European Vacation

This is the first installment of our European Vacation blog. There will almost certainly be a tale or two of driving around in a roundabout for hours on end, like Chevy Chase and his misguided family.  But for now, I am happy to report we made it safely to Germany.  We left SLC around noon on Sunday. Flight to Houston was uneventful.  The flight from Houston to Frankfurt was one hour delayed, but we were not alarmed, as Drew figured they could make up the time during the 9 and a half hour flight. They mostly did, and we managed to retrieve our luggage and 67 pound bike boxes from the baggage claim.

We manuvered them to the train station, and then hopped on a 20 minute ride to Mainz, where we were supposed to have about 20 minutes to change trains.  The 20 minutes turned into 4.5 hours, as our train was at first 2 hours delayed, then 3, then 4, then 6.   At that point, we gave up on our nice air conditioned high speed train we had booked to Stuttgart and instead hopped a local train back to Frankfurt. After a brief freak-out about possibly not getting off at the right station (Frankfurt has 3), we arrived at Frankfurt.  From there, instead of getting on the next train from Frankfurt to Stuttgart, we took a later one that had room for bikes, since we got a lot of dirty looks on the train from Mainz to Frankfurt with the bikes in the entry/exit corridor.  The weather was unusually hot, and we were dripping with sweat.  Dead tired and dirty by this time, we both fell asleep as the train rocked our way to Stuttgart.

Drew's brother, Trey, had arranged for his friend Jeremy to pick us up at Stuttgart, thereby avoiding another train transfer.  Oh how happy we were to see Jeremy and Trey's truck!  Our shoulders are still sore from lugging our packs and bikes around for 30 HOURS of traveling, and Jeremy saved us from having to drag them through city streets at night!

It was like arriving at a relaxing vacation home when Jeremy dropped us off at Trey and Emily's flat in Esslingen.  Comfortable and quiet. We crashed out hard and slept for 10 hours.

Tuesday, we ventured onto the quaint city streets of Esslingen.  The town is everything I imagined a hip old German town to be.  Cobblestone streets, shops of every kind, a pastry and coffee shop on every corner.

 Very few cars enter the shopping district, where Trey and Emily's flat is located above a toy store.  Most people ride bike or walk.  After a delicious lunch of some sort of German gyro and vegetarian pizza with peas on top,

we were too pooped to continue exploring and went back to take a nap.  The heat subsided in the evening and we ventured out to find espresso, donuts, and a grocery store.  Grocery shopping was fun!  So many kinds of wieners and bologna.  Eggs not refrigerated.  Fruits and vegetables we don't see very often in the states.  Beer!  $7 for a 6 pack of Guiness! That is less than half price what we pay in Utah.  They have lots of pilsners here.  The 35-cents-a-can variety is still way better than Budweiser.

Later that night Drew put the bike together, only to discover one essential part of the crank arm was missing and the seal on his tubeless tire had let loose, so we needed a bike shop.  The next day walked 1.7 km to a shop, with advertised hours of 10 AM to 12:30 PM and 3 PM to 5 PM.  We arrived at 9:50 AM, but at 10:02 the owner, who had been inside a few minutes before, drove by and let us know (in Spanish) that on Wednesday mornings, he was closed! Argh!  We walked back to the shopping district, stopping for ice cream and to browse a farmers market.

For the most part, we get by not knowing much German, but it would be nice to be able to read what this window display at a drug store was all about.  What's with the mushrooms?

We had to hike back to the bike shop at 3 PM in the wickedly hot and muggy afternoon.  After all that, we got the bikes fully functioning and went out for an easy spin on the mostly paved trails along the river.

We got some strange looks dressed on our fancy riding gear, when everyone else on the trails was in tank tops and capri pants with a basket on the front of their bikes.

So Esslingen treated us well as an introduction to Germany.  The next day, we headed to Fussen, where the Bike TransALPs will begin.

Race Report: Solitude State Champs. I-Cup race #11

With getting the construction guys lined out to work while we are gone, and my little trip to the West Desert training or even thinking about racing took a bit of a backseat this week, but Solitude is a fun and technical race course, so up we went.  Drew's bike was already packed up in the bike box ready to go to Germany, so he pulled the titanium 26" Seven hardtail out of retirement for this race.

Whether it is the possibility of winning an actual medal in the state Championship race, the fact that Solitude is one of the races where you actually feel your mountain bike skills are being tested, or the challenge of a good climb, this race draws more competitors than many of the other late season races.  We saw a lot of our friends and teammates and even, a yeti, or rather, Sly Fox dressed as a yeti handing out $1 bills to the racers.

