Very Late Thanksgiving Post, Now With WORDS

Photos from our Thanksgiving travels.

After arriving in Austin we headed with the whole family to San Antonio, apparently in TX the kids get the whole week off. On Sunday night James (bro in-law), Brian (nephew) and I headed to the Spurs game against the Clippers. It was a good game with a lot of star power, CP3, Blake Griffin and The Big Fundamental.

Griffin pretty much does something amazing in every game and he did not disappoint, with several big dunks including one that had TD just stepping out of the way instead of getting plowed through. 

The next morning after breakfast we headed out and strolled along the River Walk.

Mandatory family shot along the river,

The River Walk is pretty cool, with businesses opening right onto the walk on either side and some pretty cool modern architecture and lots of bridges and such.

After walk we headed to Sea World Park. Dylan has gotten in the habit of striking silly posses when his picture is being taken,

Though, here he looks a bit shocked and confused, measuring in for what rides he can go on. He made the yellow, 42" line.

While we did go on several roller coaster the whole point is the animal shows. So we made the dolphin show which was really cool with a lot of human acrobatics as well.

This was incredible. From what I could tell there was no safety line, the lady came out on the hoop and used the piece of fabric to do all sorts of stuff like this over the water,

Here is Dylan with some of the performers after the show was over,

While Linda and I rode all the bigger coasters, the kids had the most fun on the Shamu Express. Here Dylan and Cady ride in the front.

Linda bought a chocolate ice cream cone for the family to share that Dylan would not let go of with out major coaxing.

Later in the day we headed to the orca show with Shamu, at this point Dylan was getting pretty tired.

It is so impressive seeing what the huge animals can do.

Here, after the show, one of the trainers is working with an animal. It is blurred in this shot but she is holding a stuffed whale and using it to show the orca what she wants them to do, pretty cool. Of course, since the accident with Shamu, the trainers did not get in the water with the animals.

Big Snake

Candy cane trees with all the cousins, Dylan and Cady showing off their penguins.

Another family shot with Shamu Santa, a little weird really,

Christmas Mariachi??? These guys were at it all day, impressive.

The entrance at night.

After a long day we made the drive home to Austin with tired children and quiet cars.

Lots of Photos

So a lot of pictures, first ones from the camera then from my phone.

For this years Intel GPTW event at Cliff's amusement park, Linda again got extra tickets so that "uncle Chris" and family could join us. Trinity driving Dylan, 

 Dylan flying a plane,

 Dylan and I on the little "teacups",

 For the 4th of July we headed to Austin to visit Linda's family, also Brian, Dylan's cousin had his birthday the weekend after so we were there for that as well. We met up with Thu, Nat and Noah to climb at THEIR crag. Dylan had a blast playing around with Noah and for much of the day they did not require any supervision,

 Thus pulling some hard moves on a 5.13

 We've been climbing at the Dungeon, outside of Los Alamos, a lot lately since it has a really nice setting for kids. Here Dylan relaxes in the Daddy chair,

 and putting his Monster Trucks through their paces,

 I took Dylan for a hike on the Crest Trail in the Sandias this past week. Here he is, about to disturb the wilderness,

 Having a snack at a nice overlook 5,000 feet above the city, (don't worry he is not as close to the edge as he looks)

 Ok, now to phone photos.

A day at the Dungeon with Matty Moore who is holding another friends young son,

 Los Alamos was burned pretty bad in the Las Conchas fire last year leaving the approach trail to the Dungeon looking like this,

 And naturally we had a fire break out in the Bosque, the heavily treed area along the Rio Grande river, last month sometime. This is a shot from the aquarium parking lot about an hour after it started. Luckily no homes were lost and it was controlled pretty quickly. We got lucky with the wind direction.

 Seeing the thermostat reading in the mid to high eighties even with the windows open and fans on finally got me to hook up our swamp cooler.

 Dylan swimmimg in his cousins new pool,

 How much stuff can you fit in a Prius, two bike boxes and a bike on top, yes the hatch closed, though the back seats were folded down.

 Hard to argue with the gas milage,

 This past weekend we headed to Upper East Fork in the Jemez Mountains and naturally, hiked out in the rain at the end of the day.

