Celebrating 5 years of wedded bliss

I can hardly believe it, but Saturday was our 5 year wedding anniversary!  Jeremy's brought home flowers on Friday night and started the weekend off on a nice note.

Daisies - the official 5th anniversary flower

Since we had the whole day to celebrate, we started off by heading to the farmer's market.  Aside from our usual veggie shopping, we indulged in far too many anniversary treats.  Possibly the tastiest farmer's market trip ever!

Vanilla Raspberry Cookie... delish!

Plus, Ruby got a new bone. A good day for everyone : )

Jeremy had planned a whole day of surprises which were centered around the theme "things we always say we should do in Salt Lake, but never get around to actually doing".  We started by going to lunch at Stella Grill a cute little place we've driven past multiple times, but had yet to try.  It was a super yummy lunch and a nice start to the surprises.  After lunch, he drove us over to an industrial park near downtown, which I will admit stumped me at first.  Turns out, this is the location of the new urban winery we've heard so much about.  Kiler Grove winery grows their grapes in Paso Robles, CA, but blends and bottles their wine right here in good 'ol SLC.  They had a number of wines to taste and we had a blast pretending we were back in Napa/Sonoma on our honeymoon.  We bought a couple "everyday drinkers" and a nice zin blend to save for a future anniversary. 

Our lunch spot

Cheesy couple shot at the winery : )

We then hopped on FrontRunner (our local commuter train) and rode up to Ogden where we wandered around the old train museum and the antique/trinket shops on their historic main street.  Although much shorter, the train ride reminded me of one of our adventures back when we were just dating and we took the train from LA to Seattle.  Fun times!

Self-portrait on the train

Welcome to Ogden!

Me and an old steam engine... Grandpa would be proud!

Always the artist, Jeremy found a piano to play on 25th street.

After riding back down to SLC, we headed home for a quick wardrobe change before dinner (yet another surprise).  On our honeymoon, we bought four nice bottles of wine to save for our 5, 10, 15 and 20 year anniversaries.  We've had to modify the schedule a little bit to make sure we didn't let any of them get too far past their drinking time (i.e. we drank the bottle designated for year 5 last year).  Fortunately, the bottle we were planning on drinking on our 10th was maturing faster than anticipated, so we got to enjoy it this year!  This particular wine was the most sentimental of all since it was from a winery that had to shut its doors due to financial problems.  Thus, we will never have another bottle from this same place.  It was a random little winery way up in the hills called Graser.  We were the only customers there and the winemaker himself (along with a couple fabulous wine dogs) led us through the tasting.  He was an eccentric old guy who we both just loved.  When we purchased a bottle at the end of our tasting and told him we planned to save it for our 10th wedding anniversary, he whipped out a gold sharpie and insisted on signing the bottle! An all-around great guy.  Anyhow, I digress.  We packed up our Graser wine and walked up the street to Em's, a super cute restaurant in our neighborhood that we have been meaning to try (but were waiting for a special occasion).  Dinner was amazing and the wine was oh-so-good.  It aged better than either of us thought it would. Perfection!  Somewhere I hope Mr. Graser was smiling, watching us enjoy his wine as the perfect cap to a great 5th anniversary. 

Stuffed and happy post-dessert : )

Mr. Graser, pictured on the label of his most-delicious wine!

It's been a wild ride these last 5 years and I can't imagine anyone better to have shared it with. Here's to many more. Happy anniversary, mister!

El Vaquero Loco Race Report

It's official, I'm loco!  To have attempted this race on minimal training was truly a crazy decision; however, despite the pain I'm in today, I'm so glad I did it. Here's the story:

Somehow I let Jeremy talk me into registering for this year's El Vaquero Loco 25K.  For those of you not versed in metric, this was a ~15.5 mile trail run through the mountains above Afton, WY. It also boasts something like 4,000+ feet of elevation gain... simply ridiculous.  Even more ridiculous, there are some fools who run the 50K version (out and back).  Once across was plenty for me, thanks!

We decided to make a weekend out of it and camp at the Cottonwood Lake campground (conveniently located at the finish line). Our neighbors, and good friends, Rain and Kim joined us for the adventure.  Somehow Jeremy talked Rain into running also... he's a convincing little bugger.  As it turns out, after dragging us all into this madness, poor Jeremy sprained his ankle and wasn't able to race.  My skeptical side says it was all a plot to torture me, but in reality I know it is killing him to have missed this race two years in a row (DNS 2011 due to food poisoning).  We made a last minute decision to drive up after work on Thursday, rather than Friday morning as originally planned.  Although we didn't end up rolling into the campground until after midnight, this turned out to be a great decision as we scored the best campsite in the whole place.  Side note: it's always fun to choose a campsite by headlamp and wake up in the morning to see what you really got yourself into. 

Home sweet home

Pretty dang good isn't it?

I spent most of the day on Friday lounging around in our hammock (thanks, Gleason's!!), while Jeremy took Ruby out on a hike to explore the trails around the campground. I think I made it about 5 minutes before I fell asleep while attempting to read.  The mosquitos made quick work of me once I feel asleep and I awoke with some pretty serious welts, including one doozy on my forehead the size of a golf ball... awesome.

Jeremy in our hammock's maiden voyage

This is my cozy face!

