"chain chain"

Can you tell which one just got done crying?

This past weekend the twins came up to visit and we had a mini celebration for Abby’s birthday within the confines of the family, since they wouldn’t be here for the actual day. She has to wait for my presents. We went for a train ride with the twins Saturday afternoon that took us out to the old Asbury Quarry, where marble was mined and used for the Lincoln memorial among many other famous landmarks.

Sunday Abby and I went for a morning ride at Haw Ridge and really enjoyed taking advantage of the crisp cool weather. We came back and had a nice birthday celebration with a huge Mexican meal and some really good cheesecake following. Abby’s parents found her an old Western Flyer tandem beach Cruiser at a yard sale that is in excellent condition. We took it out in the afternoon on a test spin down to Anchor Park and along Turkey creek getting lots of looks and smiles. The thing is huge but we’ve somehow been able to make room for it in our little house. It will be a great addition for social rides in the near future.

Trains are called "chain chains" by the twins and they were very excited to see them and ride this one.

Bridge over the south fork of the Holston River. (Osprey nest on top)

State of the art twin retention devices were deployed to contain the collateral slobbering.

Nice views of the river and perfect weather to enjoy them.

The quarry is quite large. 50 foot ladder on wall if you look hard enough.

At the turn around the engineers treated everyone to a little drive by.

Looking down on the bridge on the way back. The Engineers gave us a smooth ride by keeping about 7-8 lbs of air pressure in the brake lines. This keeps the cars from springing together and bouncing during slow acceleration and decelerations.

Red caboose against green fields is a good contrast. You can rent to Caboose for about 200 bucks for private parties. If you have enough it's cheaper than regular fares.

On Sunday among other things Abby's parents brought an old watermelon for the girls who immediately commenced gutting it like lions at a kill.

Until a larger giggly predator came in for a look.

We got lots of flowers out front now...too bad we can't eat them.

The awesome find courtesy of Abby's parents.

Some of the kids enjoying the new bike a little too much.

Cheesy.

July 4th- now recap

July 4th weekend was a blur. We woke early and headed to the Smokies to sneak in what we thought might be a private ride through cades. Wrong. Cades cove busiest time of year happens to be July 4th and after we finally got parked in overflow parking in the fields of the valley a ranger told us they had 870 counted rider last year between 8-10am and said there were more later and earlier. Anyways we still braved the crowds and got ahead of the cars on our loop. Saw the usual Cade’s wildlife (turkey, deer, bears) and some DFR’s (dumb freckin rednecks). One in particular was chasing a bear with a point and shoot camera through the woods.

For the first time ever I stopped and checked out the gris mill and it was actually pretty neat. We saw lots of reptiles and amphibians there and ate blackberries until our bowels threatened to rebel. Followed by a picnic lunch and ice cream we headed back to K-town for the evening’s events.

We ate the happy hour at a deserted Nama and then headed for the symphony and fireworks. Oddly enough in the field behind the port-O-Jahns, there was a nice patch of grass open upwind and with an unobstructed stadium view of the works. I messed around with camera settings and got a few decent shots. Hopefully I’ll be able to translate this into some good shots for Boom’s Day later this year.

Sunday we ate dinner with the Tuckers at their house and were treated to an afternoon thundershower, grandparental (courtesy of Toots and Grandpa Knoll) stories, and a gentle rain, completing a packed and fun filled weekend.

Little did we know we would be the turkeys thinking it would be deserted in the cove.

Nice views that were relatively smog free.

A doe a deer...a female deer.

Salamander Rescue courtesy of Derek back to the stream bed.

Water powa!

The lock allowing water to flow to the wheel.

The wheel.

55x11 doesn't have anything on these gears.

This one's for you mom. Black snakes eat copperheads and mice and are good to have around.

Berry good deserts.

Flowers in Market square.

The moon provided pre fireworks illumination in fantastic fashion.

Lots of Fireworks pictures.....

Finale. Pictures don't do the bass levels justice.

Neat guttering device at Abby's parents.

Water flows from the gutter and then down all those segments, spilling a surprisingly small amount of water even in heavy rain.

A little walk at Concord and doing our part with some trail work on the local ivy growth.

Big South Fork Race

Home sweet home.

This past weekend Abby and I headed up to Big South Fork for my first mtb race of the year and a race Abby could finally ride in without threat of destroying herself or her bike. We met Maria and Amanda and camped out in the Bandy creek campground, which was very pimped out with the best in taxpayer dollars.

Both Abby and Boogy like sleeping in...

Abby’s race- Abby won the sport women with a small but talented field. We both knew Rachel was going to be fast on her newly decked pink single stallion, but with a little terrain luck on her side Abby was able to hold of off the Pink onslaught till the end. Abby had some mechanical difficulties of her own with a ruptured rear derailleur cable housing and a seat post that wouldn’t hold her seat straight (thanks to the anonymous " " dot quality). She rode with the seat tilted sharply up for the duration of the race and we will be removing and replacing the unmentioned defective designed post in short order and replacing it with something a little more stout.

Boogs sat on the road and side of the trail and gave us this look every time we came around.

Women racers are mean.

Fun in the woods.

And done.

My race- I was very nervous going into this race, but was comforted by the reports that the BSF course was not very technical. For the most part this was true with the exception of a few rock drop offs. What this race lacked in technicality it made up for in scary speed. The first miles of gravel road were all Big ring and a “gentlemen’s” start was not possible with Mr. Casteel (aka Mr. Excitement) attacking off the front like the line was 50 yards up the road. This drove the field to chase relentlessly into the woods at a very high pace with everyone in their big rings.

