More cell phone photos

Here is an old shot of Dylan on his last day of school. You know, when the kids get sent home at noon. They had a nice pizza party and after lunch the teachers gave them ice cream...right before sending them home. Something tells me that the kids don't usually get the full sugar infusion right after lunch, unless the one giving it does not have to deal with the consequences. Here is Dylan "finishing" his ice cream.
We had a good weekend.

On Saturday Dylan and Linda went to the children's music class while Chris broke my legs on a bike ride up south 14 and the crest.

On Sunday we headed out climbing with John and Carolyn. We started out at Las Conchas in the Jemez Mountains with the hopes of getting on a couple of routes that overhang the creek which is a pretty cool setting. When we arrived it was 74 degrees and just before 11am. We managed to get 1 or 2 warm ups in, depending on the person, before it started to rain, then freezing rain and finally hail. Anyway that got us to run for the car at which point the temperature had dropped to 46 degrees and this at noon when it is supposed to be getting warmer. We headed down the hill to the Crystal Cave since it is completely sheltered, but it was not raining there anyway. This was both Linda and Carolyn's first times to the cave. I think that they enjoyed the climbing well enough. John worked on and came close to doing Minutia which is surprisingly long for how close to the ground you are the whole time. I did Minutia and the short (5.13-) version of the Leper. All in all we had a good day climbing.

The cactus on the approach to the Crystal Cave are in bloom. They are quite pretty.Dylan liked both areas. There is a great creek and meadow area for him to play in at Conchas. He enjoyed "feeding the snakes" (throwing small rocks) in the river. He had to run back and forth through the meadow to get pebbles from the trail and take them back to the river. The Crystal Cave is so steep that we could set up a rope for him to swing on just about anywhere. Eventually John just hoisted him up and tied him off to a bolt so he could swing and swing and nobody had to hold him.

Here is a dragonfly by one of the creeks we hung out near during the day.

Worst Customer Service Ever, Cycle Satation, Kona HI

We had a terrible rental experience though. The bikes were great but I've never experienced such poor customer service in my life. Even though they had the bikes available when we got in they said that if we picked them up we would have to have them back by the same time the following day which is absurd since that was the day we had them reserved for, so in theory they were planning on them being out all day anyway. We were told that there was a 2 hour grace period though. Then when we did go pick up the bikes we were told that there was only a 1 hour grace period, they can't even get their own policy straight. After that my parents and Linda rode the next morning kind of late, I rode later since someone had to stay back to watch Dylan. After finishing they were not going to make the 1 hour grace period and so took their time and ate some of the food that I had gotten while they were out. Eventually they made their way back to the bike shop to return the bikes and were lectured on how they really did not like to get bikes back late even though we had explained that they would probably be coming back late, even though this was still during the "day" that I'd reserved the bikes for in advance. They were also told again that it was a 2 hour grace period which they could have made if they had just headed back to the shop after riding but were 15-30 minutes late for. The guys was good enough though to not charge them for the extra day on the bikes, this was about the only thing they did right.
OK, so at this point we have 2 hour grace period and I was riding until sunset. Racing the setting sun along the Ironman course back into town was pretty cool. The next day we did our snorkeling trip in the morning and then, since we'd been told we had a 2 hour grace period, took showers and cleaned up before heading to the bike shop to return the bike I'd been riding. Well when we returned the bike the grace period had some how morphed back into a 1 hour time span and we were late, though 15 minutes early for the 2 hour and thus got charged for 3 days, since we had been previously charged for one day when the rest of the bikes were returned (though we could have made the 1 hour period if we'd just gone straight from the boat to the bike shop before cleaning up). On top of this we were charged a different rate for the same bike on the two charges???
Additionally when we were making the return, the mechanic, who I believe is an owner, was having a very heated conversation with another customer. It went something like this:
C-How long does the battery charge last on this (Garmin or something)?
M-Long enough
C-???
M-About 8 hours, it is great
C-Sometimes I am out longer than that.
M-You NEED to get faster.
Say what? He proceeded to tell the customer that maybe she should just quit cycling or something, this in front of other customers. Needless to say there was a bit of yelling going on and a promise to never return to the shop again which I can completely agree with and would recommend never going to this bike shop as there is another only a couple miles away that also rents bikes. I never went into the other shop but there is no way that they could be as bad and one of the locals that was working on the boat recommended them to us after hearing our tale of Cycle Station.

HI, Iron Horse, Durango, Swinging on Ropes

We've been busy lately. In May we had a Regional competition at the gym for the youth kids from NM and CO. Which was right after heading to Hawaii for another of my cousins weddings, this time Melissa. Now all of Uncle Ken and Uncle Calvin's kids are married off so now it is up to my mom's youngest brother to start marrying off his kids to give us continued reasons to head to the islands. Here is a shot of Melissa and her husband Mark.
Before the wedding we headed to the big island with my parents and spent a few days around Kona. Here Dylan is enjoying the view of an active crater in Volcanos NP with my dad for support.
On another day we headed out on a boat to do a snorkeling trip. I have to say that the snorkeling off of Maui is far better.
W also rented bikes and went for a ride on day. Very pretty riding the far end of the Kona ironman course and looping around through the Kahala mountains at the northern tip of the island.

See Terrible Rental Experience.

After our trip which included 6 different days with some flying and the wedding in a 10 day period we all needed a vacation, so here is Dylan relaxing with a book.
At the end of May We joined Lance and his fiance Sarah in Durango, CO for a weekend with some bouldering and to do the Iron Horse bike race, which Chris and Joanna also did. The race went pretty well for the 3 of us rock climbers, Chris finished 11th, Lance 30th and I 20th in the Cat 4/5 race with about 120 racers. The next couple of days we did some bouldering at Sailing Hawks and Turtle Lake which are pretty spots. We ran into a group from an ABQ bike shop, Fixed & Free at Turtle Lake and climbed with them for a bit. Dylan took a liking to this girl and her little dog. I think he looks pretty humorous with his dirt mustache.
In the last couple of months we've been taking a harness for Dylan with us to the crags. He loves to be hoisted up and just swing. He could spend all day dangling from the rope.
But alas the fun must come to an end so others can climb and Dylan likes to take a rest on the rope.
On another note,

My parents are 2 weeks into their cross country bike ride and in the middle of Montana. What am I supposed to make of this?