Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Question
Because the collective wisdom among my readers is much greater than my individual wisdom I have a question for you. Background: I am taking the ferry boat up to AK. It takes 5 full days. I want to ride my bike. I want to buy trainer/rollers to use on the boat (and after). I would rather own rollers. Question: Is it possible to ride rollers on a ferry boat or is that an insane idea? Also, to make up for asking and not giving in this blog I will remind you to check out Vordenburg's photos from the Bend training camp on TeamToday. (and I'd like to point out that the photo of Kikkan skiing was taken on her COOLDOWN... not during one of the intervals)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Ununbium
Ununbium is my new favorite insult. It's not actually an insult, it's the 112th element in the periodic table, but if you say it in a scornful, insulting tone of voice it works quite well. Try, "You Nunbium! I bet you didn't even know there was a 112th element!" If you're wondering, there's 118 elements and Ununbium wasn't created until 1996 so if you didn't know it existed because you graduated from High School before, say 2000, I wouldn't actually call you a nunbium.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Snob.
So I disappeared for the weekend. Hopefully y'all were enjoying being with family and friends and outside doing Memorial Day Weekend type activities to notice. I also left up kind of an elitist last post over the weekend. Which brings me to my most recent epiphany. I returned home to Wenatchee from my first USST camp in Bend. I got to know my fellow USST members a little better and found no one that I wouldn't want to get to know better. The Linds(a/e)ys weren't there, being busy getting Lindsey Weier married off in Marquette, MI, I believe. So I found my teammates to be very fascinating, multi-talented, friendly people. (And I would say the same thing if the Lindsaeys were there-- I don't want my timing of saying they were absent to be misconstrued!) Despite my appreciation of the USST, the USST doesn't exactly have the friendliest reputation. Which made me realize, sadly, that (ready for the epiphany?) all I have to do to be considered unfriendly is not be actively friendly. Being on the USST comes with more baggage than lactate testing. I don't have to frown or grimace at people for them to think that I'm mean-- I just have to NOT smile. Ack! It's frightening. I've spent most of my recent athletic career trying NOT to be intimidating and wearing USST gear is definitely not going to help that pursuit. I realized this week that I can't be shy anymore, because if you're shy and fast then you're a snob (or other unsavory names). This epiphany does make me feel a little pressured to improve my social skills.
Friday, May 25, 2007
High. Energy.
Since we've been going over video every evening I've been reminded that skiing is a high energy sport. Watching clips from classic skiing today I can't believe that I was out there skiing for two hours this morning. (At least those two hours weren't all uphill so it wasn't the same uphill-intensity the whole time.) Seriously though, can you imagine a tougher sport to do. Every stride is a serious jump and every pole plant is a crunch and arm swing. I'm trying to think... there's rowing, that uses almost all of the muscles and is aerobic, but you're sitting down so you don't have the weight-bearing aspect or the balance aspect (and I do row so I know you DO have to balance, but it's not the same as balancing on one foot). There's rock climbing, that uses all your muscles too but it's missing the high speed aerobic and anaerobic portion. Cycling's pretty aerobic but again not weight bearing and you don't use your upper body. Then there's swimming but swimming isn't weight bearing or balancing either. Also, cycling and rowing lack the technique complexity that skiing has. So, unless you can think of a sport that engages more muscles and taxes the lungs so much I'm going to conclude that skiing enables you to work harder than any other sport. Boxing? Gymnastics? Basketball? Tennis? I don't know, my exposure to other sports isn't very broad. I just know that I was super impressed today watching video of my fellow USST athletes ski.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Scrutiny
I am unused to so much attention. Some people love that personal attention, but I can do without it, I get a little uncomfortable having people scrutinize me. I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it-- I had Whitcomb skiing behind me for my whole second 15min double pole set and Vordenburg skiing with me for my entire third 15min set. And it's not like they're just skiing along next to me keeping me company, no, they're actively criticizing my technique. (Not in a critical way though, in a constructive way.) I'll tell you one thing though, having a coach right there with you makes it easy NOT to slack!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Bend...skiing...usst...
