Dogs

I know most of you are already dog lovers..some of you own packs of dogs. When I went to Sun Valley for Christmas I was a bit bummed to leave Gretta and Shuksan behind as it was CHRISTMAS and what abusive parent dumps their canine children on someone else for the holidays? I wasn't worried about missing dogs though, as Meg has two (Gully- black lab mix and Mavis- brindle pit mix) and she was house sitting for a family who had two more dogs (Buddy- three legged short hair- a crotchety version of Gretta, and Mazie- terrier mix in photo). The dogs were a source of entertainment all week and they reminded me how much happier people can be when they have pets. Meg works at the local animal shelter so she's privy to each dogs story (all three in this photo are from the shelter) and it continually amazes me that people don't treat animals with the same compassion they treat other humans. Gully came to the shelter because his owner was moving and just couldn't find an apartment that allowed dogs (would he/she have done this to a child- opps, can't find a place big enough, may as well put you on craigslist). Mazie was shot at because her owner had been breeding dogs and suddenly had too many and needed to downsize. Mavis wandered around the woods for weeks before someone brought her to the shelter. There are a ton of stories like these and I'm continuously baffled by humans and their attitude that everything is disposable and that the world exists to serve human needs.

Why I Love Sun Valley

I admit I suffer from "the grass is always greener" syndrome. When we left Sun Valley and moved back to Washington, I thought I'd squelched the problem, after all, we were moving to the green state. But for nearly two years after moving back to Washington, I threatened to move back to Sun Valley (Jarred threatened to stay in Washington- I guess he won) having realized the grass IS NOT always greener and there really are special places. Since leaving Idaho, we've spent most summers in Sun Valley, so I feel like I get my fix. After not visiting this summer, I decided winter was a great time to go... I could enjoy the sun and snow. I didn't get to enjoy the snow, as the valley was plagued by weird weather just like the rest of the northwest, but I was reminded of why the grass really is greener over there.
1. Sun. Humans need sun, it makes us happy. It was sunny all but one of the days I visited and I found myself gravitating towards the sun and outdoors. It needs to be sunnier in Washington. I don't know why I live here sometimes....oh wait- the summers are pretty cool. The winters suck ass.
2. My friends. I've moved a ton in my life and I've tried to keep in touch with friends after leaving an area. I'm grateful for all of the people I've met and places I've lived but I've come to realize that my best friends live in Sun Valley. They're not the friends I need to talk to everyday but I find that I have the most in common with these people and they're the people I really love to spend time with and they're from all walks of life.
3. Snobs. So I don't really appreciate the 1% who build 15,000 sq. ft. houses but I do appreciate the thought that goes into the homes and land in the area. Sure, a lot of it is totally impractical (the valley is in the desert- no need for acres of green) but I love that people (even if they're paid to) care about their surroundings (or are willing to pay high taxes so the city can care for their surroundings). The whole time I visited, I didn't see a single blow up Christmas decoration in a single yard. I saw lots of cool Christmas lights in trees but no cheesy Santa or a fat snowman.
4. Nobody walks their dogs on leash. Everywhere we took Meghan's dogs...off leash and those who were also walking their dogs...off leash. I'm always the one who has their dogs off leash here and I get all sorts of evil stares from suburbanites who thrive in controlled environments.
5. BLM land. Lots of it- and if it's not BLM it's owned by someone in California who doesn't care if people hike on their land.
6. Big Box Stores- or lack there-of. I remember living in Sun Valley and making the trek to Twin Falls to shop because we were too poor to shop in the valley, but there's something to be said about being able to operate on a day to day basis without seeing a Target or Wal-Mart.
7. Everyone is in shape. That's partly because they're rich and have oodles of time to work out, but whatever- at least they care about being in shape. Even the "not in shape" people, are in shape.
8. The conscientious people. Yes, rich assholes live in the valley but nowhere else is there a dog hiking program at the animal shelter, or a horse rescue where the horses are not taken from their owners but instead the owners are offered resources so they can become better owners. Yes this takes money but at least those with money are doing something good with their loot.
9. Less people.
Don't get me wrong, I love Washington but it's hard to love Washington in the winter and Sun Valley will always be that place where the grass is greener.

Where the Heck Did Fall Go?

Is this what it's like when you get old? There you are enjoying summer, or fall, or winter and BAM! all of a sudden an entire season went by before your eyes, and the next thing you know, you're older and your body doesn't work like it used to but it seemed like yesterday you felt so young? And the BAM- you're dead. I remember being young and it felt like eons before Christmas would come around. Now I'm old and BAM!

Looking back, it's hard to remember what we did this fall... we went to Bend biking, we painted our house until it was too cold and dark to paint, we rode our bikes locally....I went to OKC...and BAM. Here it is, four days until Christmas and my least favorite day of the year (yet my most favorite because the days only get longer from here on out). I guess I'd better start making the most of my days before it's all over and BAM! I can't remember where winter went.

Oklahoma, Where Horse People Go Crazy

The girls with Cash.

Mike the groom and awesome travel partner!

