Old Switz

The wife and kid are out visiting the inlaws, so I've been alone the last few days. Besides work, of course. What have I been up to otherwise? A big heap of nothing mostly. No kid herding, no wife list to tackle. I've been mostly lazy, and it feels great to come home with nothing to do but flip on the tv or surf the web.

Today I made the best of a lazy Saturday morning, sleeping in, and then planning an assault on the Old Switzerland Trail. A bunch of yous have been on the section outlined here, but that is just a small sample of what the route formerly was. Today I hit a little used part on the xcountry skis, the westernly most section tucked up under the continental divide, west of the Peak to Peak Highway. Lots of work, kicking through the soft powder of the last couple of storms. All told, I was out for a bit over 3 hours in 15 degree weather without seeing another soul and it was mighty fine. Finished the day with a juicy t-bone dinner. Good times indeed!

Family vacation is over tomorrow at 6, so I've got most of tomorrow for man time as well. I hope it goes as well as today!

project

putting new steps and a landing on my porch. using 2 stringers. they are three layers of plywood, screwed and glued together. 200 screws and 32oz of glue each. need to finish. not getting mail, currently.

flatland ski

i think this was 2 wks ago. we had great conditions. we need snow now tho. this is the connector from the jamacia to the hiker side.

NE Holiday

Mary, the kids and I just got back from the quintessential winter Nebraska trip. We left CO Friday evening with a fair amount of crappy driving weather and blizzard conditions nipping at our heels. Rolled into Omaha in the wee hours to spend the next couple of days chilling (literally - it was around 20 degrees) at the Chase household. Hanging with the family is pretty good, but I still managed to get a 4 mile dirt road run in to avoid feeling cooped up.

Sunday the 23rd and Christmas Eveday were my personal highlights. Matt and Laura hosted the hoedown on Sunday night.
To say it was great to see Bdiddy and Johnson would be an understatement. I really wish I could've seen Mick, but he failed to appear, as Mike was driving. Tara was in rare form, though :)
Typical basement scene. I think someone said something funny before this was snapped. They were probably talking about the 3 week backcountry trip that Wolfman wants to take. Something about a 3 week long, unsupported trek into the backcountry with nothing but some food and about 5 cases of beer. At the end, it was decided that it would be 3 weeks worth of one night camping trips so we can come back in the day to refuel.


Mary's folks didn't have a working furnace, so we crashed at the casa de Gersib. After a relaxing morning hanging with the kids, we finally made it out pedalling.

Easily, the most technical riding of the day was spent negotiating the crusty bumpy iced over streets of Lincoln. It was like riding icy jeep roads. The snow and ice were easily troughed out over 5" deep in spots. We made it over to Wilderness for an all too brief tour de packed snow. The hikers and skiers had a very nice 18" wide singletrack packed in. The further south we got, the softer and harder to ride in the snow got.

We parted ways with Matt and Laura and made our way to the Aron family Christmas, but that's another blog post worth of material in itself :)

Hope every one had a great Christmas and that Santa delivered everything you guys were wishing for. Heck, I even got a gift card to IHOP. If only I'd have gotten some tank tops, too, but I guess a guy can't get everything!

Merry Christmas and all that,

Hope everyone's unwrapping a great day with family.




And here's to a great '08! I couldn't ask for a better group of buddies!

freshies

earning'em out on Anderson Mountain

 

Money Mark keepin it real

Snow ride saturday

Racing and smiling

Good day at the State Cross Champs! Lot's o' beverages, snow, cold, and cowbell.

saturday and sunday

got the bike ski bike at wilderness.

First day of the season

a perfect day to play hookie.  Carving big turns n snow reminds me of the days of hauling ass through wilderness park.