Now I've made it to beautiful Bend, OR and I was delighted to ski this morning on real snow in the gorgeous central Oregon sunshine. This is my first time being with the USST while ON the USST and I guess I hadn't really mentally prepared adequately (do I need to reorder those three words?). First, I hadn't really thought about being on the USST in any kind of concrete way so I was a little surprised to show up and realize that this was my new team and these were my new teammates. Now I have a whole new set of people to work with so that will take some getting used to. We also had intimidating things like contracts and USADA and results to talk about in a meeting last night. Don't get me wrong, I've been taking skiing seriously, but having a big ol' team meeting last night convinced me that I'd gotten booted up to another level of intensity. For a second I was like, "woa, am I ready for this? what happened to just playing in the snow?" But then I decided that I could still play in the snow and try to be seriously fast. Another thing that hit me today was that somehow I'd gotten this idea in my head that now that I was on the USST, I was going to be a good skier. That being named to the team would automatically make me a better skier. Then we skied this morning and I quickly found out that no, I still had all of the same problems with my technique that I've always had and even a few more that I hadn't noticed before. So, USST or no USST, it's still the same old hard work and training.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Bryan Fish, Coach of the Year!
USSA named Bryan Fish the U.S. Development Coach of the Year! Congratulations to Bryan, he certainly deserved after the huge effort he put into the CXC Team and us athletes this past season! Read the full story here (and some cute photos of Bryan).
Golfing
I did get to golf yesterday at the Mustard Seed Golf Classic. I was stationed at the 18th hole and almost every foursome that came by wanted to make a donation to the mustard seed program and let me take a putt for them. I felt like I got to know my green very well. When I first walked up I thought it was basically flat, just on a slight side hill, but once I started practicing on it I found a ridge right by the hole that I couldn't see even after I knew it was there. But I started to putt accordingly. And there was fresh snow in the hills around Wenatchee from the storm Sunday night. Now I am headed down to Bend, OR to ski at Mt. Bachelor for the week!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Gender Neutral Pronouns
As requested by my linguistically inquisitive Granny and inspired by this week's Newsweek cover story on Gender I'm going to introduce some gender neutral pronouns. You might be wondering why in the world anyone should care about gnps so first here's some reasons: a) It's convenient. In the case where you want to talk about someone who's gender you don't know in the singular tense, "I was waiting for him or her to call." Clearly there's frequently other ways around this, "I was waiting for the secretary to call." Oftentimes there's no avoiding the "she or he" monstrosity and then a gender neutral pronoun can step in. b) It creates a binary that can be oppressive for people who identify as nongendered. The forms that I like, mostly because I've studied Kate Bornstein and these are what ze uses: ze instead of he/she. hir instead of her/his/him. I don't know if it's acceptable to use the contraction "ze's" for "ze is." Although, being neologisms and not actually standard English, I'm not sure anyone knows what's acceptable. Of course, first person English is gender neutral: I/my/we/our, as is third person plural: they/their/them.
bugs... er, insects
If you spend enough time moving outside you get hit by bugs... I mean insects (after working four summers in an entymology lab, I can't be making that mistake) all over. The little black ones that get balled up in your eye and you find them when you get home. The beetles that land on your leg and walk around for awhile. The distracting insect stuck in your ear. The bumble bee that goes down your sports bra if you forget to zip up your jersey all they way before the downhill. And the insect that gets either swallowed our spit out because you're breathing too hard to close your mouth. Today I had a new one though (isn't life exciting!)-- a large fuzzy fly slammed into my right nostril. It was big enough that it stuck there like an unwelcome nostril plug. But not for long because I quickly turned my head and snorted it out. It took a couple more minutes and a snot rocket or two before I could completely shake the large-insect-stuck-in-my-nose feeling.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Figure Skating
