Celebrating 25 years

We came to Crested Butte for the weekend to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, by riding lots of awesome trails in the high mountains between the wildflowers. 

Our friends Becca and Scott, and Michael and Brittany joined us. The first, and only other time we have been here was in 2020, also with Becca and Scott. We are staying in a nice condo, so it’s much more comfortable than camping!

The first day we did laps at the bike park, the next day we rode Tiocally & Strandhill, and today we rode 403 and 401. We have done a lot of elevation gain. More than 3000 feet per day! Some of the elevation gain wasn’t necessarily 100% necessary, because we could’ve probably shuttled some of it. But it’s nice to be in good enough shape to be able to ride it. 

After a long day on the mountain, we come back to the condo and make yummy dinner and just hang out and chat. I have been making videos on my Insta 360 camera, and have been able to throw together some fun clips to watch. Tomorrow is our last day here and then we go back to real life. In the meantime, Ginger has been watching the boys, which has been amazing.

Preventative maintenance

Getting old sucks! 

Just went to my preventative annual physical, just so I can get my thyroid prescriptions renewed for my Hashimotos.  Not only did I need the standard Pap smear, they want me to get a mammogram as well as the equivalent of a colonoscopy. There was talk about peri-menopause, and somehow she talked me into getting the HPV vaccine since you never know if/how long I will outlive Joe, and they’re only approved until age 45, which I’ll be tomorrow - she scared me with 70 year old ladies still needing Pap smears. And to add insult to injury, they didn’t tell me I might get a fever and have a very sore arm until after they gave me the shot! 

Broken record?

Not to sound like a broken record, but I love riding in the high country! Today Joe and Brittany and Stephi did Molas to Engineer- plenty hard, but I paced myself and it was no problem. 

Joe hasn’t had as much time to ride, so he suffered a little more.. 

I brought my insta360 camera, and took a bunch of short clips that I’ll now how to somehow shorten into a 4-5 minute video. 
Yesterday I worked on the video of our ice lakes hike, and I probably spent over 8 hours editing! Hopefullya this one won’t take as long. 

I had been taking my allergy medicine for a few days, and thought the allergens must have gone away. So I made the mistake of not taking it yesterday or this morning..  had a bit of a sneeze attack as I waited for Joe to pick up the car at the end of the ride. 

The High Country

Last summer, in 2024, I was gone so much that I hardly got to ride any of the trails in the high country near Durango. However, since I have been around here this whole summer, I have been able to do a lot of fun rides with all sorts of different people. 

In the past three weekends, the wildflowers have started to come out a lot more! When I rode Pass Creek to engineer two weeks ago, there was hardly any. Now, there are Indian paint brushes, columbines, and lots of other pretty flowers everywhere. 

It was a zoo up at Coal bank pass today, because of the Fourth of July. However, I was still able to enjoy the mountains, because it’s pretty easy to get away from the crowds on a bike. I tried to make it a point to look around and really take in the beauty of the mountains, because I do feel so lucky to be able to live here.

I rode Pass Creek to Coal with Stephi, Cassidy, and Stephi‘s friend Kelly. Then, Cassidy and I went back up pass Greek and down engineer. I really wanted to go at my own speed, so I just bombed down engineer and set a bunch of PR’s.

(Stephi, Cassidy, me, Kelly)

(Cassidy)

Almost like new

 

There’s just something about a clean house and a clean car that makes me so happy! I have been fortunate enough to have professional cleaners come clean my house for the last two years or so. Working full-time just did not leave enough time that I wanted to dedicate towards cleaning. And I was tired of the mess! 

Besides the obvious benefit of someone else doing the actual cleaning, having someone come every other week means we have to actually tidy the house to get it ready for them to clean. We used to have to run around like crazy people the night before and spend 2 to 3 hours cleaning up, but as we have gotten used to living in a cleaner house, we have been able to keep it more organized… Generally. Of course, anytime you go on a trip. It seems like a bomb went off when you bring all the stuff in. And since it’s not that big to begin with, small messes seem bigger than they are- and yet are quicker to clean up too! 

Chase got in trouble at Boys and Girls Club last week, and was not allowed to come yesterday or today. So I had made him a whole schedule of chores and projects to do. Selfishly I was kind of glad because he was able to clean up the mess after our back packing trip. 

Also, the Subaru really was a disgrace! I started driving it about six months ago, when I started my new job in town. I had not taken the time to fully clean it out until this week. Chase started the process of cleaning it out yesterday, but as you can imagine, the job did not quite live up to my standards. So today as part of his chore schedule, I blocked out a two hour time block to go to the car wash and do a thorough job of cleaning it out. 

I love the vacuums and pressured air that the car wash has! It is so much better than our old, weak shopvac! While I am cleaning a car, it seems like it can never get completely clean. But somehow, as you drive away from the car wash, the shiny dashboards and crumb free floor mats almost make it feel like I’m in a brand new car again. Minus the cracked windshield and 145,000 miles on the odometer…