Yellowstone vacation

Our big "summer" vacation for 2009 was a trip to Yellowstone from June 5-12. I write "summer" in quotes for reasons that we become apparent when see some of our photos below. Amy's parents Ron and Dena joined us and brought their pop-up camper, which was a nice ammenity, especially with the kids. We broke up the long drive north with a Friday night stay at Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander, Wyoming. The "sink" refers to a spot where the Popo Agie (pronounced popo zhia), a substantial river, disappears underground and comes up again a quarter mile downstread after meandering through caverns for 2 hours.

Andrew and Grandma Dena at Sinks canyon near Lander, Wyoming

Amy and Elizabeth at the sink

The family on a hanging bridge over the Popo Agie river

Andrew with sparklers at our Sinks Canyon camp site

On Saturday we drove the rest of the way with a fuel stop in beautiful Dubois, Wyoming - home of the giant jackalope! Pure Americana kitsch.

Summer in Yellowstone! We arrived in the park on Saturday and set up camp at the muddy, treeless Bridge Bay campground. We had a white surprise on Sunday morning and spent the day seeing the sights in the Yellowstone valley.

Snowy Sunday morning at the Bridge Bay campground.

Snow covered bison

Brad & Elizabeth watching the bison

Elizabeth hiking with an umbrella in the snow

Steaming mud pot

Bison shedding winter coat

Bison close up

Andrew overlooking the upper falls of the Yellowstone river

Family at the lower falls of the Yellowstone

Lower falls vista

Brad at the brink of the lower falls

Bison Calving season

By Monday morning we'd had enough of the sloppy conditions at Bridge Bay and moved to the lower elevations and slightly warmer conditions at Madison, and saw the sights along the Firehole river.

Ron, Dena, Amy & Andrew at the Firehole falls

Paint Pot at the lower geyser basin

Amy & the kids at a steaming pool in the middle geyser basin

Andrew watches the White Mound geyser

Elizabeth and the steam of Steady Geyser

On Tuesday we enjoyed the nicer weather by watching Old Faithful and hiking a few miles to see a bunch of other geysers nearby.

Andrew & Elizabeth in Granddad's camper

Andrew & the Madison river valley near our 2nd camp site

Andrew watching Old Faithful

Brad and the kids watching the Sawmill geyser

A colorful hot spring

Amy & the kids at the Daisy geyser

Bowl shapedcauldron

Andrew roasting marshmallows at the Madison campground

On Wednesday Ron and I went fishing on the Gibbon river, Obsidian creek, and the Gardner river. We caught fish on each, and kept some Rainbow trout which we ate for breakfast the next day. Amy, Dena and the kids split off and went to see Mammoth hot springs, stopping to watch a bear (a grizzly?) along the way.

Dena & the kids at the upper terrace of Mammoth hot springs

The bear. A grizzly?

Ghostly trees at Mammoth's upper terrace

Mammoth hot springs wasteland

Andrew at the Mammoth terraces

On Thursday we left the park for some canoeing and fishing on Hebgen lake in Montana near West Yellowstone. Andrew and Elizabeth both caught their first fish (Whitefish), and Andrew got full credit for casting, reeling, hooking and landing the fish!

Andrew, Liz, Brad and Ron on the canoe in Lake Hebgen

Elizabeth's first fish

Andrew's third fish

Elizabeth & Granddad fishing

Thursday evening after a restaurant meal in West Yellowstone, Ron and Dena took the kids and Amy and I took advantage of the northern latitudes' late sunlight, and the lack of kids, to go for a 6-mile hike to Fairy Falls and the Imperial Geyser. One advantage of the late day hike is that we had both sites all to ourselves. Priceless!

Amy at Fairy Falls

Brad hikes past a bison hiking near fairy falls

Amy hikes past the steaming creek flowing from the Imperial geyser

The Imperial Geyser

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Middle geyser basin at sunset

Cold, Cold Mt. Evans Ascent

I ran the Mt. Evans Ascent this morning with a cold - in the cold. Fourteen and a half miles uphill, at altitude, with a head cold. I caught a cold more than a week ago at the end of our vacation in Yellowstone, and it's kept my head stuffed and muscles achy since then. I felt just barely better enough early this morning to run the race with the minimalist goal of finishing without making myself more sick. I met my goal with a finish of 2:43:43, which is almost 20 minutes slower than my finish last year.