The Expert Women cat has 6 racers; a good turnout. Off the start line...

Women's Expert start. Photo by Lyna Saffel.

...I was in 2nd, but fell to 3rd by the entrance to the singletrack.  One gal was right behind me on the first singletrack descent, and passed me straight away on the road climb up to the feed station.

Photo by Lyna Saffel.

That put me in 4th, but I nudged past her on the rest of the climb to regain 3rd place. Just before the second singletrack section, a Rooster's rider passed me, so now I was in 4th again.  I am ashamed to say it, but I thought to myself, 4th is OK today because then I don't have to stick around for awards and can get back to packing at the house.  That is not the attitude of a winner!

I felt pretty good for the whole race, but because I had lost site of the girl ahead of me and had put time on the girl behind me, I probably slacked off the pace a little and never felt like I was pushing at max effort.  The technical sections went well on the first lap, but by the second and third (a half lap), I was not on my game and slowed down a bit.  I also felt like my headset was loose or something, so I was tentative on the rough course.  I found out afterward that it was slightly loose, but also, the rear brake was rubbing badly.

Well, apparently attitude is everything, because 4th is exactly where I ended up.




Drew said the rough course beat him up pretty badly on the hardtail, but he still had fun and ended up happy with his performance.



We stuck around for awards anyway before heading back down to finish packing up the kitchen so Adam can demo the wall between the kitchen and dining room next week while we are gone.  I got the cabinets picked out too, so that aspect of the remodel can be worked on while we are gone.

I tapped this post out mid flight on our nine and a half hour plane ride to Germany and posted it as soon as we arrived at Drew's brother's house in Stuttgart.  Drew is entered in the TranALPS Challenge 8-day mountain bike stage race.  We should be able to keep regular blog posts while we are away, so check back often.

Snake Valley work, camp, animals

I made a quick overnight run to Snake Valley to replace some equipment and check on all the spring monitoring stations. With all the crazy biking and house addition stuff that has been going on, I was happy to be off the grid, even for only 1+ day.


I checked on Kell Spring.  It is a small spring - only 0.1 cfs, but supports a nice stand of cottonwoods and Columbia spotted frog.

Some of our equipment:

It is a good place for a homestead.

It is a 40 minute drive to the Border Inn from the northern sites, so to save time, I just camped out at an old abandoned homestead.   A sleeping bag in the bed of a truck is surprisingly comfy after a long day driving around on dirt roads when there is a nice warm breeze to keep the bugs off.

The sunset was superb. This picture could make it into the Division of Water Resources calendar, eh?

I woke before dawn to the endless and lovely call of a mockingbird.  I recognized the song from Watcher's post, and made a visual ID on the bird with my little binoculars.



The next day, I visited Clay Spring

where I saw these antelope.

 I had to admire our custom built v-notch weir and double-barrel discharge pipe.

I had to go back up to the northern sites, so I took a different way home than usual.  I drove through Tule Valley. I love how desolate it is in this valley.

And then up over Marjum Pass.  Don't the rocks just beg you to come explore through them?

I've said it before, but Utah is a great place to be a geologist.

House addition: interior framing and pergola

A few quick pics to catch you up to speed on the house.

Here is a picture of the new step in the basement that I didn't have a picture of for the last post.

We've now got windows:

And they are framing the walls in the master suite.  Here is the bedroom part:

And here is the bathroom. Oh so lusciously big.

Looking toward the closet from the bedroom.

Here are the stairs from the office/laundry/family room.  We also have the old door up temporarily until the new French doors arrive so we are all secure.

A very exciting thing happened yesterday; they took down the temporary wall between the old kitchen and new space so we can really get a feel for how open everything will be.

Also very nice is the pergola that will be over the hot tub.

It is very stout and strong looking.

Home addition: framing

We've been so busy with the house and everything else that I have not turned my computer on in days.  I finally got a chance to sort through some of the pictures we've been taking of the home addition.  Last time, I left you with a cliff hanger.  We had a cliff outside our back door into the newly-walled basement. Oh, bad one.

For the past three weeks the contractors have mostly been framing.

We get almost daily deliveries of lumber

and the giant dumpster parked in front of our house is, I'm sorry to say, filling up fast.  There is so much waste during construction!

But the form of the place has started to take shape.  Here they've started on the floor joists for the main floor.

Drew is standing in what will be the french doors to the back porch.

Looking out from our new kitchen/office area.

