I only get about 1 week a year when I don't have to think once about skiing, training, or anything of the sort. It also happens to be my only week to spend with Patrick in which we don't have to worry about racing or training. Since we were already in California, we continued west and headed for the coast to hang out with some friends. We spent the first weekend camping in the Sonoma State Park. It was much colder than I had imagined, but fortunately we came from a ski race so we had plenty of warm clothes and good company!
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| Our campsite had an awesome tree to hang out in |
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| I love sea creatures so tide pooling was my favorite activity! |
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| Pat and I checking out the tide pools |
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| beautiful coast |
On our way home, Patrick and I took the scenic route, driving along the edge of the Russian River Valley. We stopped for some wine tasting and a walk through the vineyards. Then we continued on to San Francisco, where I have friends from college and high school so we had a great time enjoying the city life and visiting friends. We love checking out the city, but it is a little high stress for us small town folk so we were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the week.
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| John took us on a tour of all the single track in the city |
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| The view at one of the look outs was amazing! |
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| A view of downtown |
We decided to break up the drive back to Utah and spend the night somewhere in Nevada to go biking. Last year we did the same thing and had remembered this small town that advertised mountain biking so we decided to check that out. We had remembered it as a cute town with lots of spanish influence literally built out of a steep hill. However, as we rolled in, it turned out our memory selectively picked the 2 buildings that were historic and failed to pick up on the trailers and sketchy part of the town. There was no one around and we couldn't even get the information we wanted about the bike trails. We drove up to the place we were planning to camp only to find lots of snow and some sketchy, somewhat permanent looking camps that thoroughly freaked us out. So, we made the decision to keep driving to Ely, Nevada which is not any less sketchy, but a little bigger and we camped there last year so we were at least familiar with the town. We arrived in the dark with snow on the ground so rather than try to cook at the campsite, we had a really romantic dinner at the McDonalds Play Place and then set up camp. When we woke up, we were frosted head to toe. Last year we camped here about the same time and it was really warm, go figure, weather in the desert...It was too snowy to bike so we just went for a short hike before continuing to Utah.
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| Pat, super psyched to make coffee in the snow |
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| A frosted tent |
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Using the stove for warmth
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It was a short, but fun vacation! After struggling with my back injury the second half of the season, I made the decision to return to Utah to be evaluated by a doctor and do what I can to make the changes needed to forever heal this nagging injury. Let's hope it all works out!