About ½ mile down the trail at a creek crossing a rider went down in front of me and an octopus of bikes soon ensued. Somehow no one had any major injuries, as when it all happened we were all doing about 25 mph. After the smoke cleared I found myself sitting about 6th in the group and as the first lap progressed, already better than any aspirations I had for the day. A flurry of attacks and small dabs from competitors in front allowed me to move to the very front of the race…somewhere I have never been in expert so far. While it was a rush having a bunch of faster than you dudes breathing down your neck waiting for the slightest mistake, I welcomed the change of lead shortly after on a gravel road. Tanner Hurst, a very fast up and coming kid laid down an attack with another guy in a group of three we had going and they never looked back as they dusted me.


At this point I was into my second lap and my back was starting to hurt and feel a little weird. I backed off the pace a bit and just tried to settle in on a reasonably anaerobic and tolerably painful rhythm. A pro rider Jake Prater, rode up on me offered some words of encouragement and then went on to the front to win the race, as he had been caught up earlier in the race wreck. After a short shooting leg pain and numbness in my leg subsided with a drop in pace, I decided I was feeling better or my adrenaline was high enough to ignore the pain and either way I was going to be done afterwards.

My third lap felt much better and smoother, as my technical skills especially at such high speeds, have diminished with all the no brainer roadie steering. The course was getting dialed in and I was beginning to really feel out the corners a lot better. I caught sight of one of the guys in front of me several times but didn’t have enough gas to close the gap before the end of the race. Meanwhile I was fighting my own battle with a Krystal guy behind me, who would keep walking up on me after the long technical descents where I had to ease off to preserve my back. Oddly enough the climbing on the day felt the best and seemed like it was where I was able to gain the most ground on my opponents. I rolled across the line utterly cooked on my limited expert experience in 4th place, which I felt was pretty awesome, considering the field strength for the day was stout and I’m coming off no riding mtb with a gimp back. After the beating my body took I’m seriously considering sitting out the Haw Ridge race as a volunteer and letting my back make the full recovery before getting back into the mtb race scene. One thing’s for sure, there’s no faking fitness or technical ability in mtb. Unlike road racing wheel sucking is just not really ever an option.Finally back to my roots…and the dirt.

Stung

Commuting is not without hazard... just this morning an intruder snuck in the right shoulder of my Jersey. I won the war but he drew first blood...

July 3rd

Last Friday I think I was one of the only ones in the family working. I went in early so I could make the most of the afternoon. Boogs and I took a nice ride out at the ridge while Abby and some visiting friends went tubing. It’s been a while since I’ve been out for any ride of consequence and it was nice to get out and get things dialed in and get a feel back for the fat tires. We rode pretty easy since Boogy got pretty hot and stuck mostly to the shoreline but it gave me a good gauge on where my mtb fitness was I think.My plan was by the end of the summer to be able to hop in at least one mtb race...

The ride in had lots of greenway rays.

Boogs is getting a little too accustomed to our usual lakeside route. He has figured out that he can shortcut us by swimming across some of the coves.

The occasional lakeside dip kept the 80 degree heat down for our hot natured hound.

His energy level seemed a little high mid ride so we took a detour up HOT. By the top boogs showed he is not a climber.


Man's best friend(s)

Boogy Days of Summer

With the heat ratcheting up a notch the dog days of summer have officially arrived. Speaking of which, Boogy has lost about 10 lbs and is much more active as of recent. We’ve been taking him occasionally to a pond behind our neighborhood where there have to be about 50 bullfrogs that regularly congregate for the usual casual coupling and what not. The hilarity started the first time we took Boogs with us. The pond is only about 30-40 feet in diameter and as Boogy runs around, the frogs all jump into the water just out of reach in front of him and drive him absolutely nuts. They hop back out of the water relatively quickly and the process repeats itself until all the frogs are in the water, at which point Boogy leaps forth and tries even more sadly to get them in their element. He usually does some shallow dives with his head and ends up getting a bit choked up. Meanwhile more frogs make their way back on the bank and the process resets itself. The first night we did this, Boogs went non stop for about 30 minutes. Every now and then we’ll catch one for him to sniff and that eye and nose near the prize keeps him very motivated.

Some of the bullfrogs are pretty big and must smell good to dogs.

Boogs also went to Bark at the baseball park last week and met lots of other dogs there. While I was unable to attend due to my rescue squad shift Monday night, Abby informed me that there was a doorbell sound they played several times over the speakers, which set off a chain reaction of dogs barking around the field. On one occasion the pitcher had to actually stop and laugh.

Waiting for balls (base variety)

Two weekends ago we also fetched a very large piece of driftwood Abby had been eyeing on the shore at Concord park. Our plan is to somehow get this monstrosity out of the water enough to cut it up into segments and make benches out of it. While I was sick on the retrieval day, Abby and her parents paddled our canoe over to the park, tied the log up and towed it back to our shoreline near the house where it is tied now. The log turned out to be 35 feet long and unexpectedly huge. So now were’ brainstorming of different way to get it out of the water with everything from a boat trailer idea to a hand winch and levering it up onto the shore. For now we’re content to let it sit while we think of the best way.

Loading up Boogy who was little to no help and 60-70 lbs of extra weight (wet dog).

Corralling the log from the shoreline where it was half floating was no easy task.

Log wranglers.

Pre departure from Concord with Boogy offering some help by standing on the log.
It took 30 minutes to get over to the log and about 1:30 to paddle back with it.

It's Hot

Sometimes, you just gotta lay in shallow a mud puddle and wallow a bit. (after urinating in it)