Here is a cool video of all hands on deck to raise the east wall. Drew helped while I took video.



We have been busy shopping and making critical design decisions. One of the glamorous shopping days was window shopping. 

Down in the basement, we still had a dirt floor.

And the one corner of the foundation made me uneasy. Up above, they were building all kinds of structures, but this was at the bottom of everything. You can see the original foundation on top of dirt and inside of that (to the left) is the cinder block walls someone made when the basement was later dug out to create the "shelf basement". 

A couple of weeks ago, they poured the floor of the basement, and last week they formed and poured a step connecting the new and old floors and fixed the edges of that unstable mess.  I don't have pictures of that.

In the midst of all this, my strawberry plants were producing even after I transplanted them in May on a very hot day.

It was after that that things got really interesting. In order to put the new master bath and closet above our existing kitchen and spare bedroom, they had to saw off the back portion of the roof. Once the saw cuts were made, they roped the large pieces to a crane and lifted them over the house!

I was so nervous, but nothing bad happened. What made me particularly nervous was the 50 mph gusts that day and a strong chance of thundershowers in the evening. Adam wrapped up the house as best he could for the night.

Somehow, we lucked out and the rain never came. We've had good weather ever since.

Framing continues. Here we are on the upper level with no walls around us.

And the upstairs walls are going in

The view from our new bedroom is going to be great!

And finally, we get a feel for the shape and large size of the addition.

 We really were not prepared for how tall this thing would be!  We have modified the original plans a little to bring the roof of the porch into perspective with our yard.

As they start to put on the roof rafters and sheet the roof, we can get a feel for what it will be like up there. It is going to be so nice!

And finally, we got rid of the giant piles of dirt everywhere, including on our young tree roots. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to a hawthorn we planted four years ago.  It was in the wrong spot now and had blight anyway.  The contractor is going to try to save it, so Drew helped load it into their truck.

We placed the rocks we pulled out from under the vinyl fence, which had been acting as a sort retaining wall, out into the yard 10 feet or so and made a raised bed.  It will be so much fun to plant!

Race Report: Mountain Bout at Snowbird. Intermountain Cup mountain bike race series race #10

Race #10.  I'm getting a little burned out on all these races, but I told myself I was going to do the whole 13-race series this year, so I went anyway.  My head certainly wasn't it race mode on Friday, because I was thinking about kitchen cabinets, where to put electrical outlets, and how to modify our plans to make the addition seem "shorter".  But by 11 AM on Saturday on the start line, I felt ready and excited to be racing again.  I definitely have been getting less nervous at the start line in these last few races. Probably because I'm sitting in first place in the overall series standings so have less on the line at each race.  Still, I want to do my best and race against those same competitors that have beat me before.

The Race

The Snowbird race course is not many peoples' favorite.  It has a very loose and sketchy service-road downhill that is a little bit dangerous, and it always sucks to have to descend all that elevation you just climbed on a road instead of a fun trail.  But I don't mind the course.

The competition was 5 deep in my category. Lisa White was there, who always beats me by at least 2 minutes. Teammate Alison was there, and so were two girls I didn't recognize.  That's always troubling because you never know how fast they will be, how their endurance is, or how their technical skills are.  Anyway, off we went on the 4.5 mile course.  Lisa took off like a mad woman, and one of the newcomers, whose name I later learned was Audrey, was ahead of me too.  At the run in to the singletrack, I jumped ahead of Audrey to gain the advantage of being first on the climb.  The course climbs and descends a little and climbs again before the nasty road downhill.  Audrey and Alison were right on my tail within about 15 seconds of me the whole way until the bottom of the downhill, where I went wide on a turn and lost some time. Alison passed, but I managed to get back in before Audrey could pass too.  More technical downhill, and then at a medium-length climb I lost both of them.  I came through the first lap feeling pretty good.  On the first climb of the second lap, I caught sight of Audrey again.  Where did she come from!?  I think I had relaxed a little bit, thinking I had some time on the others.  No more relaxing for me.  The rest of the race, three laps total, she was not farther than 15 seconds behind me, which made for a very hard effort with no recovery.  At the run-in to the finish, I looked back one last time to make sure she had not gained any time on me, and didn't see her.  I rode through to the line to take the 2nd place finish for a time of 1 hr, 39 minutes, 44 seconds.  Nine seconds later Audrey crossed the line for 3rd.  Lisa beat me by more than five and a half minutes, and she even beat one of the Pro women.

It was a great race and I felt like I raced as hard as I could.  I'm happy with my $20 gift certificate to Bingham Cyclery.