Did I mention that it was cold, too? Temperatures were in the 40s at the start but it got colder, windier, and foggier as we got up in altitude. The race organizers almost cut the race short at 9 miles due to the dense fog at the summit, but decided to let it go the full length. It was a rather misable experience, actually.

Kindergarten Field Day

Andrew's school has Field Day on the last day of school - his last day of Kindergarten. When I was in Elementary school, I remember field day being my favorite day of the year. I still remember competing with Carlos Newman in the long jump. Good times! It's great to see the tradition carried on, and Andrew had a great time.

Happy 3rd birthday Elizabeth!

Elizabeth became 3 years old on April 15. I'm just now getting around to posting some photos. We celebrated at the kids' perennial favorite, Chuck E Cheese (not such a favorite for the over-10 crowd).

Opening presents the morning of her birthday

Showing off her gift of a princess outfit

Liz and Andrew with the annoyingly musical, robotic Chuck E Cheese

Dena, Andrew, Ron, Jan, Jason, Emerson, Amy and Liz enjoy B-day cake

Three Cousins

My sister Lynette, her husband Jeff and 7-month old Trevyn visited us for dinner last night. Andrew and Elizabeth had fun with their little cousin!

Snowboarding whiplash

Beaver Creek got 6 inches of great snow on their last day of the season last week, and I borrowed a friend's snowboard and went riding - for the 2nd time in my life. I hit it hard, starting with an ungroomed blue slope. Needless to say, I fell a few times and discovered how painful snowboard falls can be. With both feet strapped together, you just can't recover like you can on 2 skis. On a groomed blue slope I got a lot of speed going and caught my back edge and fell backward so hard I completely flipped over. If I hadn't had a helmet, I'm convinced I would have gotten a concussion. It's a week and a half later now and I'm still sore - in fact I had to visit the chiropractor and he suspects I have whiplash. Looks like I'd better get some practice in before I try for speed again. I hope to get some days in at A-Basin this Spring and do just that!

Backcountry Bust

I had grand backcountry plans for today. I met my brother Erik at his house in Breckenridge bright and early so we could hike up Peak 10 and ski down 4th of July bowl - an opportunity to put my avalanche gear to use for the first time in years. We geared up and rode the Falcon Express lift to the top of peak 10 and encountered howling winds and white-out conditions. On top of the questionable avalanche danger, it was miserable, so we nixed those plans and instead drove across the valley to Baldy Mountain. We hiked a few miles to a spot where the wind was tolerable, but unfortunately the snow was not. Terrible, wind-packed slab, a.k.a crap. At least it was some good high-altitude exercise, I suppose.

The good news is, I got a snowboard for the price of a 12-pack. I've been wanting to learn to board 'cause I'm convinced it will be more fun in the powder, and Erik is going to let me use his old board and boots to learn to be a knuckle-dragger. I gave him a 6-pack and his buddies in the ski shop a 6-pack in return for a full tune-up. Not a bad deal!

Kindergarten math?

I'm sure I wasn't doing 4-digit addition in Kindergarten, but amazingly, Andrew is. We've been really impressed by the education he's getting at Free Horizon Montessori School, which is a public charter school in Jefferson county. Here are a few of the math problem's he's solved recently.

9222
+ 2999
= 12221

8464
+ 4648
= 13112

Not bad for a 5 year old!

Spring skiing at Breck

Amy and I took the kids to Breckenridge on Saturday for some early Spring conditions. The snow was icy in the morning and slushy by about 11:00, with a temperature of about 50 degrees F.

Andrew insisted on skiing through the terrain park on his first run.


Elizabeth went a little way all by herself - without anyone holding her harness.



We enjoyed a nice lunch outside at Peak 8!

Elizabeth's 2-year adoption anniversary

On Friday we celebrated 2 years with Elizabeth as part of our family. On March 6, 2007 we first held Elizabeth in an office building in Nanchang, China. Here is my blog post from that day. We celebrated as a family yesterday by going skiing and then giving the kids a treat for dinner (McDonalds), followed by some games at home. A great day!

Here is a photo of Elizabeth getting ready to ski.

Can I reach my maximum heart rate?

