Mountain Biking... painfully wonderful good times

So...

I finally found my way back to my mountain bike.. I never found my stole Klein (blasted thieves). Yes.. I had to buy a new one but it is great, a Jamis Dragon 29er. It is a sweet bike and with the huge wheels I feel like I am on top of the world!

I picked it up on Tuesday at Scott's Cycle in Hermiston, OR.. you know why :). I took it up Badger yesterday night and it was a kick.. . Then tonight I went with my great friend Whit who lives down the street to State Patrol. I can't believe how many trails they have there. They are a bit overgrown and the trails are very sandy, some more than others, but what fun! I have never been clipped in quite like this to a mountain bike. However, what a blast! I was moving downhill at a pretty good speed one time and was launched sideways and landed on my side. Ouch! A busted up knee and a pretty good limp but I was able to keep riding the rest of the night. I am having a hard time with keeping a good balance on it, being clipped in that is, BUT what fun. I think I fell 8 times tonight. One time I lost my balance and fell in a half foot of sand/dust - no pain there.

I am looking forward to hauling my bikes around and having a good time and getting busted up a lot! I suppose I better wear a helmet.......

Here here to many wrecks and lots of painfully wonderful good times!!!!!

A little catch-up

Summer has finally arrived and although I prefer the 80s, I won't complain too much of the recent 100 degree weather that just arrived (and soon leaving). I try to not stay in town during the summer and so far so good. Last weekend I went with a couple friends to hike the Entiat North Fork Loop just above Wenatchee. I planned out the backpacking trip (only 3 days), and that is probably why it was a doozy. I didn't think it was going to be as tough as it was but I didn't mind it. The first day we hiked 8-9 miles. The last 1.5 miles was a 1700' accent up to Fern Lake at 6900'. We were also surprised to see snow at the top with the lake frozen over. Thankfully there was enough "dry" ground to set up two tents. That night was cold though as the wind swept along the snow and iced over river and then through us. The next day we hiked back down the steep climb and then hiked to Three Tree Camp, another 8 or so miles and significant climbing and descending. It was a beautiful backpacking trip and we saw a bear, deer, grouse and more.

This week later and this last weekend I went with Mike, Rich and Heather from Utah on the North Cascade Highway "Loop." As it was high 90s... it was hot and miserable in Eastern WA but once we reached Seattle, it was quite enjoyable. Also remarkable was Ellensburg during the summer.. the thought came to my mind, "I would live here." It was beautiful. We ate dinner at a tex mex restaurant called the Cactus. The food was remarkably good and had excellent flavor and a little kick to it. I very much enjoyed the food. We then hit up a hotel and then took off the next day across the North Cascade Highway. This is the second time I have made this trip and it was once again very pretty. The windy narrow roads and beautiful scenery (waterfalls, mountains, turquoise water, etc) was very enjoyable. We descended south from Twisp and hit Wenatchee and was sweating it out again. The very warm weather sucked the energy out of us and it was good to get back to my house. We then watched the fireworks from my house and the bow of my boat, which was parked in my drive-way. One of my neighbors almost killed us but it made things exciting... something about fireworks exploding on my neighbors garage and another's front porch :).

I look forward to much more backpacking, waterkskiing and an enjoyable summer.

The Cougars..

As everyone should know, I am a huge BYU Cougar fan.. and after crushing UCLA (59-0) and Wyoming (44-0) - well, this makes me pretty happy! Since my cougars are so far away, I had a chance to come up to Pullman to watch another cougar team (not nearly as good). I believe they were 0-3 and I was thinking they were going to get blown out again by Portland State University. However, on a cold Saturday afternoon, they picked off the first pass of the game. By halftime, the score was 21-3 and it was raining and I had left my rain jacket in the truck (oops). Tracy Woodland (formerly Magelson), hooked Anne and I up with WSU football tickets, since her hubby, Ben, is a player on the team. Anyway, Anne and I left early from the game as it was cold and rainy and the game was well in hand. I also wanted to mention that I supported the Cougars (BYU) by wearing BYU clothes to the game... I got some weird looks!

I then headed over to Darren and Tessa's apartment in Moscow and spent some quality time with them. Its interesting.. I hear of families where brothers and sisters/etc aren't speaking to eachother anymore. Thank goodness for my family! Other than the fact that they are all jealous that I am single and can do anything I want whenever I want, there are no qualms. I suppose I need to visit them more often.. Anway, back to D&T quality time. Darren and I played "Bully" on the Wii... hahahaha - what a horribly awesome game. I still can't believe you can give someone a wedgey on it! Awesome!! I would buy the Wii just to have that game... but I better not...

