Winds of change? But really more of the same.

We had a pretty sizable T-storm rolling through this morning. It produced the most thunder and lightning I've experienced in a long time. Had a few of the really good crashes where you're almost certain it happened right outside the window. In only a couple hours it was over, but managed to drop about 1.75" of rain on us. 

Driving around a little bit, there wasn't much damage for the most part - just small/medium tree limbs here and there. A couple entire trees were down, but that may be due to heavy saturation of the ground over the last couple weeks. I'm not sure what made the shelter-house fall down but it's a good thing no one used it to wait out the rain showers.

I realized today that I really need to get some rafts. For the last few years, spring in IA = continuous rain and flooding. Dirt trails are almost completely forfeit for the near future, but water trails? They just get better when it rains and I even found a few small sections of rapids around here. This could work. Something has to - I miss the desert.

Almost over - radar courtesy of wunderground.com and Google.

A new indoor project we're starting soon. Brewing. Oh yes, that just happened. I've wanted to do this for a long time and Corrine just got me a 8 gallon brewing kettle for my birthday. Still need to order some additional supplies and ingredients but we're all set on bottles. I think I've washed/stripped over 150 now. It should be way easier next time around when there are no labels to deal with. 

Bottles soaking in hot washing soda.

Sanitized and label-free.

Still Here

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since the last post. We've mostly just been running and I never intended for this to become a record of fitness training, so I probably won't update every single time we go out unless something interesting happens. We did run nine miles this past Saturday, then five Monday and five today. A break for a couple days and then ten? miles this weekend. I'm starting to notice that our base-fitness has really grown - these five mile runs are easy now and require no planning, just go and run it. It seems so strange thinking back, that at one time, a two mile run was doable but it was a huge obstacle to go over three. Now it takes me at least three miles to get warmed up.

Hoping to get the mountain-bikes out this weekend if the rain holds off. We've got a 50% or greater chance everyday from now through Sunday. I bought a new coil spring for Corrine's fork which hasn't even been used yet so I'm curious how that will work out. It feels pretty nice and I can't believe I didn't fix it before we went to Moab. For some reason Jamis Bikes decided to use the same spring rate across their entire line regardless of the bike size. So they expect a 100lb person buying an XS size and a 300lb person buying XL size to use the exact same spring? Good luck with that. I think the original rate was firm, which was about like having a rigid fork for Corrine even with the pre-load backed out as far as possible. It has the softest rate installed now, shiny.


I did actually stitch some panoramas together. They turned out pretty good for the most part. I usually have a problem with making them way too wide as I'm taking the pictures. For example, the one with a bike on the left side is a 180° turn. Some of these have originals that are over 9000 pixels wide even after cropping. Oh well, I can't help but try to take it all in. Maybe a full-frame camera body would help, running wider lenses. At least then I could pano in portrait orientation and get a result closer to a square aspect ratio. Then I remember I'd have to carry the full-frame body....

Not sure why this is all blotchy, will have to work on it some more.

Suffering in Elk Rock Pt.2

Back for more punishment, we arrived at Elk Rock to run 8 miles. Yes, 8 miles. I started this one out slightly dehydrated and underfed. I totally bonked by mile 3 -sucked. Eating two Hammer gels helped, but I still probably only ran 5 miles total. Corrine on the other hand ran the whole thing with no problem, even after I drank all the water. Ah well, next time maybe I'll remember that if I brought a builder bar on the drive out, I should eat it.

Lots of horses out today, no doubt more people are around for Tulip Time. The trails have been dry long enough now that the horses are getting them pretty smooth in most places. We also saw lots of bright yellow flowers. I'm not sure what they are. It seems like they are way shorter than some we've seen last year.

Far enough from the trailheads, you can actually find some single track out here. I even saw some mountain-bike tracks.

We spooked a big group of deer that were hiding in a bunch of short trees. They took off smashing through everything in sight. I wonder what happens when a bunch of deer go shooting past a couple of horses.

I took a shortcut back on the all-weather trail while Corrine finished out her mileage. I ran across these very large mushrooms. They did not appear to be of the magic variety. The bigger one is about 8" across the widest part.

I've also got some parade pictures from last night. Only made it to one parade this year but that's alright, night ones are best anyway.

Klompen Classic

The Klompen Classic was this evening in Pella. Not a whole lot to write about, mainly because I didn't do anything (almost crashed my bike twice in less than an hour?). This is an annual 5K which always has an incredible turnout considering the community size. It's become the unofficial kick-off to the Tulip Time festival which should really get going tomorrow. 

Corrine turned out a time that she was happy with while I rested for the 8mi. run we have to do this weekend - score! Hopefully the weather will stay nice so we can run at Elk Rock park. It's hard to put in that much distance around Howel Station near the dam without running a lot of pavement. 

Running and catching up

Went for the first "short" run on the schedule this week - 4.5 miles. Don't believe my cellphone camera, it was a great sunny evening. Upper 50s and a light breeze. We missed last week's long run (climbing a sand dune when we were supposed to be running) so my legs were a little more refreshed than usual.

We saw a large owl in a tree over Ivan's campground, I think it's either a Great Horned Owl, or a Long-eared Owl. I'm leaning toward Long-eared Owl due to its lighter color and appearance of stripes more than speckles. Another great use for a cellphone camera: "Hey, what's that thing in the tree over there? I'll take a picture of it. Oh neat! It's a blurry blob just as I expected."

The flowers/weeds are blooming nicely around the foresty areas of the river bottom trails. The may-apples are getting big already too.

Pelicans losing a battle against the river for dry footing.

Back west again for a bit - I found some more pictures that were forgotten on my cellphone, or just caught my eye and need to be posted.

We wanted to climb this huge sand dune last year while in Moab, but didn't get around to it. This is located almost directly across the road from Arches NP entrance. I have no idea why it's here - no others in the area, or anything like it.

I think we're on the Onion Creek trail near Moab here?

Kicking some mud/rocks out of my cleats after going through some large (but shallow) mud pits on an otherwise arid trail.

I've got a few panoramas that I want to post up after I finish stitching them, we'll see if that ever gets done.