A video of Dylan playing with a blow up hammer that "uncle" Chris? won at Cliff's when we were over there for dinner and watching the final Time Trial of Le Tour De France.

Chinese New Year, more than a bit late

We headed to Austin to celebrate Chinese New Year and Linda's mothers birthday. We also managed to get a day of climbing in at Flat Creek with Thu and Noah, then caught up with Matt, Katie and Tyler (their little one). Climbing went pretty well, Linda finally managed to do all the moves on Scapegoat without too much difficulty and I finally got back on and sent the only route I fell off of the first day I climbed there, Four Legs Good. We spent lots of time with Linda's family as well, having nice family meals and Dylan getting loads of attention from his cousins. Whenever the cousins are around we don't read him bed time stories because he wants one of them to do it. Here is Dylan being read too by Cady his youngest cousin on Linda's side, besides him of course, probably before we head out for dinner.

 Not sure what it was, but Dylan had a light allergic reaction to something.

 Avery was celebrating a winning basket in HORSE over cousin Brian in the living room and jumped off the sofa, landing on his hand and breaking it, Excessive Celebration.....

 The family at dinner for Chinese New Year.

Dylan dancing to the music in the car.

Christmas Prep

Linda's family is coming out to New Mexico again for Christmas. 2 years ago they came out and the kids learned to ski and they wanted to come back for more, guess there were no hard crashes.

Anyway to get ready we put Dylan in ski school at Ski Santa Fe again, they have a great kids program. Last year was not so successful, he rode the conveyor lift and then planted himself at the top of the hill. This year on the other hand he absolutely loved it. In his words he went down the hill, "a million, jillion, dillion times", (I don't really know how many times that is).

Hopefully we will be able to get out gain this weekend with Dylan to get him more comfortable with skiing before we end up going to Sandia to ski with Linda's family. The kids programs at Sandia are more  ski focused and does not offer the same indoor options that Santa Fe does.

Weekend in Austin

This past weekend we headed to Austin to visit with Linda's family. Dylan had not seen his cousins since sometime early this year before we headed to China. 

Dylan checking out the cockpit of the Southwest  plane that we flew out on.

On Saturday after the cousins were ready to head off to their respective weekend activities we met up with Thu, Nat, Noah, Matt and Katie to climb at Flat Creek. In the past there has been plenty of water for the kids to play in and for us to cool down in between burns right in front of the cave. Right now there is almost no water.

Thu walking with the boys in the dry stream bed.

Anyway, Linda continued to work on Scapegoat, a very steep 5.12. I ran a couple of laps on a 5.11+ so that Katie could work it on TR, it was her first time climbing at Flat and her first time on a rope since she had Tyler.

Katie with Tyler, who has amazingly fat thighs, you have to fight to get the pants on and off.

Katie managed to get the route down to one hang on her second try, not bad for someone that gave birth less than 7 months ago. Though she climbed her first 5.11 when she was 7 month pregnant so it really is not a surprise, probably won't be long before she climbs 5.12 as long as she and Matt manage to get out regularly. After the warm up I surprised myself by fighting my way up a new route for the flash. It is a route Vinnie put up this year and I don't remember the name but the climbing was good and thankfully had a jug and a good rest right before the top out or I surely would have fallen trying to top out. After that I struggled my way up Scapegoat  hanging on pretty much every bolt, my skin but mostly forearms, had had enough.

Overall t was a promising day of climbing for me. After the rush to get in shape for Paris-Brest-Paris I am not desperately trying to get into climbing shape to set for a competition in the middle of next month. As a setter I don't need to be able to climb the boulder problems but I do need to be able to do the moves. Needless to say, being able to peddle a bike forever has not helped my ability to climb. While climbing Vinnie's route would have been a given on many other occasions that I've visited Flat, it is at this time the first route I've done of that grade in at least 6 months and a good marker for where I stand as far as getting back into climbing shape.

On Sunday I borrowed a bike  from Pam (one of Patricia's friends) and rode with a group for the "cream cheese ride" which starts at an Einstein's Bagels and goes about 60 miles. I felt pretty good for the first 50 miles or so until the 100 degree heat got to me and I hit the wall and went into survival mode. Jason, the group leader was nice enough to slow up and pull me in to the finish where I started lunch with chocolate milk and a cookie followed by chips, bagel sandwich and juice then more water in about 15 minutes.