After heading down to Afton for packet pickup and dinner, we enjoyed some campfire fun with our race friends from South Dakota, Ryan and Chris.  I love how you get to know people over the years because you see them at the same races!  Kim and Rain drove up that evening and managed to get in just before a pretty serious rainstorm started dumping on us.  There's something about falling asleep in a tent listening to the rain that makes me sleep like a baby.

The next morning, we awoke to perfect racing weather! Clear skies with just a hint of cool in the air.  I was pretty nervous going into the race knowing that, as has become my norm, my training just wasn't up to par.  Rain on the other hand was cool as a cucumber.  I suppose it was just his fighter pilot nature showing through, but his calmness was impressive given that this was his first ever trail race! 

Me and Mr. Cool

The race started at Intermittent Springs (up Swift Creek Canyon) and it was a pretty idyllic spot. Literally 2 minutes after we started we came around a corner to this view...

A quarter of a mile into the race, the pain started.  We made a quick switchback to head up a stupid steep climb of loose dirt. It was on this hill that Rain took off, never to be seen again.  That guy is an animal!  With the exception of a few spots, we pretty much kept up this ridiculous climb for 8 miles.  I power-hiked most of it and distracted myself by taking pictures of the breathtaking scenery.

 Part way up the first climb, a nice woman took my photo while we caught our breath.

Our friend Ryan lapping me (he was already over 1/2 way through the 50K)

Creek crossing #3, I think

The wildflowers were spectacular!

Yet another amazing creek crossing

Pack horses at the first aid station

I put this last photo in to remind me to talk about the aid stations.  There were three of them, and the fabulous folks working them either backpacked or rode in on horseback and camped overnight in a rainstorm to give us food and water during the race.  Three cheers for them!  There was something pretty awesome about running up to an aid station to find horses and cowboys.  Literally, I got my water refills from vaqueros at El Vaquero Loco... cool!  After this first aid station (around mile 5) we kept climbing for another 3ish miles.  Just when I thought the climbing would never end, we popped out onto a saddle overlooking a glacial lake.

Not the best self-portrait, but I like that my shirt matches the wildflowers

Still climbing

Almost to the saddle

Lake #1

Super fun, technical descent

Looking back up at the saddle

After climbing up the other side of lake #1 (and when I thought the scenery couldn't get any better) we popped over a second saddle to view lake #2.  The descent down to this lake through knee high wildflowers was my favorite trail running experience to date.  Even better, aid station #2 greeted us along the bank of lake #2.

Unbelievable!

Looking back up the trail about halfway down

Running along the shoreline, looking back at Aid Station #2

I paused on a rock to fix my shoe and couldn't resist this shot

From here, there were some runnable sections (yay!) as we made our way towards the third aid station and the last climb of the race.  Somewhere along here I decided that I have to get my parents out here for this race next year.  They would LOVE it (hint, hint).

Our other South Dakota friend, Chris, lapping me... notice the trend : )

This dog had the right idea! Aid station #3 had a whole herd of dogs there to greet us.

Aid station #3 was a bit of a double-edged sword.  I knew it was only 4.5 from there to the finish, so it was a welcome sight.  What I didn't know was that the first half mile after the aid station was basically straight up the side of a mountain. Ugh!  As I trudged up it, a 50K runner came up behind me and prodded me the whole way to the top.  I wanted to kill him at the time, but in hindsight I'm glad he forced me to run the whole damn thing. 

Happy to be at the top! Photo credit: hilarious search and rescue guy

The view from the top. That tiny speck above the snow field is Aid Station #3!

From this point it was screaming downhill on double-track all the way to the finish.  I didn't take any pictures of this section of the course.  Partly because I was having fun running, and partly because I thought I might go hurling head first down the trail if I actually tried to stop.  I ended up crossing the finish line in 5:35, a somewhat ridiculous time for a 25k, but hey, I got my money's worth! Rain finished in a very respectable 4 hours and seemed to really enjoy his first trail race experience. The finish area featured burgers and local huckleberry soda, which was just as amazing as I hoped it would be.  After a quick dip in the ICE COLD lake, it was back to the campsite for chili cheese dogs and s'mores, the post-race meal of champions!  All in all, a great trip and a great race.  We'll be back, I'm sure.

Ruby looking for chili dog handouts!

It was a good weekend for the dog... dirt, swimming, and chipmunks to chase.  She was whooped!

Marshmallow toaster extraordinaire... 4 at once!

The perfect end to a brutal race!

What's in a name?

I received the following email from my dad detailing where my Squid nickname came from.  It seemed appropriate to share here. His words: 

"BTW, you got the nickname Squid from when you were very little and liked to have what you called a "toughie" with me.  You always stood on my chest or stomach or gave me a "choking problem" by straddling my neck.  Those actions coupled with the fact that I could never seem to keep all of your appendages under control at the same time led me to saying that you were like fighting a squid with all of its tentacles." 

And the rest is history, as they say.  I distinctly remember giving him a "choking problem" by sitting on his trachea (it was one of my favorite games as a kid), I just didn't realize that was where my nickname came from :)

And now, to totally mangle Shakespeare:  

What's in a name? That which we call a neurosquid

By any other name would smell as sweet.