Visit to Boulder

This weekend, we are in beautiful Boulder, Colorado for parents weekend. It's our last one as Caitlin is a senior and on schedule to graduate in may. Mark just left for a bike ride with Caitlin and I'm about to head out on an hour run up canyon road on the trail. It's a beautiful, beautiful run full of fall colors and I'm carrying my camera so hopefully I'll have some pictures to post later. Colorado is such a nice place - possibly where we will retire in a few years - and it's always hard to leave here. This afternoon, we have a hike planned to the arches, which I'm really looking forward to. I just love hiking! Being here, it just makes me think about how lucky I am in life and how wonderful life is. I am going to take a lot of pictures so that when I'm back in Ohio and the winter sets in, I can look back on this time and just be happy and grateful for all that I have. Off I go...

PVG wine/covered bridge bike tour

This past weekend, Mark and I did the annual PVG bike ride. This was our 4th year doing this ride, and the past 3 years have been in beautiful fall weather. Well, this year was an exception. All week, I kept looking at the forecast hoping it was going to get better. But each day, the weekend temperatures kept getting lower and the chance for rain kept going up. Not what you want for a "nice fall bike ride thru the countryside of Geneva". But layers upon layers, I found out, will keep a person warm despite the cold weather, and in fact, I was a bit overdressed. With my plastic raincoat over everything, I actually go a little too warm.
Anyway, we started out on Saturday morning at about 9AM. I think the temp was about 45 and it wasn't raining yet, although it was cloudy. There were about 125 riders, I think, but most opted for the short course due to the weather. But not us! We rode the entire 68 miles and it started to rain about 1/2 way thru the ride. We rode pretty well and averaged 17.1 mph despite the cold and wet conditions. After finishing, we checked in, went to the hotel to shower, and then headed to Chalet Debonne for dinner, a bottle of wine, and some beer samples from their new brewery.
Sunday morning, we woke up to rain and temps about 43 degrees. And wind. But we decided to ride anyway so drove to the check in point. It turns out, only 12 people were riding that day. We were #5 and 6 on the course. At the first check point, the weather didn't seem that bad. But then we stopped for lunch, and when we got going again, it seemed really cold! I think it was the starting and stopping that was getting us chilled. After a bit, we warmed up, but then I got a flat tire, so we had to stop again. All in all, we finished and only averaged a little over 15 mph for the day - a very slow day! But we did it, and as Mark says, it's these kind of days that memories are made of. We will probably always remember the year we did a 115 mile ride in the cold, wet and windy fall weather.