Friday trip to the zoo

This week was my friday off week. Since the weather was just fabulous, we went to the zoo -- via bicycle of course. Lunch was at Cecilia's downtown, yummy!

Flamingoes make the best pictures, but my favorite animals to watch were the hippoes and polar bears -- big and fun! Jill liked liked the small monkeys with lion's manes in the tropical America area. I learned from this visit that winter is the best time to visit the tropical displays -- in the summer, it's downright oppressive in there.

Observe Jill's bike riding clothes for a warm winter day. It really is winter -- see the snow on the very top of the mountains.

a fun coincidence

This evening I stopped by to meet in person a guy that I know through the amazingly informative and fun bicycle internet discussion group 'i-bob'. The main objective of the meeting was to buy a bike part, but I was excited to meet another bike rider in the area.

While looking at his very nice bike collection, I saw his cars, including a newish orange Citroen. I said, "I saw an orange Citroen just like that in Taos about a year ago." He said, "That was probably mine... I don't know of any other in the area." I thought, well, that's just too funny. It was parked right outside the hotel room that we stayed at for the weekend.

But then it gets better. I relate the story to Jill, and she said, "We actually took a picture of it." What I remember is that I really enjoyed repeatedly saying "Citroen" with a Frenchish accent.

Is it really yours, Ryan?

UPDATE: Yup, it's his. If you see a lovely orange Citroen, give the driver a wave. Or better yet, say, 'Why aren't you riding your bike????!!!'

what's old is new

I bought a pair of Dr. Martens boots in 1996. They were my main shoes for several years, but as they got older, I wore them less and less. This winter, I was inspired to see if a local shoe repairman(woman) would be willing to resole them. Well, Jill took them to a Russian guy, and he did the job. Good as 12 year old shoes can be!

When I got home from work today, this was adding some mood to our living room. Jill also bought 'The Essential Billy Joel' today.

Someone tell me the date again!

Christmas vacation

We continued our tradition of visiting Park City, UT, for Christmas. What can one do there? Lots!

Here we are sporting our Christmas gifts to each other. Wool shirts. We had probably the quietest Christmas ever. It was just the two of us, as my parents didn't arrive until the day after.

It was really cold, so we played indoor mini golf, using a bottle cap as the hole. Watch out for hazards!


We made some Christmas cookies. We had forgotten to buy eggs, so Jill substituted yogurt. Yummy!

And there was lots of snow. Here's Jill enjoying a cozy soft seat on the powder.

There were a couple really big storms just before we arrived. During our stay, we had a one 6" storm and then a 2' storm. Lots of white!

Did I mention that there was lots of snow. At the top of the hill, the snow went to the bottom of my grip. DEEP! Our snowshoeing arrangement was for me to break trail and Jill to follow in my steps. With each step, the snow was squished about 1 1/2 to 2'. Despite the 'greatest snow on earth', this was still very hard work for me. Really fun for Jill!We really enjoyed our time with mom and dad. Lots of yummy food, playing games, and watching football in HD.

Mom, dad, and I went skiing one day 'together'. Well, mom and dad skied together for part of the day. I was skiing stuff that was too hard for me over and over again. Now that I only ski once or twice a year, it's a lot harder to ski the steep chutes. It took about 4 runs to get back any sense of what I was doing. I felt pretty good for maybe 2 runs, and then my legs just got completely worn out.

On my last run of the day, I mistakenly ended up skiing the chute where an avalanche had killed a skier just before Christmas. It was a very eery feeling, as I don't think anyone else had skied it since. The 4' wall of snow where the avalanche had broken was clearly visible, and the debris field was scattered along the run.

Thanks to the kindness of my parents, this was a very inexpensive vacation. No charge for lodging, about $200 in gas, about $250 for food (thanks again, mom and dad), $79 for skiing (for one ticket -- really -- ouch), free snowshoeing, $50 in Park City mementos. Pretty good for a week and a half vacation. Anyone wanna' join us this summer for a week?

rack on rack

We got a message from our landlord saying that porches aren't for 'storing stuff'. I don't know about you, but I don't consider bike parking to be 'storing stuff'. But we don't want to cause any trouble, so we have come up with this new solution. Let's hope it goes over well.

We picked up this handy rack from our favorite bike shop (Cycle Cave on Menaul). I had first used only zip ties wrapped once around the rack and my rack, but after two bumps, 4 of the 6 broke. Plan b was using velcro straps. Excellent!

Here's what we had before. The old grill is used as rack. Note that my gray bike is not locked to it yet because it is holding the new rack.

Here's 4 bikes locked to the new rack. Since the photo was taken, we moved it about a foot to the right. Much better I think.

If you're interested in a well-used grill, it's now in the dumpster outside our apt complex. We had left it outside our old house for someone to take. Someone did take the propane tank but left the grill. I guess it's not worth much. Anyway, the garbage truck comes Monday.