Thanks for the good times in Pullman and Moscow! Oh - I believe this was the first time in MY LIFE that I have been in Pullman - how sad, I think...

To spice this post up, here is a small tribute to MY BYU COUGS...

A random thought & fishing with pappy..

It is Sunday and I sit here listening to "I Need You," Tim McGraw. It is a great song.. thank goodness for great music or this life would be very lonely. I wonder if I would still be sane if I were back in the days without radio and single at age 30 (did they live that long 200 years ago?). Music is wonderful though and I thank god for it at least weekly...



Now for the initial reason I started this blog...

I can't say I go fishing too often - I typically go when I am backpacking, at Twin Lakes, or on the motorcycle trip with the men of the family. However, I am realizing that I probably should go fishing more often (with my dad that is). It all reminds me of this country song, I believe it is by Tim McGraw.. something about doing things before it gets too late (skydiving, fishing... I think I have explained this enough to move on). Friday my dad called me at work (he must not have enough to do at his job! :) - j/k paps). He told me that they were going fishing at 4AM the next day for salmon. Well, I decided I didn't have anything better to do and it would be fun to get out and on the boat so I called him back and threw a dime in the bucket, that is I agreed. We hit the water about 5 or 5:30 and roared up the Columbia for about 20 miles (almost to Vernita Bridge in Mattawa - we started at Ringold on the Pasco side of the river). The best way to describe the boat we were on is as a sled - a 28ft aluminum sled with an 8 liter engine, big boat. Dad's friend was also a guide so he had all the gear and took care of everything. I brought in the first "trash" fish - it was a jack chinook salmon, I will just say it was a pound. Dad pulled in a 35 lb Chinook a couple hours later... what a fish!! The guide made this comment to him, "You haven't got him in yet?" I guess the arms must be getting weak...

Above is another picture of the monster. We were out fishing from 5AM to 4PM - we were hot and burnt and ready to be back. We believe that the guide would have stayed out there forever if I wasn't showing, well, lack of interest at that point of being on the boat still and not pulling anymore fish in. He was very nice though and I am glad I had the chance to go.. what a fish. Below is the filets of my monster fish... I think my fish would like the "side" fin on his fish above...

How one day can change things...

Life is funny... things constantly keep changing. I suppose this is for the best, if things weren't constantly changing it may become a bore and well, not a challenge at all...

Boating with Chad, Hils, Brooklyn

When Chad and Hilarie came to visit, we headed out to Hood Park. It was a lot of fun. Chad was the man of the hour as he wake-skated, and tubed with his daughter Brooklyn. Debbie also got up on the slollom ski for the first time and stayed up for I believe 15-20 seconds. That a girl!





I don't have much else to say - just wanted to add a post since it has been quite a while since I have posted anything. The pictures are worth more than words anyway, right!? I would have liked to get out on the river more this summer but it has been fun nonetheless. I "invested" in a ski boat in June and it definitely is a something fun to do here in Tri-Cities on the great rivers here... Trent scoped the boat out down in Lake Oswego for me prior to me going up and checking it out and hauling it back up here.

Now I need to find a way to fit it in the garage (which has filled up - garages are never big enough). I broke off one of my speedometer registers trying to fit it in when I first purchased it. Grandpa took care of the other one ;-) ... did a lot more damage to his car, lets just say that

Rio de Janeiro trip

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
February 2008

This is a follow-on work trip from my Argentina trip in Fall 2006. We are working with ABACC (http://abacc.org/home.htm) to help secure the nuclear agencies networks in both Argentina and Brazil. The work is slow going but we feel like we are helping out.



This is where we stayed the entire two weeks. (Two guys came down - one for each week and I stayed the entire time). Our hotel was on Copacabana Beach - amazing sand and warm water. There was a green tint to the water, almost like there was algae in it - still, remarkable! When I arrived, they were taking down structures and signs of "Carnival." It looked like they had quite a good time the weeks before during this festivity...

The two co-workers I went down with:

1st week (to the left) - Jeremy

2nd week (to the right) - Greg

(one note: neither spoke spanish nor portuguese)

Here are some additional pictures from the roof of my hotel on Copacabana beach.




left - Copacabana beach

right - Cristo Corcovado in the distance

When Jeremy left, I took off Friday and explored the city all weekend. I finally started enjoyed it and started taking in & loving Rio. This is on a trip I took to go up to Cristo Corcovado. It was huge... very impressive. A lot of tourists though, which I am not a big fan of but something I wouldn't have missed out on. The following pictures are the trip up to Cristo Redentor as well as pictures of the actual statue.