I accompanied my mom to the Friday afternoon freestyle session. Freestyle session... that's figure skating of course! Friday afternoon is informally dress-day at our rink, which is the real reason why I wanted to go! So I put on my skating dress-that-isn't-red and a pair of skating tight and went down to the rink. I think it's good to do things that you're uncomfortable with. Good to try activities that challenge you to think about how you move, what exactly your body is doing and what exactly it should be doing. If you only do "your" sport, whatever it may be, your body ends up forgetting how to learn which I think will eventually hinder your development in your sport. So I stepped out onto the ice and felt a little wobbly; it's been several years since I've skated. First I skated around the rink a couple times. Then I did some cross-overs, then backwards cross-overs. Next up was forward and backward swivels, except when you're (pretending to be) a skater you do swivels on one leg only and call them power pulls. Then I worked through all of my forward and backward, inside and outside (edges) 3-turns, rockers, brackets, swing rolls, cross rolls. At that point I'd covered all of the basic moves and it was time to attempt some jumps, eek! Waltz jump- fine, toe loop- a little awkward, sow-cow (um, NOT the right spelling)- also awkward, loop- pretty good, flip- still fine. I didn't try a lutz which is the only other jump I ever learned. I didn't jump much, just enough to assure myself that I could. Then I went to work on my spins. Ugh, I am not so good with the spins, you have to really be able to center yourself and let the rest of the world disappear. Oh well, it was fun to break out the old figure skates. Here is some short footage of my mom and me doing scratch spins.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Dunes
There's a big dune on the East side of the Columbia that I ski past whenever I ski the loop trail and every time I go by it I look at it to see if I can notice any changes in it. Dunes amaze me; they seem to defy entropy. We would run barefoot sprint intervals up the side of the dune on the WHS cross country running team and every step would push down buckets of sand. But the dune just rebuilds itself, smooths over the footsteps and continues to get taller. Last week someone even dug a cave into the side of the dune and when I skied by yesterday I couldn't even see a suggestion of a cave. Now some sparse grasses are starting to poke through the sand on the South side of the dune. Is the vegetation going to spread and overtake the dune? How long does that take? Could one write an equation to predict that if one knew rainfall, temp, wind speed & direction, surrounding vegetation, etc? How cool would it be to plot the growth and movement of the dune over time and would you be able to see the effects of the seasons on such a graph? My eye and my memory are not accurate enough to tell whether the crest of the dune is moving, either vertically or laterally, but I think it is.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Mustard Seed
The Mustard Seed Golf Classic is May 21st, 2007 with a 1pm shotgun start and dinner afterwards. Official registration ended last week, but if you are in the valley and interested in participating or making a tax deductible donation to Mustard Seed call 509.679.1566. The entry fee is $100 per person. Below is some information about the Mustard Seed Neighborhood Center which I have shamelessly retyped from one of their pamphlets so if there's any errors, they're mine. The Mustard Seed Neighborhood CenterThe Mustard Seed Neighborhood Center is a place where kids are special. The Center is a nonprofit, tax-exempt childcare center in the greater Wenatchee area, which offers full time care and preschool. To help meet the childcare needs of low-income families, the Mustard Seed offers a scholarship plan. Preschool is offered at no extra charge every day because we believe in the importance of creative educational activities to build a foundation for entering school. Our emphasis is on promoting a positive sense of self-esteem for children and adults alike. Mission Statement: Through faith and commitment, the Mustard Seed accepts the challenge to provide a safe, nurturing place where children can grow and have fun. Children Served: The center is state licensed to serve up to 65 children ages 4 weeks through 12 years old. Lincoln School is walking distance from the Center so it is convenient for after school care for children. We also offer a full summer program for school age children, engaging them in community programs and area attractions, helping them to appreciate their valley through hands on environmental, cultural and recreational experiences. Our preschool program is designed to help children get ready for kindergarten through social interaction and creative activities. We offer age appropriate activities, which not only challenge children but also provide a sense of mastery. Philosophy: The Mustard Seed was started as a Christian outreach in 1990 and appreciates the support of area churches, but no denominational material is taught. We believe in living out the love of God through our actions toward one another. The staff and Board all care a great deal about children and believe that every child should have a safe educational environment in which to grow. All staff members are required to hold current first aid/CPR and AIDS certificates. All volunteers and staff are required to submit to a criminal background check before having access to children
Snookered. or not.