I think we all have that one hobby, the one we can nerd out on for hours and even days on end. It's the hobby that often makes those close to us question or sanity at times. For me, it's horses. I can spend hours at a horse show- watching the classes, people warming their horses up for their next class or just visiting with other crazy friends discussing....horses. Of course, showing at a horse show is even better but I've not gotten to do any of that this past year. I think I needed a good horse show fix- so when Lindsey's (in photo) sister, Brittany decided to enter her horse in the non-pro futurity this year, it was a perfect excuse for me to buy a ticket and spend four days nerding out at a horse show. For those of you long-term blog followers, you will remember that Lindsey and I made the trek to Oklahoma together a few years ago. I've since sold Nic and Lindsey is now at Texas A&M riding on their equestrian team. Lindsey actually purchased the mare her sister was riding when her and I were down in OKC together. Cash and Sophie made the long trip home together, both convinced at the time they'd rather kill themselves than live up north. Fortunately, they made it alive and Cash proved to be ready for the futurity so when Brittany purchased her from Lindsey, she committed to the show.

I have to say it was much more fun showing in OKC but watching was great- I had no classes to worry about and was free to sit for hours watching or shopping, or watching or shopping (bought some sweet ostrich boots). I most defiantly got my horse fix as I think I watched six hours of showing one afternoon. It was great to watch Brittany show and especially great that she made the finals (there are hundreds of competitors so Brittany had to show in one other class to qualify for the finals in her division- competition was tough!). While I was envious of the fact that she was gutsy enough to show a three year old, I also realized that showing such a young horse is so hit and miss. They're young and for the most part fairly green, so there are always surprises. I don't think I'll ever strive to have a futurity horse but the Derby (4,5,6 yrs) sounds good!

20/20 Live Exclusive: Inside the Public School Classroom

We've all seen the controversial documentary Waiting For Superman and the comedy Bad Teacher. We've heard administration after administration tout their education plan but are any of us sure of what REALLY goes on in the public school classroom? During this hour long (minus 1/2 hour of commercials) special, we will enter the classroom of Sarah Widdop, a young and naively ambitious public school English teacher in Camas, Washington. Stay tuned to check out what really goes on inside the public school classroom.

Hello 20/20. I'm really excited to have you in my classroom today. I think it is very important for our public to see what really goes on in the public classrooms as this is what our public pays for.

1st period- English 9
"Hey guys, I need you to read the announcements on the board and get your materials out before the bell rings."


Student who has been sitting in class for the past 10 minutes, listening to his i-pod: "We have a vocab test today? What! I didn't know about that!"


Ms. Widdop: "I posted it on the blog all week and we reviewed the words yesterday. You were suppose to write the test date in your planner."


i-pod kid: "Oh, I lost my vocab list."


Students slowly get ready for their test, some are reviewing while others pull out their math homework.


Ms. Widdop: "Ok guys, clear your desks of everything but something to write with. When you finish your test, read the board and begin reading chapter six in Animal Farm."


Students begin to settle and quiet down. Minutes later, one student rasises her hand. "Ms. Widdop, what does merit mean?"


Ms. Widdop walks over to student and quietly explains. Minutes later a boy, whose eyes are hidden by hair blurts out, "Ms. Widdop what does merit mean?" Ms. Widdop takes this as a teachable moment and addresses the class.


"Class, it seems that I need to explain what merit means. In this case it means valid, as in Squealer's actions had no validity. Does that make sense?" Collective group of students nod.


Moments later, "Ms. Widdop what does merit mean?" Other kids snigger. Ms. Widdop raises her eyebrows and quietly reminds the student what merit means.

The class quiets down, some students hand in their tests. One student raises her hand, her frumpy hair bobbling as she asks, "So Ms. Widdop, does merit mean to be true?" Some students snigger while frumpy haired girl growls, "Shut-up!" and looks back up at Ms. Widdop. Ms. Widdop grits her teeth and once again explains what merit means while she bangs her head against her white board, careful to not disturb her new mobile Smart Board.

2nd period- English 9
Students enter in much the same fashion as period 1. Some students comment on their surprise about the vocabulary quiz while others appear oblivious as to the fact that they are in school. Two boys unload messy backpacks in search of old Halloween candy. One kids finds a smashed Snickers while the other seems to be sidetracked as he is smoothing out crumpled assignments and examining them. As students settle into the class routine one girl raises her hand, "Ms. Widdop I just pointed out to my dad where you live and he was wondering if, since we love so close to each other, I could come over to your house in the evenings to get help on homework?"

Ms. Widdop nearly chokes on her gum. "Rachel, how about you just stay after school a few days a week. I'm not sure you really need to come to my house."

3rd period- Freshman Success Study Hall
Partition wall is open and students begin writing in their planners as the bell rings. Soon after students are divided into groups, Ms. Widdop takes 10 or so students and announces the students who will be giving their Book Talks that day.

A student, who appears to be on crack, but probably just has severe AHDH, prances around as he asks, "Ms. Widdop, can't I just give my book talk tomorrow? I forgot my book."

Ms. Widdop, gritting what is left of her teeth, "No Trevor, you've already postponed this three times. You have to give your Book Talk today."