I have a heart rate monitor that I use mostly when I'm in a spin class. I've tried wearing it running, but all the upper body movement causes it to slip loose and give crazy readings like 122%. That did get me thinking, though - could I hit 100% of my theoretical maximum heart rate of 183 beats per minute? (Calculated as 220 minus your age in years) At spin class this morning, I tried pushing it and could only get to 96%. I've been able to reach 97% in the past, but I think it gets harder as I get in better shape because now I find my heart rate is lower for the same perceived exertion level.

I'm gonna keep trying. Hopefully my heart won't explode.

Running uphill

The February edition of Trail Runner magazine has some great tips on good form for running uphill.

• Posture: Don't bend at the waist; keep your body in a straight line. Keep hips forward and imagine a string pulling your chest forward. This efficient posture allows you to "fall" up the hill.
  
• Use short strides and quick steps. Three steps per second. Like granny gear on your bike.
• Ball first, heel second. Land on the ball of your foot, then lightly touch down your heel.
• Swing your arms. Provides vertical propulsion and forward force.
• On steep inclines, turn your feet to 10 o'clock in a sidestep motion. This can engage your core muscles more to keep your legs from getting exhausted.

And a training tip: train on a treadmill with a steep incline. This way you can avoid the damaging downhills.

Running and Reading - the Key to Life

Have you ever wondered what the key to life is? Could it really be as simple as running and reading? Maybe that's a bit of an oversimplification, but there's a lot of truth in what Will Smith says in this video. If you learn how to keep running when that little voice inside tells you to quit, "you will learn how to not quit when things get hard in your life".

A for reading? "There's no problem you can have that someone hasn't already solved and wrote about it in a book."

Another gem: "The person that works the hardest wins."

The Yeti beard

For no particular reason, I've let my beard grow for the past month. This is a fuzzy picture taken from my phone, showing what I look like after skiing in knee deep powder and falling into the fluffy stuff a few times.

So what's your vote on the beard? Should it stay or should it go?

Markers are NOT makeup

This is what happens when 2-year-old Elizabeth decided to use a marker (non-toxic and washable, thank goodness) as makeup.

14 kids is ridiculous

Pardon me if I'm not jumping for joy at the "miracle" of the octuplets. A 33-year old woman who lives with her parents who have a history of finacial problems, and already has 6 children ages 2-7, gets fertility treatment and has 8 more children. Fourteen kids who are bound to end up on public support. And who paid for her fertility treatment? This is not a miracle of science to celebrate. This is insane.

The Holidome

Ah, the Holidome experience. I remember as a kid thinking that the Holiday Inn Holidome was probably as good as it gets. They have a pool, hot tub, video games and plenty of room to run around, all in a cavernous building right outside your hotel room door. Who cares where your parents are dragging you in the avodado green Gran Torino station wagon? It could be Swamp Flats, Arkansas, for all I cared. As long as we stayed at the Holidome, I was happy.

Oh how things have changed. I had the, uh, opportunity, to relive those childhood memories this weekend. Amy cashed in some credit card points to earn us a free Saturday night stay at the Holiday Inn in Frisco, so we could get 2 days of skiing with the kids without an extra round trip in I-70 traffic. Between my grown-up standards and the 20-some years of wear and tear the Holidome has suffered, the Holidome magic is gone for me. Forever, I'm afraid. Sob. Considering the abundance of tattooed, Budweiser-swilling hot tub soakers and folks lounging in the game area, I think it would be fair to call it the "Hooligan Dome" these days. Thank goodness we didn't get one of the room adjoining the Hooligan Dome, where we would have had to listen to the racket til 11 pm. Unfortunately, though, all the non-smoking rooms were booked, so we got stuck in a room permeated with the foul odor of stale cigarette smoke.

Nevertheless, the kids had a great time in the pool and playing air hockey the next morning while the hooligans slept off their hangovers. I'm sure from now on they'll ask if we can stay at the hotel with the pool when we go skiing.

Andrew's first black ski run

We went skiing over the weekend and Andrew bagged his first ever blue and black runs on the same day. On Friday at Vail, he skied the blue run Avanti, and just before lunch at mid-Vail, the whole family went down Look Ma - a black run! I held Elizabeth with her ski harness, and that fearless girl loved the bumps. Amy helped Andrew down part of the run, but then he insisted on skiing the bottom half by himself, slowly snowplowing between the bumps. Now "Look ma" isn't a tough black run, but it's a black run nevertheless.