Bama game. I don't need to say much else other than there was obviously some dark, evil powers at work during the first half because the Dawgs did not look like their usual selves.

Today Sparky decided he wasn't done with me. I was still feeling a little sick but decided to go to our softball game. Rachel played defense so I could sit out but still get to bat. The game was kind of crazy (starting with the ump being 15 minutes late), and in the 6th inning I got a hit into short right field. I must have been possessed because for some reason, when the right fielder bobbled the ball, I decided to run to second. I was out by a mile, but still felt the need to slide, leaving behind half the skin on the front of my left leg in the process. Ouch.

And now, I am clearly delirious, blaming all these things on a non-existent devil ... or is he???

Anyway, if I had the chance, I'd kick him again! Go Dawgs!

MOAB - slickrock fights back

Sunday morning we headed out for the infamous Slickrock Trail. Last time we were out here, my nerves were completely fried and I couldn't ride more than a couple of miles of this trail. It is serious! Lots of very steep up and downs. And it starts out tough, there is no warm-up. This year was much better for me, although you can see from the picture above that Chris had a little run-in with the Navajo Foundation. He fell over going up one of the very steep sections. Luckily I was behind him, so he ran into me instead of sliding all the way down the hill. Other than that, it was a super ride. Again, amazing views and fun (and slightly unnerving) riding.




As a side note, I had somewhere around 70 ounces of water - and I wish I'd had more. We were riding from 11:00 until about 1:30 and it was pretty hot when we got done.

After that, we lounged around a park on the Colorado River, repacked the car, and ate lunch. We thought about riding again that evening but were pretty exhausted. Instead we tried out the beer at Eddie McStiff's brewery. We were very unimpressed, and we had to sit in a "Beer Den" since we weren't ordering any food. However, I did get a pint of heaven in a cup - Polygamy Porter. Funny name, I know, but it is a really good porter. It is in my top two (along with the Kona coffee porter). We went back to Moab Brewery for dinner again - yum!

MOAB - merrimac & monitor, and arches

Chris and I headed out of town by about 7:00 on Friday, of course stopping at Chikfila in Loveland. We drove over the continental divide, passing some snow on the way, and made it to our stopping point for the night by about 1 AM. We found a great place to camp off I-70. It is exit 1 or 2. If you drive south of the highway, you enter BLM land and we camped in a site with great views, a pit toilet, and no other people. The Kokopelli trail goes right by it, or starts nearby, so it would even make a nice weekend mountain biking destination that is not as far as Moab.

Saturday we woke up early and headed for Moab. We had a schedule to keep because the Georgia - South Carolina game started at 1:30. We decided to ride the Monitor and Merrimac trail because it was relatively short (about 7.5 miles) and on the way into town if you take 191 from I70. It was a great trail for the first half. You wind up some slickrock to great views of the Monitor and Merrimac buttes (not sure what else to call them) and amazing cliffs all around. The slickrock is pretty fun and easy to ride on, but I would recommend turning around when the trail reaches the jeep road. From there it is over 2 miles of sandy riding. It sucked. Even riding by some Dinosaur Trail did not boost my spirits. Stupid sand.





Well we got done riding by noon and then set up a campsite off Kane Creek Rd. The place we camped with Jeramy and Christine last year was gone - all the trees chopped down and no more campsites. But we found another nice sight that is stuck inside this narrow canyon with big cliffs on either side. It is a beautiful place to camp. The only downside is you have to walk in, but that makes it more private. It would be very convenient for Moab rim trail and Amasa Back.

Next we went to the Moab Brewery. We love this place - it has really good beer (I recommend the Wit), wings, and food at a good price. We settled in to watch the game and there happened to be 5 other Bulldogs there watching it too! It's a Dawg nation! The game turned out to be a nail-biter but luckily Georgia hung on to win (or I should say, luckily South Carolina screwed up twice to basically hand the win to Georgia).

After the game, we went to Arches, hoping to ride our mountain bikes on some of the dirt roads. We checked at the entrance gate first to make sure this was okay and were assured that there were plenty of places to ride. Then we went into the visitor center to get a map. This is how the conversation went ...
me: "We are interested in riding on some dirt roads. Can you recommend some?"
woman: "You can only ride on the paved roads, and not on the trails."
Looking back, I wish I had said:
"Damn, we were really hoping to ride up Delicate Arch and practice our jumps in Devils Garden"
Instead I said
"Oh, we were told we can ride on dirt roads."
She said: "Well, there are a few but most people can't ride on them because they are sandy and very difficult."
Now, again I could have said several things, like:
"Mam, we are not most people." or
"Did you see our legs when we came in?? Bring on your measly dirt roads." or
"Check out the gun show, lady."
Anyway, she begrudgingly told us where these roads were and we headed off. We decided to ride on Willow Flats Road, which begins just opposite Balanced Rock. Chris and I read some of Ed Abbey's Desert Solitaire on this trip and I am pretty sure this is the original road into the park and the first visitor center was off it. The road was fine. Everything was ridable. It had great views and gradual grades. I don't know what that woman was talking about. We watched the sunset over the park and then headed back to our campsite, completely exhausted but very happy to be on vacation.