Trevor: "Ok." He prances up to the front of the group. "So, uh, I read this book Malice. I forgot who wrote the book. It's about 300 pages, maybe less. It's about this kid who says this chant, something about a guy named Jake and the next thing he knows he's in this other world and stuff. It's like a good book because the kid has all these things happen to him." Trevor looks at Ms. Widdop with a tad bit of fear in his eyes.

Ms. Widdop: "Is that all? Do you have a favorite part?"

Trevor: "No."

Ms. Widdop: "Did you like the book?"

Trevor: "Yeah."

Ms. Widdop: "So were there other interesting characters?"

Trevor: "Yeah."

Ms. Widdop gives up and lets Trevor sit down.

Ms. Widdop quickly grabs her lunch and switches to another classroom. Before she can post the schedule on the board, students begin to file in. One plops down on a stool in the front of the classroom.

English 10- Sophomores
Student on stool: "Ms. Widdop, did you always want to be a boring English teacher?"

Ms. Widdop: "Yeah Jarred, that was my dream when I was in high school."

Jarred: "It's my dream too." He sits down.

Students start to work on analyzing Jack in Lord of the Flies. During their discussion, Jarred turns to Kyl, another boy sitting behind Jarred. They start to talk. Their talking changes to arguing. Other students become distracted and Ms. Widdop perks up her ears and begins listening to their conversation.

Kyl: "Shut up! I've done just as much work as you."

Jarred: "Whatever, you can't talk, you're still in Algebra 1."

Kyl: "So are you."

Jarred: "Yeah, but you have a D."

Kyl: "So do you."

Jarred: "Mine is better." Ms. Widdop contemplates letting the intellectual debate continues but decides to encourage them to return to their analysis of Jack in Lord of the Flies.

Voice over: "Well, there you have it. A day inside a public school classroom. Clearly, students are engaged and ready to learn. They truly value their education, as should the public. This is an example of public education at its best. We'd like to thank Ms. Widdop for opening up her classroom to our viewers. As compensation, because we know how little Ms. Widdop makes, we have provided her with free dental work, as over the years Ms. Widdop had ground down her teeth to small nubbins. But thanks to our local sponsors, Ms. Widdop can now have a fresh new smile and her new titanium molds will allow her to grind away."

Why I Ride (and other things)

Gosh darn daylight savings (or non-daylight savings), it really throws me for a loop. Here it is, 5:30, it's already dark, I want to drink wine and eat, but wait, it's only 5:30. This is the time of year where I start getting antsy to make the most of life, or apathetic and am content to watch tv at 6 pm. A few weeks ago I went to one of those climbing films, the kind where you think the film is going to be two hours of watching people climb hard but beautiful routes (I like to call it climbing porn- there are a lot of types of porn- biking porn, horse porn and then good 'ole gross guy porn). These films were different. Sure, they were about people climbing cool routes but it seemed that the underlying message in the films was about the gratification one gets from pushing the limits- their own limits. The climbers of course, really pushed the limits, hence the bad-ass films. While I'm not going to run off to California or one of the Stan countries that hosts some of the worlds tallest peaks, I did feel the push and the nagging question as to whether I was doing all I could to get the most out of life and was I doing the best I could to be the best I could at what I wanted to do?
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not doing a bad job- I'd probably do a better job if I was dying of cancer and life seemed shorter, but I really feel like I'm doing what I want...to an extent.
Work does get in the way, this is a conundrum because I feel that I want to be good at my job but being good at something takes time and my job is never ending and often times I'm not sure if all of the mess I'm asked to do actually allows me to be better. OR in reality, if I didn't try to do so much in life, maybe I could be one of those teachers who wins a glass apple. But then I stop to think, I don't want to be the teacher who wins a glass apple because there is so much more to my own life. Sure, some are designed to win the glass apple, but they've chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching, which is great, but it's not me because if I won that glass apple I would have given up the rest of who I am.
Which leads to riding. I don't know what I love more, riding my bike or horses. I think I go back and forth, depending on the time of year. Jarred loves to ask me what if questions and one of the reoccurring ones is, "If you had to give up riding horses or bikes, which would you give up?" I tend to say bikes because I've ridden horses longer and I've sacrificed so much more for my horses but riding my bike on the short ride I did after school today put a smile on my face- there's nothing like huffing and puffing up a hill but even better is the thrill of riding downhill. So biking comes in at a close second.
But there's nothing like a soft horse nose, or Sophie, whose whole body is soft and who rides like a finely tuned Caddy. I know everyone has a bucket list and competing (and being able to win) at one of the major shows, is on mine. I've got a lot to learn still, but it would also be nice to win a ton of money but actually being able to be competitive at those shows will be good enough. Again, the quandary of whether I'm doing all I can to be good comes up and I think...if only I didn't have to work!
I often think that I put too much on my plate, each weekend is full, each afternoon I'm trying to beat the dark, but then again, will I remember those fun rides or sitting on the couch watching a movie?

Ranch House Revamp

We're not done yet, if you look really close you will see the lack of downspouts and the gutters are still white and the doors are not painted. Other than that, we now do not own a ghetto ranch house anymore.

