Travelin' Man

12 days, 2500 miles, 7 states, 1 baptism, 1 graduation, all nieces and nephews and former roommates.  It was one heck of a trip.  We got a rental car and luckily I was able to convince the burrower to take a few of my friends on the trip...Seabiscut and the road bike.  I used the old roof rack from the Kia and made it fit the rental, it was close enough for me.

We drove 12 straight hours on Friday to stay at my buddy Chucks place as it cut the drive short and got us into the central time zone.  Kope showed up to stay the night and help us make some bad decisions and Marty and Leah made an appearance at dinner to get the party started before heading home.  It was just like old times, beer, ping pong, video games and watching youtube videos.  (We really never had that much of a life so that was a normal weekend for us).

We then woke up early to make the drive into Chi-town to see my Grandma, on the way out of town to go meet my godson for the first time. We went out to dinner with both sets of his grandparents and called it a night early (he had a big day the next day).  He also called me to color coordinate for the dinner.

This picture was taken before he peed on me.  Kid has good taste.

Sunday was then taken up by the baptism.  He was stoked, I could tell. I gave him his one gift (that he has to grow into, but never too early to get them riding) and how could he not be happy?  Also the cake was as big as he was, how could you not be happy with a cake like that?

Monday, I took off and headed back down to my old high school stomping grounds to drop off the burrower with her parents as they headed to western Illinois and I stayed around the area at my buddy Marty's place.  We stayed up way to late on a school night, playing music, and I figured out why I never picked up an instrument....I have no rythem.  But there is a video somewhere on facebook of a bad attempt of us playing Journey, while intoxicated. 

I woke up early as usual, and took the road bike down to the I&M Canal to punish myself for the drinking.  It hurt.

It would be great for a cyclocross bike though, hard packed gravel that travels from Chicago all the way to central Illinois.  A lot of history there if you want to learn about it, otherwise just a beautiful excuse to ride and not have to worry about traffic.

Wednesday I headed back up to northern Illinois to meet up one last time with Web (sans baby) and Dan came down from Wisconsin to play 9 holes of golf.  I scored a respectable 63 or so.  We grabbed lunch at local bar and then I made the last minute executive decision to drive up to Wisconsin to see Dans son, and of course his wife, the bear.

Yup, he is going to be a soccer player.  I am showing these youngsters the right sports to play as they get older.  I am glad I made the trip up there as I don't always know when the next time will be to see them.  I stayed for a few hours, ate dinner and then continued on my journey down to meet up with the burrower and see my new nephew, Payton.

Being only 2 months old, he didn't do a whole lot of tricks yet, but I am sure he will get taught some pretty good ones. 

We basically hung around that part of the state until her sisters graduation.  We did take our other neice up to our old college stomping grounds of St. Ambrose and meet up with my last former roommate and our nephew who just turned 1 that day.  We went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.

That was actually very tough to crawl into, I almost didnt get out.

Those are about the highlights of the vacation.  I did manage to get a short mountain bike ride in up in Davenport.  I was very impressed with the trail i rode up there, managed by the IMBA chapter FORC (friends of off road cycling). It was
Sunderbruck Park.  It was well maintained, decent elevation changes as it was right on the river, and reminded my of the trails back here in Charlotte, but just shorter. 
I did manage to enter one of the Wednesday night short track races down in Rock Hill when I got back, but I did that just to get a feel for the trails there as I think my next event is going to be the 8 hour Tree Shaker, but more on that another time.

Fun on Three Wheels

Since I work for a company that deals with a lot of non-profit universities and hospitals all of the employees are encouraged to give back to the community. This year I have volunteered to mentor a young student at one of the local elementary schools. I figure this will be a good learning experience for me to help some underprivileged child in some way since I always had everything I needed growing up. This will be one of my first times donataing a significate amount of my time instead of my money to help others in need. But don't worry, I also decided to donate my money as well to a national 501c 3 corporation (you know the kind where you get the write off). This years donations is going to IMBA or the International Mountain Bike Association. They build trails, help advocate bikeing as a healthy lifestyle, and also have some pretty sweet perks if you want to take advantage of them. The reason why I keep rambling on and on about volunteering is to lead up to this....the employee giving campaign in which the company will match dollar for dollar up to (I believe its) 1.2 million dollars for charity has an annual tricycle race. This is the 3rd year in which I entered it. The first year I helped win the trophy.

I couldn't find the picture of the trophy, but here is me from the first year. The goggles make me more aerodynamic. Last year the team got knocked out in the quarter finals.

But this year I wanted a little more than a picture, and got a little creative. Take a look at how easy we got out of the first round. The format is a 4 person team, 2 male, 2 female and you ride then switch riders. You will get the idea after watching the video. I am the 2nd rider. YOu see how fast we got past the other teams? Thats skill. And here is where it went wrong in the quarter finals. Although it would have been nice to win the trophy again, it was all for fun (mostly) and all for a good cause.