Too Much Fun

Life has been so good lately, and it looks like the good times will not slow down for at least several months. Yesterday Rachel defended. She did a great job, I think her research is really interesting even though she seems to think it's boring. We celebrated in grand style last night. I went to dinner with her group at Stonehouse, then we went to the Rio. I had 1-1/2 margaritas, which apparently was more than enough. I guess my tolerance is not as high as I would like to think, because next we went to Elliots and I had 2 beers and was done. It was a pretty silly night. I didn't realize how geeky our conversation was until Chris pointed it out. For some reason he does not find talking about things like particle accelorators, derivatives, and non-linear vs. linear geophysics interesting. Geez. JK, I know I am a dork and am glad that he puts up with me! I am really happy for Rachel. Now all of my friends should be relatively stress free, at least for a little while. Yay for having a life again!

Tonight Chris and I talked about our trip to Utah and Arizona. We are leaving Friday night, so time is really short! We came up with a route through the Needles district of Canyonlands that will take 5 days and is around 50-60 miles. It sounds really incredible and I am pretty excited about it. I'm also a little anxious because this will probably be our biggest backpacking trip yet (minus my Outward Bound trip but I didn't have to do the planning for that!). But we have the whole week off so we might as well take advantage of it! The biggest concern to me is how heavy our packs will be with 5 days of food, plus the first two days we can't count on water so we will probably have about 16 pounds just for water. Yikes!!

We also finally started unpacking from last weekend's backpacking trip with Mollie and Rob in the Flat Tops. That trip was unbelievable. I should do a summary of the hike, I would definitely recommend it!! The highlight was hiking over the Devil's Causeway. It is a narrow ridge that is 4 feet across at the narrowest, very rocky, and has sheer drop-off's (maybe 100 feet?) on either side. I was very very scared, especially after Chris jokingly said, "Don't worry Anna, it's only certain death if you fall." For a while I wanted to just take my pack off and cry, I was so scared! But we all made is safely across and the views were well worth all the nerves.

Anyway, I should go to bed, but I am pretty excited about our trip. I'm also anxious and feel like we have A TON to do between now and Friday afternoon. I also have a lot of work to do. I feel bad for not doing any work tonight but it was a busy evening of cleaning and planning. It might be a late night tomorrow!! Thanks for stopping by!

A Beautiful Weekend

I had a wonderful wonderful time in Georgia last weekend! My only complaint is lack of sleep and a few blisters on my feet from trying to walk around downtown Atlanta in heels. I was in town for Tiffany’s wedding but got to see a lot of other people too. Friday night I went to the Cheesecake Factory with Tricia, Jennifer, Kenneth, Erin, and Brandon. It was really nice that it worked out for Jennifer and I to both be in town. I stayed with Laurie and Stuart Friday and Saturday night at the Georgia Tech Conference Center (boo). Margaret met up with Laurie and I as we got ready, it was a fun day. The wedding was at 5:00 and was gorgeous! The sermon was also really good, probably one of the best wedding sermons I’ve ever heard. He went through the vows line by line and talked about what each of them means.

The reception was at the Biltmore in downtown Atlanta and was very very nice. We had a
great time. Margaret tore it up on the dance floor. My old college roommate Jaymee was there too and she is pregnant! She has a cute little bump showing (which Tiffany called the “Baysden Bump” after Jaymee's last name). After the reception, Margaret, Laurie, Stuart and I went to the Hilton, one of the main hotels that Dragoncon takes place in. As Stuart so eloquently put it, “it’s like the Olympics for nerds” (of course i am a nerd, too, just in a different way ;). We had a drink and did a lot of people watching. There were lots of interesting costumes.

Sunday I had dinner with my mom, Jim, aunt and uncle. We had a really good time and of course Jim went all out for the dinner. It was delicious! After dinner I met up with Jennifer, Kenneth and their friend from Auburn, Dusty. We had a good time for a few hours, until I was so exhausted I just had to call it a night. Like I said, it was a wonderful weekend!

I got back to Colorado at noon Monday and was happy to be home. Monday, Rachel, Chris and I bought season passes for snowboarding this winter. I am very excited about that, especially since I only went once last year and he didn’t go at all. And taking a few days off to go snowboarding mid-week will fit in very nicely with my plans to slow down and enjoy the rest of 2008! :) That's it, thanks for reading!

Me, Erin, Tricia, and Jennifer representing for PiHi class of '98!

Tricia's pregnant!!

This is what I get for living in Rutherford Hall my freshman year at UGA - 4 great friends (not to mention a husband thanks to Laurie!:) Margaret, me, the beautiful bride, Jaymee, and Laurie

Tiffany and Greg cut their beautiful (and delicious) wedding cake

We had to show our disdain for the rambling wreck (to hell with Georgia Tech!)

A sad sign at the Georgia Tech Convention Center