The next time this house gets painted, it will be by someone else. That is, if we can stomach hiring someone else.

Notice I've included NO photos of the interior. It's currently less than impressive. I think we need a break from the remodel for a bit. It is starting to feel like a second job.

Old house- a week after we moved in.

Construction Is NOT For Girls

Girls- have you ever tried to use a drill at an odd angle? Held a pneumatic nailer? Hand nailed something over your head? Maybe some of you have amazon hands and hand-eye coordination that I lack because I have a heck of a time with construction type work. As I said before, I don't know my fractions so I have to add and subtract in my head...slowly. This tends to make the foreman (ie Jarred) REALLY angry. I also lack the skill to use a roofing nailer in my left hand while standing on a ladder holding up a piece of siding. When the foreman says, "Don't be a weenie, just push the thing into the house, it will work." but my hand is shaking and the siding is now crooked, I know that construction is not my calling. But here I am, on a ladder with a roofing gun. Over the summer I realized that most tools are not made for girls. They're heavy and large. Not conducive to girl hands. What does this mean? It means that when a couple takes on their own large house project, the girl is stuck going to to the dump, or caulking the siding for hours at a time, or sweeping, or picking up nails with a magnet..... My least favorite job this summer was caulking. All the seams between the siding must be caulked before we paint. This is a tedious job. The seams are never ending, just when I thought I was done, Jarred would slap up another 18 pieces of siding and I'd start all over again. My second least favorite job was going to the dump when it was hot. It was hot when this photo was taken and I had a truck and trailer full of old siding, roofing materials, tar paper, ect... I had to stand at the stinky dump and unload all of this myself. Why myself? Because tools are made to fit a man's hands.

The Man That Can

We live on the corner of a fairly busy residential road. While we generally ignore the traffic, we realized as we worked on the house this summer that they do not ignore us. Initially we noticed that people would slow down as they passed the house. As we took more notice of the gawkers, we found ourselves giggling when we'd see them, mouths open, trying to figure out what our overall plan was with our house. We'd already had a plethora of comments about our fence, and they didn't stop once we started working on the house. I posted a previous blog post about the guy who told Jarred he could have really screwed the fence up, had he not had an eye for design. He came back once we had the siding up and spent about a half an hr. grilling Jarred on siding. Upon returning to work, I received a number of questions about our overall plan for the house, why we picked the materials we did, ect....I'm not sure if everyone liked what we were doing, but they sure were curious. As most of you know, Jarred is a busy guy. He's so busy and sees so much to do in the world, he's notorious for starting one project or hobby, doing it for awhile and then just moving on. This habit has allowed him many adventures, but it doesn't bode well with large house projects. We knew that ripping the siding off the house would be a big project as we would need to replace rotten studs, the windows we were putting in were not the same size as the old windows, we needed to put all new soffits in and replace a good portion of the fascia boards. We also needed to re-do the interior dining room and had aspirations of putting a climbing wall in, instead of boring old sheet-rock. I was a bit worried that we'd get a week or two into the project, Jarred would get bored and we'd have a half finished house for the next year or so. Luckily, for some reason, Jarred got into this project. He was diligent and worked super hard all summer. He also proved his stellar skills as a carpenter and made me appreciate the fact that I live with someone who isn't afraid to dig in and do it himself. Overall, he managed really well. Nothing on our house was straight anymore (if it ever was) and I think that and the negligent past owners, practically drove Jarred crazy but he persevered and we actually had most of the siding done by the time school started.

I like this photo- shows the true ghetto of the old siding.

I also appreciate Jarred's eye for design. He's constantly thinking about design and new ideas and while I complain that most of them don't come to fruition, I guess I should appreciate the ones that do, because they're usually great.

Soffits

I really hope the guy who created soffits sits on a cactus one day. While soffits represent the "finished" house, one who has been built with love and care, they also represent an aspect of design which could have been avoided but has somehow become mainstream, like drywall. Our house had soffits but they were poorly built and equated with much of the rot we found as we tore into the back of the house. They had to go. But did they have to return? I pleaded with Jarred that we not put them back in but he scoffed as if I was insisting we also NOT put in the windows and simply cover the window holes with tarps. As we worked on replacing the soffits around the WHOLE house, I bitched like a teenager. It was my job to drill the soffit holes and whlile I was drilling it was hot, the drill was heavy and the drill bit sucked. My morale about the whole project was little help and I think Jarred would have rather just done the project without me. Now that we have nice soffits though, I'm glad we do and I'm now obsessed with looking at other houses and critiquing their soffits. I'll also rest well now knowing that our soffit holes are evenly matched at 3 inches apart and they offer ample venting.
*By the way, a great way to a quick tan? Hang out near a black tar papered house during the summer. This photo was taken just after we put the tar paper up on the last dreary day of summer.

The Remodel that Never Ends

I've been avoiding this blog post because I have not figured out where to start and have not made the time to sit down and begin the story...until last week the weather was good, still prime remodel weather. Now that the rain has hit, it's time to reflect. Jarred and I have this masochistic obsession with remodeling houses. We've finally admitted to ourselves that we'll never make money on real estate. We've also admitted that we don't really know why we remodel houses as we don't really like the work, we're not home bodies and we've yet to live in a house long enough to actually enjoy the remodel work we do. We tell ourselves this house will be different.