It was one of those days where I was really tired. In fact, yesterday was one of those days too. I suspect that it's because I had been studying frantically for Tuesday's actuarial exam and that on top of bike racing in the sweltering Wenatchee Valley fried me. So in my head I said, "I'm so snookered today," and in fact, slept all afternoon on the couch. Snookered seemed like it should mean stupidly tired and it also reminded me of snood (along with anyone else who's been a college freshman, I used to be a snood champion) and the thought of snood always makes me happy. Then I look up snookered (I have to look up most of my words) and found that I was completely off and in the real reality snookered means hoodwinked. Sigh, sometimes I am way off. Today got more exciting after dinner and after my nap. We did have a boy (Cole Galbraith) delivered to our porch in a cardboard box to ask one of my sister's friend, Chelsea, to prom and now we're having a dress-trying on extravaganza with the neighborhood's collection of formal dresses.  Chelsea (and neighborhood mom, Barb, in the background) modeling dresses. It's nice to see one of my old prom dresses being worn again instead of sitting in my closet!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
 On Monday I am attending a fundraiser for the Mustard Seed Program in Wenatchee. The Mustard Seed program is a low-income preschooling program and the fundraiser is a golf tournament and dinner. As their special guest I get to speak at dinner and participate in the golf tournament as a putter-for-hire. I get to hang out at one of the holes and actual tournament participants can make a donation to Mustard Seed to buy a putt from me. I decided that in order to be a little more persuasive I should learn something about golf... or at least play a little Wii Golf! I did actually practice with a real golf club, the Wii Golf was just to get a little experience with how the ball behaves on varying terrain.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Sparky and Fiona
I haven't seen any results from this weekend, but there were two people that I was very impressed with, Sparky & Fiona. Sparky (okay, he does have a real name and it happens to be Stephen Ettinger) is a Cashmere boy whom I skied with on the Leavenworth Winter Sports Club. Since he's a skier he's really strong and fit and since he mountain bikes he's a good cyclist too. Sadly, he doesn't road bike very often so he had to race in the Men's 4/5 field, which is silly, but it was very fun to get to watch him absolutely dominate the 4/5 crit Saturday night. Even if he was outsprinted at the finish, he was by far the strongest rider there. It's always fun to watch another skier take on the cycling world and watch the other cyclists go, "where in the world did this kid come from and how is he so strong?" Fiona MacLeod (racing for Trek Red Truck Racing) is a girl I met during the road race. I haven't actually spoken to Fiona other than a short introduction and exchange of "nice work" at the finish but I've decided that she's my new cycling hero because: she's tall, she's strong, she always pulled through in our paceline, she wears big, junky body jewelry earings, she's willing to work hard, and mostly because at the end of the race when another girl started complaining about the girl that won the sprint for our small pack because she never once pulled through, Fiona shut her up real quick with a "that's bike racing." I realized that one of the main differences between the pro riders and the wanna-be-pro riders is that the pros are willing to work hard and the lower category riders are much more quick to decide that this is as hard as I want to work today and I can't go any faster. I also decided that I'm not very impressed with the draft-draft-draft-sprint type of riders because, even though they may win the sprint, they're not working as hard as people like Fiona and eventually, they're not going to be able to hide in the draft and they're going to find out that people like Fiona are just getting stronger and moving on to bigger races and they're still outsprinting the novices to take whatever place in a po-dunk local race in Wenatchee. Woo-hoo. I would rather work really hard, be foolish and get outsprinted, and then continue working really hard and getting outsprinted but against faster and faster fields. But that's just me.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
People
peter, susan, ryan, laura, kirsten, alan, alan, tracy, greg, tyler, jodi, sahalie, scott, carriann, kelleen, chelsea, tom, joe, and burgess are all the people who were either eating or sleeping at my (parents') house on Saturday or Sunday. tucker-the-dog didn't ever come in so he doesn't really count. Clearly I am trying to build up a solid base of good karma so that when I'm out in the wide wide world again there will be nice people who will let me stay in their homes and feed me too. Actually, I'm probably still paying off a karma debt for all of the families that have already been really super nice to me.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
trying this bike racing thing again
Time Trial this morning. 9miles out and back. hard core tailwind on the way out. Wicked head wind on the way back in. I rode as hard as my poor little legs would let me which still means that my heart rate was not up as high as it could have been and also that I wasn't very fast. I was, however, riding my hot orange aero orbea time trail bike with wicked vision tech bars and a tri-spoke and a disk. So basically, I LOOKED really fast and sometimes you have to settle for that. Then I rode in the downtown crit tonight and once again was reminded that you can't be fast in a sport unless you TRAIN for it! So the crit was not very interesting because I had enough fitness that it wasn't very hard to keep up, but I didn't have enough speedy-bike-legs to sprint for anything. And tomorrow is the road race where we get to climb! climb! climb! (which means that I will get dropped but it's still fun to climb because it's straight up hard work and there's no cycling game playing necesary.)