Monday was a lazy day. Linda and I found a pool that was open in James' subdivision and hung out there for a bit then got lunch with her mom and sister before heading to the airport. At this point without Monday the week seems to be going pretty fast, nice.

Off to Paris-Brest-Paris

On Saturday we headed to the airport so I could fly to CA to meet up with my dad and head off to Paris-Brest-Paris. I checked in and met Linda and Dylan up by security to wait for Linda's mom, who is a hero to us, to arrive. After saying the hellos and goodbyes I was off.

I'm pretty excited but anxious about the ride. I'm definitely behind on training, though I did about all I could since getting back from China 4 weeks ago. I'm very happy with my new bike frame that my friend built for me, it handles quite a bit better when loaded and allows me to ride in a more upright position for the long miles. On the other hand I spent the last month trying out different saddles and now have 2 with me. I will start on one and have the other in my drop bag that I will go by twice, at 450km and again about 300km later so I can switch them if there is an issue with the new one.

Anyway, I spent Sunday in CA visiting with family and helping my dad pack and pick up last minute things for the trip. We also made a stop by my parents house that burned just after the New Year. Still nothing has been done, though plans are in process. Here is a view of the wall that burned down.

And again from the inside, the contractors have used plywood just to keep people out and tarps on the roof to try and keep water out.
Looking up from the kitchen/dining room through the burt roof.
Down stairs is not too bad, though there is a bit of water damage in most of the rooms.

On Monday it was off to Paris on an Airbus A380, the newest of the jumbos, bigger than a 747 by a fair bit. It is a full double deck and seats about 525 with a wingspan about 20 feet wider than the 747.
After getting through customs, we had to pick up luggage and our bike. Everyone that is using the same travel agent piled their bikes together to be loaded on a truck and delivered to the hotel that they were staying at in the starting town. This is the first wave of American bikes invading France, there will be another group arriving on Thursday.
We had to wait for quite some time for the bikes to be delivered to the hotel and once we got them everyone at our hotel was out on the grassy lawn assembling. After a couple of hours, my wheels needed to be trued, and my dad was helping another rider who had never taken off his rear derailer before we had functioning bikes and could head out to find food. By the time our days adventures were over it was 8:30pm and time to get some rest.

China Post #41 Li River Cruise and Bus

On our last day in Guilin Linda was giving a presentation on environmental responsibility to the workers at Ging BaBa's company. They grow organic mushrooms and other product and then make them into Chinese medicine. While she was giving the presentation Dylan and I headed out on the true Li River cruise. We were picked up at the hotel by a van and met up with a bus that took us right past the tourist shops that we had stopped at on the Chinese tour and straight to the dock. There were certainly shops at the dock but that was to be expected and we were not there for long anyway. We boarded a boat with 3 levels, two inside and the last outside as well as some decks on the second level. Once onboard we joined the procession of boats on the Li River headed towards Yangshuo.

As we were motoring along the river these guys on bamboo rafts would paddle up to the boat at an angle and ease their way in to be able to grab hold and tie up to the boat.
They would either be selling fruit or some type of souvenir, you could do your shopping on the river.

There were countless beautiful sights along the way, including this that is considered one of the best in all of China, shown on the back of the 20 yuan bill.
Here is Dylan enjoying his boat ride.
After making it back to Guilin we had to get things packed up to head to Wuzhou the next day. Wuzhou is where Linda was born and her family lived before moving to Hong Kong briefly en route to Dallas. In the morning we headed to the bus station in Guilin and Linda took some pictures of the snacks that you could get in the station, such as these.
The scenery continues for hours outside of Guilin with seemingly endless karst peaks and small farming town tucked in the valleys between.
It took about 3 hours before we finally emerged from the karst forest into a landscape of more rolling hills. Wuzhou took about 4 hours to get to in total and is quite a bit lower, there is a river that flows down from Guilin to Wuzhou. Wuzhou is a small city built around the confluence of the river from Guilin and a larger river which dominate the landscape along with the rolling hills.