We purchased the Camas house a little over a year ago. We knew it needed work but wanted to suffer through a year of National Boards work before we dug into the house. After having fun with the fence, it was time to get down and dirty and address our dining room- the poorly built addition. The dining room looks like I built it. I'm no carpenter; I don't know my fractions, I measure with my eye and I'm not meticulous with my cutting. The floor on our dining room slopes down slightly and the roof was built with tongue and groove, a bit of particle board and some tar paper. Needless to say, we were one winter away from a leaky roof and buckets inside. The minute school got out, Jarred rallied the free help (thanks a ton Randy and Tyson) and they dug into the dining room. I gallivanted off to my parents for the weekend and came back to a new room (almost).

The photo above shows the true ghetto-ness of the dining room. It feels like so long ago that the house looked like this! Long ago we also decided we wanted metal siding. Actually, our dream is to have a metal roof AND siding but the teacher pocket book does not allow for such extravagances, so we went for partial metal siding. Our goal was also to make a boring ranch house into a "modern gem." Ok, that's a bit Sunset-ish but our goal was to show that ranch houses can be cool too.

*I dumped a myriad of photos on facebook for those really interested in the process. Facebook is the lazy man's blog.

Squamish and Whistler

Thanks to Jim and Claire Harvey for sharing your awesome place with us!

Sarah catching a wee-bit of air on Crank it Up a scary-not-too scary trail.

Since early spring we've had a trip to Whistler BC planned with our biking friends, Joe and Marie Klemmer. The Whistler area is one of the biking meccas of the Northwest and Joe and Marie could not say enough good things about the place. We rented a condo in Whistler village for the week and planned to do some rides in Squamish on the way up. With riding lifts uphill and a Whistler village condo in my mind, I have to admit I didn't expect a trip of character building rides and continuous challenge. After riding in Rossland, I knew the riding in Canada would be challenging but I don't think I was prepared for the continuous technical riding favored by masochistic Canadians. Even the cross country trails were hard. So was the route finding. We were lucky enough to meet a couple from Squamish while in Rossland and they invited us to stay in their bunk house on their awesome property on our way up to Whistler. I have to admit, I could have spent the week in Squamish. With biking trails right out our door, bears wandering through the yard and a great pool, it was hard to leave. It was also nice to have Jim and Claire as guides as we were quickly learning that route finding in Canada wasn't always easy, it seemed that the trail builders were faster than the map makers.

After two days in Squamish (and a trip back down to the Bellingham ER for Marie and Joe, as Marie took a serious fall and needed stitches and x-rays which were much cheaper in the US) we headed up to Whistler. This is where the gnar began and this is where I quit having fun every day and had to remind myself that I was on vacation and not all vacations were easy. Here are a couple of things you need to know about Whistler:

1. Whistler hosts one of the first lift access bike parks. This means we stick our bikes on the lift (after paying resort type prices), follow them up and then ride down trails build specifically for going downhill. I'll get into what this really means in a bit.

2. People from all over the world come to the Whistler bike park. Actually, I shouldn't say people, I should say young men (and a few girls) who need the adrenaline rush to make their lives worth living.

3. The Whistler bike park is like no other place I've been. There are train cars to jump. Everything is BIG and STEEP and everyone jumps high and flails their legs about while in the air expect the flailing is planned and they look cool.

4. This is not a place to fall. I slid down a berm the first day and that hurt. I slid down the berm because I was going too slow. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to fall going fast. As you can see we do have pads on and gnarly full faced helmets, but there's only so much a pad can do.

5. The girls are really amazon men-women. Not only do they look bigger because they're wearing pads but the ride some big shit. I think they all also play hockey. I fell somewhere in between these amazon men-women and the girls in short shorts on rentals or the girls who just followed their boyfriends up to please them but realized they were in way to deep and went REALLY SLOW (I'm not in this category, if I wanted to please Jarred I would have been hucking myself off of big jumps, he's not easily pleased.)
6. The cross country trails are much like the park trails, but with uphill options. We spent one morning doing a hike-a-bike to a good trail via a double black diamond trail that no human should ever ride. By the time we got to the good trail we were all so grumbly about having to walk, I'm not sure we even had fun. We did find some great trails, we just had to be ready to ride technical terrain ALL THE TIME.

7. Adventure Maps have not caught on in Canada. Adventure Maps are the bikers savior in the United States. They're waterproof and accurate and only $11. In Canada we got overpriced paper maps, maps that looked like place mats at a cheap restaurant and had only highlighted trails, guidebooks that never really gave any information on the actually trail or route finding, maps with missing roads or trails. The map issue combined with the fact that we didn't really know our way around made for some interesting discussions. At one point Joe had a guide book, the place mat map and a purchased map out and none showed the trail in the same manner.

While I'm now able to be reflective and realize I learned a lot and am a better rider, there was many an hour that I cursed Whistler and it's hard trails. I learned that I don't want to be a downhill biker with a 40 lb bike that I have to push up a hill and gear that makes me look like I play a contact sport. I like technical cross country riding much better.