Friday, May 11, 2007
This Weekend's Bike Racing
The Whitman Women just took their 4th National Title in the Team Time Trial in Kansas this morning! Congrats to them and good luck to them in rr on saturday and crit on sunday! Also good luck to the men, ninth today. Back here in Wenatchee we have the Wenatche Omnium Stage Race this weekend with a TT and Crit on Saturday and a RR on Sunday. I will be racing. But no one really cares that I'm racing. The Big Deal this weekend is that Tyler Farrar is racing! (Tyler & I were both WHS '02 grads) AND, guess what, he even passed me the other day when I was rollerskiing. It was the most exciting part of my ski. I don't think he recognized me though. Although I had the advantage in recognition because Tyler is the only one in Wenatchee cruising around in the full Cofidis kit and I was just wearing an old race t-shirt. So, since Tyler is back in Wenatchee recovering from a crash and on a short break from the pro scene, all the dudes around here who want to know how they measure up to the pro riders are going to be tempted to come over to Wenatchee to race Tyler this weekend. So it should be a pretty fast men's pro-1-2 race. Of course I have the utmost confidence in Tyler to annihilate anyone who tries to keep up with him. The women's race might not be as exciting from my perspective. I haven't done any speed work on my bicycle since last summer and the Sad Truth is that you don't get fast at cycling unless you practice cycling fast.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Depression
I finished "A Million Little Pieces" and was so depressed by it and disturbed that I haven't had anything to say. Even though I'm a couple years behind the contemporary literary scene I remembered that there had been a scandal and that Frey's memoir wasn't actually as nonfictional as it claimed to be. Then today I read The Smoking Gun report on it and can't believe that I wasted my time being upset by it. But now I can finally move back into the real world of productivity and detach myself from Frey's messed-up, made-up world.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Wenatchee
I've decided that Wenatchee is one of the most lovely places. I took a nice long bike ride today, but it wasn't so much of a training session as a leisurely meander around the valley, looking at the flowers and enjoying the sun and warm weather.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Normality
One of my favorite concepts from my gender studies courses was the invisible category. Although it must be my favorite by default since I simply didn't grasp most of the other theories we tackled. My favorite way of defining normal is as that which doesn't need to be defined. It becomes the invisible category because no one bothers to create the category-- it's implicitly assumed. Think about the last person you talked to. Think about what you would say to describe him or her to another acquaintance who has never met him or her. I'll even give you a photo so you can think about it while you scroll down.  Okay, what you DIDN'T say is the invisible category. You didn't mention that ze (I'm switching to the gender-neutral pronouns here because the "he or she" thing is tedious) was white? White is part of your normal. You didn't think to say that ze was heterosexual? That's assumed. You didn't say that ze had ten toes? You think that's normal. So there's your invisible category, it's what's default if no specifics are mentioned (obviously a very fluid category that changes drastically between individuals and groups of people). Oftentimes we don't notice what's normal until something that surprises us occurs. ("What, you're Buddhist? ...Not that you shouldn't be, it's just, well, different!") So I had a few things challenge my conception of reality this weekend. I figured that running anything under a 42minute 10km was fast. I also know that I'm not a fast runner. But then I ran the Apple Blossom 10k in 41:27. Which means that I was wrong in one of my assumptions. And then Anchorage Daily News and fasterskier.com picked up the "story" that I was moving up to Anchorage. Since when has where I live been News? That doesn't mesh with my weltanschauung at all! *weltanschauung means world view and I hope that there will be someone as apt as Kuzzy in Anchorage to explain German words to me. And the random pictures are from my mom and I making sushi for dinner last night with all kinds of unidentifiable Japanese ingredients (it doesn't help that neither of us can read Japanese characters).  Susan Valaas
Cinco de Mayo
I apologize for being horribly dilatory because Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. Today, I believe, is the 6th of May. In case you don't dwell in a place with a Mexican heritage, or even if you do but don't know much about your Hispanic neighbors (tsk! tsk!), let me remind you about Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo celebrates a victory of Mexican forces over the invading French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Why this is a Big Deal, I'm not sure. Maybe since it was the first and one of the only battles that the Mexicans won against the French because after the battle of Puebla the French continued to trounce the Mexicans, overtook Mexico City, installed their own Emperor of Mexico (Maximilian I), and generally ruled Mexico until 1867. I don't think