Jarred and the freight car step up.

The bikes and some stunts from Crankworks.

Joe in the mist.

Rossland, Winthrop and Twisp

While Aaron and I hiked backcountry this last winter, he kept telling me, "You really need to visit Rossland BC, the biking is awesome." After Jarred and I decided not to go to Sun Valley, a Rossland trip was in the making. Of course Aaron had to come (even though he had not been on his bike since Feb) to show us the goods. And goods they were. Rossland is a small ski town about 2 hours north of Spokane. While the skiing looked good, the biking was even better. The first great part of the trip was that the camping was literally in town and we had showers. I'm not normally obsessed with showering but after sweating on the bike all day, there's nothing worse than getting into a stewey sleeping bag. Our first ride in Rossland was Whiskey. Not once as we climbed up to the ride did Aaron say,"This trail is tough, you better be ready for some seious downhill." This is what he really needed to say because as we took off down the trail, I realized two things: 1) I wasn't ready for some serious downhill and 2) Canadians are serious about their biking trails. In Washington, we ride trails made for hiking with biking as a second thought. There are some places with quality trails, but every trail in Canada seemed to be made with a biker in mind, good flow, nice turns and lots of rocks.
Our second day we rode the infamous Seven Summits trail (pictured above). The Canadians are also serious about hard rides. Most trails are rated, just like ski runs and I consider myself a decent biker, one who could ride a black diamond trail. I was humbled in Canada...like I said, they're serious about their hard trails. This was the hardest 20 miles I've ever biked. Seven Summits was hard but every corner packed some great riding and it helped that the last five miles was downhill. After three days in Rossland, we decided another trip was needed.

After leaving Rossland, we headed over to Winthrop. Winthrop is beautiful but after spending four days riding trails built for mountain bikers, we were a bit dissapointed in the trail quality as well as the map quality. This would be the start of our quest for a really good map.....of anywhere. After convincing Jarred that I didn't want to ride 5 miles of fire road to maybe get some good single track, we left Winthrop and headed down to Twisp. Here, we found the best alpine trail ever. Washington has pretty strict rules about bikers on high alpine trails. We all dream of poaching trails, or we just go to Idaho or Canada to ride alpine trails, so it was amazing to ride our bikes up to an alpine lake AND get six miles of screaming single track back down to our truck.

Somewhere between Milky Way and another trail. I don't know if we really knew where we were here. Great flowers.

The Milky Way trail....just minutes from downtown Rossland.

Rossland Rocks.

No, We don't Wear These Clothes Every Day

A little camping, a little biking and a little wood gettin'.

This is what 21/2 miles of hike a bike in the snow will do to the running gear.

Sign up at Mt. Hood after climbing Gumjawak. Yes, your tax dollars paid for this sign.

In looking at all of our summer photos, I realized that Jarred and I are wearing the same clothes in nearly all of them. One would also think we go everywhere with our bike helmets on. We really don't but after looking back on summer so far (and smelling my helmet the other day), I think we spend a fair amount of time on our bikes. Here's a quck re-cap of the summer so far. By the way, this was the first summer in nearly 8 years that we've not been in Sun Valley, yes, we miss it but it was fun to explore the Northwest and to get some much needed house work done (more on that in later posts).

Trip #1- Mt. Hood to escape the craze of fireworks and to chop some wood and to ride bikes. I just don't get why people think they need to let of fireworks for the two weeks before and the week after the 4th. And it always seems to be people who really shouldn't be spending money on fireworks because they're on WIC or something. Back to the trip....

Rode in snow for 2 1/2 miles...reminded us that summer wasn't really here even though this was the first hot weekend. Collected wood and after Jarred tried to fell a tree that didn't want to fall and his chainsaw got stuck in the tree and he swore and threw things and finally got the chainsaw off, we rode bikes again.

In the Spirit of Graduating...

For those of you who may be wondering why I'm suddenly the mad blog-poster...it's raining and Jarred is gone. The house is clean, the lawn mowed and I've already ridden my bike. National Boards are far behind me and apparently I have a lot to say.

This year I've had to sit through more graduations than I'd wish to sit through. How many? Two. I know, you may be thinking that I'm a big whiner who does not value celebrations (I probably don't as I've missed two important weddings- sorry Gina and Meagan- and frequently skip out on family birthdays). But let me tell you, two graduations is two too many. I'm all for the pre and post parties but the ceremonies are less than impressive.

My first graduation experience this year was in Ephrata, Washington. Jarred's niece, Lauren, was graduating. Jarred has a kick-ass family and it was no amazing feat that Lauren was graduating, she practically has her AA degree. But it was one of those important family things that we were not suppose to miss out on (kind of like dead grandfather's funerals), so we high-tailed it out of school and pulled into Ephrata on Friday night just before the ceremony started. Luckily it was sunny and luckily I had Jarred, Claire and Jenese to sit with...the running commentary proved to keep things interesting. There were two problems with this graduation.
1. It appeared that no one had rehearsed their short speeches. The first girl to get up read her speech like it was Latin and like someone had paid her to speak in a monotone voice. She reminded me of the low-level readers in my class. Being a teacher, I know that an entire day is spent on practicing for graduation. Did this girl not make it?
2. The chosen teacher speaker was equally as painful, but in a different way. We all felt like we were being lectured....about reading books, and not paying attention in class and how tough we were on her....I almost felt guilty as she spoke but I also felt like some sort of dementia had already set in and it was a good thing she was retiring this year.
Last Friday I attended the Camas High School graduation. Us teachers are required to attend as it's written into our contract. We're also required to wear graduation robes. Graduation does not begin until 7 pm and it seems to be tradition that few teachers show up totally sober. I'd offered to have a pre-grad get together at my house. I wasn't sure about the nature of the party as I'm still fairly new to Camas so I just offered to make food and the guests would bring beverages. I wanted to play it safe in case the rumors I'd heard about alcohol consumption were not true. Nearly every guest showed up with a 6 pack of beer or a bottle of wine. I'm glad I only live two blocks from our stadium as most of the wine and beer disappeared in the two hours before the ceremony.
There were also a number of problems with this ceremony although I admit, it was impressive to have the entire staff, dressed in Harry Potter-like wizard robes, sitting with the students.
1. Three and a half hours. That's how long the ceremony lasted. Granted there were 365 kids in the graduating class so the name calling and shaking of hands and handing out of diplomas took a chunk of time, but did we really need to listen to four speeches (performed better than the Ephrata speeches), two musical presentations and see a slide show and a senior class performance?
2. The sound system. Camas just got a new stadium....$4.5 million. I'd assumed they'd spent a little money on the sound system. Apparently not. It was painful.
3. Three and a half hours.

All this graduation business got me thinking about my own graduation. That's my graduating class pictured above. Yes, that's everybody. Our ceremony did not last three and a half hours. I don't remember much about it except it was in a cool church and I spoke. Which leads me to believe that when you're a senior in high school, you think this is the most significant moment in your life, it's not....so why the big hullaboo? In this day and age, if you don't graduate from high school, you've got some serious problems. It's kind of like potty training, in fact, I'd rather have potty training celebrations as it is a really important and necessary step forward in life. Just like potty training, all of society expects you to graduate from high school...maybe you should just get a toy or a piece of chocolate when you graduate? I can't figure it out, but then again, I'm not big on celebrations as I've not gotten married, I skip out on parties, funerals and any other sort of organized celebration.

What I Learned From Racing

I'm competitive. I like pushing myself and I love to beat people. I also love the motivation I get from competition and having someone (or many others) evaluate my performance. Oddly enough, this generally isn't the case when I mountain bike. I don't know if it is because I ride with mostly guys who always beat me, so I'm content to be in the back. Or it is because I ride with girls who ride like guys and they also always beat me, so I'm content to be in the back. Whatever the case, I generally have no desire to race my mountain bike. Plus, I find it odd to pay money to ride on a course or trail that isn't generally great because it has to accompany a large number of riders. There are so many better trails out there.

So it is even more odd that I fell prey to the desire to race the Portland Short Track series last Monday. Short track is an odd concept. Riders ride a course on and off the established motocross course for 1/2 an hour. The idea is to get the fastest time and the most laps. Racers are clumped together by division; cat 2 (the level below cat 1 and the pro racers, races with single speeds men and women over 45, and so on). A number of our friends race the short track series, mostly for fun. Jarred insists that racing is a waste of time and would rather put his money elsewhere and I generally have no interest. But curiosity and some competitive need came out last Monday, so off we headed (Jarred scribbled "coach" on a tee shirt and offered to cheer and be my mechanic- Shuksan came along for some pets and dog watching) to PIR (Portland International Raceway- the location for all motor sport racing or anything having to do with speed on dirt or pavement).

After my initial ride on the course, I regretted my decision to come. The ground was all lumpy and riding around in loops seemed kind of boring. But I'd already signed up so I resigned myself stick with my original plan. So I lined my bike up with the rest of the Cat 2 under 35 girls who had little race bikes with 4 inch travel. Black Betty-my bike- is a somewhat beefier bike with 5 inches of travel and a seat post dropper (for riding downhill). She's a bit heavy and not a speed machine on the flats.

Off we went. This is when the education kicked in.
1. Do not start a race lined up last. That's more people to pass if you're competitive nature kicks in. It is harder to pass people, it is much easier to get passed.
2.Knowing how to ride your bike around a corner fast= passing a lot of people. This was my ticket to success. As most girls teetered around the sharp corners, I used my new found downhill speed skills and passed girl after girl and even some old fat guys who were riding in the other categories.
3. When racing some sort of primal instinct sets in. You don't worry about the dirt on your face or who might be cheering for you, you see someone in front of you, you try to pass them. You see a log, you jump it. It's a bit refreshing to think about only one thing at a time.
4. When breathing as hard as you can, a half an hour seems like eternity. When breathing as hard as you can, you also find yourself making primal grunting noises.
5. No matter how slow they are and despite the fact that you're not even competing against them, men do not liked to be passed by girls.
6. When breathing as hard as you can for a half an hour, your body also decides to rid itself of any stored up snot. This leads to a really runny post-race nose. If I intend to race again, this needs to be rectified. It's gross and a pain in the butt.
7. I may be faster than I think, I ended up third overall. Maybe riding with competitive men and man-girls all the time has paid off.