Maximilian was a particularly bad foreign emperor, as far as foreign-born, foreign court appointed emperors go, apart from giving himself and his adopted heirs arduously long titles. He enacted several liberal reforms that the Mexican revolutionaries wanted such as land reform, religious freedoms, and extending (slightly) voting rights. Poor dude, the Mexican revolutionaries had him executed in June 1867. But that Maximilian was a clever and self-interested guy and bribed all of the soldiers in his firing squad not to shoot him in the head so he would survive his execution! One shot him in the head anyway-- so much for bribery. So don't be confused, Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence Day; it's mostly just an excuse for a party! Strangely, it's almost more of a holiday in Mexican-American communities than in Mexico. Mexican Independence Day is September 16th commemorating that day in 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo rang the church bell to gather the town of Dolores about him and issued a stirring speech urging Mexican Independence. "El Grito de Dolores" was the name of the speech which translates into English as both "The cry from [the town of] Dolores" and "The cry of pain." I would call Hidalgo the Mexican version of Thomas Paine of the American revolution. Of course, Mexican Independence Day isn't the day when Mexico actually gained its independence from Spain. That didn't happen until 11 years later in 1821. Crystal clear? good. I hope you enjoyed your Cinco de Mayo yesterday and remember that any day is a good excuse for a party; you can always find something in history worth celebrating.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Sparrow
(but I don't at all mean the book by Mary Doria Russell, which I recall finding very disturbing when I read it in high school.) I was running along the canal behind my house this morning and almost stepped on a little sparrow sleeping on the path. So I stopped and thought, "how distressing, this poor juvenile sparrow has recently been evicted from it's nest and now is lost and homeless and sleeping in the path. I should move it before someone with a dog comes by and bothers it." Riiiight. Actually, that's how I justified picking up a wild animal, what I really thought was, "awww, look at the adorable fluff ball on the side of the trail! What a cute, fuzzy baby bird with his feathers all puffed out and his head tucked into his back to sleep! So cute; I must pet him." It was about as gushing as I ever gush. So I cupped my hands around the tiny bird, much smaller than the feather fluff would imply (don't worry, he was big enough that I'm sure he didn't have a momma out looking for him) and picked him up and held him for a moment before putting him back down on the other side of the path where I had convinced myself he'd be safer. Since I'm on the bird subject already, the red-winged blackbirds were frolicking all around where I was skiing this morning looking very pretty with the vibrant red blotches against the rest of their velvety black bodies.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
 I know I talk about Tracy Rd occasionally and I noticed that I had some pictures from being in Walla Walla the other weekend (I also managed to get a really good picture of the guy that happened to be right behind Sam Johnson in the 1/2 road race) so I thought I would show them because who knows when I'll get back out there to have an excuse to talk about it again. So this is the intersection of Biscuit Ridge Road and Tracy Road out in Dixie, WA. Biscuit Ridge is beautiful, paved, slowly uphill, and with lots of horses who come up to the fence to trot up the road next to you. One of my big goals in life is to follow Biscuit Ridge to the end of the pavement and then loop back around the dirt roads to come back down Klicker Mtn Rd.  You know you're in for a good time when you have this view in front of you!
 The cherry blossom petals are falling like autumn leaves, I'm not sure why we don't rake them up into piles and dive into them. They're collecting in the gutters like a slowly moving pink stream.  You can tell our Suburban doesn't move very often... who would drive a Suburban these days unless he or she had a large mass of stuff or people to transport. So it stays at the curb getting frosted pink.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Spoiled
Of course, I could probably title all of my blogs that. I felt especially spoiled today because my dad came out to Batterman Rd. with me for my intervals. I would ski up for six minutes and then get in the car and he would drive me back down to the bottom! How indulgent, thanks dad!
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Alan Schmitz and Kirsten Valaas frolicking in the forest.
Susan Valaas hiking down the trail/old road near the top of Twin Peaks.
North Cascades are beautiful... even if you never actually make it to the lake.
I stopped on the way home from Seattle to hike up to Lake Merrit. Then I realized that the North Cascades in May were still covered in snow. I managed to figure out where the trail went until I got here and then I gave up. 
Trillium, one of my favorite wildflowers.
Chelsea (and neighborhood mom, Barb, in the background) modeling dresses. It's nice to see one of my old prom dresses being worn again instead of sitting in my closet!
Susan Valaas