The Fence

Some time in May, Jarred and I got a wild hair to start our remodeling projects. We REALLY needed to re-roof the dining room addition as apes built it but the weather was not dependably sunny and re-roofing is boring. We also need to replace most of the windows in the house and re-side the place, but those tasks are daunting. So we dug into our Home Depot POS shed. I always wonder how Home Depot sells those sheds for so cheap...now I know. The only quality building material on that entire thing was the roofing, and I'm being generous as it consisted of asphalt shingles. Our original plan was to re-side the shed as the cheap siding was beyond the rotting stage, it was starting to compost, but true to remodel style, we found the shed had more issues than rotten siding.

Termites. Once we found the termites, we started demolishing the thing with a vengeance. Cheap stuff is fun to demolish as it goes fast. Before the Sunday was over, we'd torn the entire shed down.....But wait, this wasn't our original intent...so what to do now?

Thank goodness Jarred's brain is perpetually forming ideas. I generally ridicule him as I see ideas that never come to fruition as wasted ideas. But I eat my own words here. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Jarred had once designed a fence. We knew we needed a fence to keep the dogs in and allow ourselves some privacy as Jarred does like to pee in the backyard. So a fence was built. I think it took an amazing amount of time to build the thing but seeing as it was only worked on on the week days as the weekends are for fun, I think we ended up doing ok. The best thing about the fence, besides the design, is the comments from neighbors and those passing by.

When we first dug the post holes and put up the supports, the comments reflected skepticism. People would often yell out their car windows, "We're watching you guys...waiting to see what that thing becomes." I even got questions from co-workers and students at work to the point where they'd see me in the hall and seek me out, wondering what was to become of the posts in our yard. As the fence took shape, the comments changed to reflect curiosity, "I've never seen a fence like that." Or, "Nice fence...very unique.....I like what you're doing with the place." The best comment Jarred received was from an old man in an old truck eating a bag of corn chips. He told Jarred, "I like your fence but you know if you didn't have an eye for design you could really mess that thing up."

Both Jarred and I value unique and useful design, which one would never know as we've owned two design flops (the ranch house- totally utilitarian but UGLY). We often wonder if the population in small town suburbia is content with mediocre design, but the comments we've received from the fence instill a new hope, that maybe people just need a little push and to see that it's ok to be a bit different, neighbors generally appreciate aesthetics (tasteful aesthetics, not purple houses).

Pre-Spring Break Depressing Life

So many of you blog stalkers may note that between last fall and Spring Break my blog posts were seriously lacking. During that time period, Jarred and I began working on our National Boards for work. In a nutshell, every eight years we need to re-certify as teachers. There are a number of options, National Boards is the most difficult as it's a National Certification program where we must document various aspects of our teaching. It is a content specific program and of all the shit we must wade through to receive certification, this program is the most valid and truly makes one examine their practices. The downside? It must be done by March 31- or within a year of signing up for the program. This means four 13 page papers written in an odd style I will never duplicate, two videos of me teaching my kids, an ass load of student work samples and an entire paper about my outside-of -teaching but teaching related accomplishments- basically a 13 page resume. Needless to say, any free time we had, ended late last fall. Being the busy people we are, we tried to maintain our active lifestyle, work and still work on National Boards. Tough life. We submitted our portfolios on March 31, still have a test to take and will find out if we are among the 40% of the applicants who actually pass. If we don't pass? The process starts over again the following year (or we just go get a job w/out any responsibility). The other depressing part of this process is that because of the Washington state budget (more specifically in part because Washingtonians won't pass a pop and candy tax) the compensation teachers receive for being Nationally Board certified was nixed this year. I realized it's above and beyond teacher salary's and in tough times, everyone has to sacrifice, but I believe this is a huge sacrifice. National Board certified teacher REALLY are good teachers and deserve compensation (to their already meager salaries) just like those bankers deserve compensation. While sitting in front of the computer for hours on end, we were able to take small breaks. Jarred's sister, Jenese, gave us a hoola-hoop for our birthdays and we had a lot of fun with that thing.

And a Bit More Moab

Steve at Pothole Arch.

Sumo Man at Porcupine Rim.

Porcupine Rim.

More More Moab

We love our bikes!

Porcupine Rim- this section was harder than it looks. Looks like I could ride this on a cruiser bike.

Amasa Back- From left to right: Rob Kulp, Steve Swearigan, Marie Klemmer, me, Jarred.

Sumo Man rides high on the way up to Porcupine Rim.

We kick ass.

More Moab

Marie and I showing off our Northwest whiteness.

Sand Flats- should be called Windy Flats where sand blows into every orface of the body and bike. Left after a day for Goose Island campground which was by the Colorado River and not as windy.

Delicate Arch and Jarred.

Steve, Marie and I at Delicate Arch.

Delicate Arch.