Maureen & Cedric

Mendocino anniversary

2009-07-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

We spend our anniversary in Mendocino, at the Stanford Inn. It was a pretty mellow weekend, and although the innkeepers failed to convert us to veganism, we were intrigued by the absolutist culture of non-meateaters.
We barely managed to beat the fog to the airport, but once there the pace slowed down to Mendocino rhythm. Culinary highlight: la Petite Rive is a french restaurant in Little River, with half a dozen tables overlooking the ocean. Very anniversary-y.
Pictures.

Fun with floatplanes

2009-06-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

For my birthday Maureen organized the perfect weekend. We drove up to Copperopolis, an oddly developed town on the way to Yosemite attracting golfing and boating enthusiasts. I don't care much about golfing or boating, but I was there to learn learn how to land a plane in the water.
It's hard to say what's so extraordinarily awesome about floatplanes. Maybe it's the freedom to land in the location of your choice, or the fact that it seems so absolutely impossible until you've tried it, or perhaps just the bragging rights that come with gracefully gliding into a lake at 60mph (100kmh) next to a jetskier or a speedboater who until then thought they were the hottest thing in the water. The closest comparison would be between skiing a groomer vs. off-piste, but I am not sure that does it justice.
I was lucky enough to "get it" on the first try, so we got to do a lot of really fun stuff on this 2 hr flight, including river flying (picture flying a plane along a windy river, barely off the water, with the cliffs around you towering 500ft higher than your altitude), squeezing underneath power lines and even sailing under the span of a bridge. The only regret is that we couldn't take any passengers, so Maureen stayed at the dock. That's the tricky thing about Seaplanes: they are rather dangerous and insurance constraints are very restrictive.
I'd recommend hanging out in Calaveras county more, it's a great place to hike and bike, and if you have the opportunity to hitch a ride in a floatplane while you are there, do it!
I have uploaded a short video of us taking off and landing in the pond that serves a the seabase, and a bunch more pictures here.

Mount Shasta III

2009-06-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

On memorial day weekend we headed back north for the now biennal Mount Shasta Extreme expedition. I have done this in 2005 and 2007, but this year really was the charm. Everyone made it to the top, including first-timer Misha, and the skiing conditions were absolutely fantastic. After spending the night in Weed, and picking up our permits at the ranger station on Saturday we left for the Brewer Creek Trailhead. We made it within 6 miles of the trailhead, where a single but unpassable patch of snow cut off the road. We reached our bivy site (10,400 ft; 3,200m) in the early afternoon, and as you can tell from this picture, hauling up our gear had taken its toll on some members of our party. A short thunderstorm with hail coming down hard got us worried for a few minutes (we had only brought a single 2-person tent), but this would be the last mountain weather we would see on the trip. The next morning, no wind, warm temperatures and our positive attitudes made for a very pleasant ascent, and a perfect spring skiing on the way down the Hotlum-Wintun route. Our snowboarding friend wasn't too much of a hassle, except for being a snowboarder of course ("Hold on just a sec, I need to loosen this, tighten that, readjust blah and change the geometry of blue"). You've got to think that snowboarding gear is in its developmental infancy, nothing really seems to "just work". Hat's off to Misha in any case for making it up there on his first try!
A bunch more pics from the climb, mostly courtesy of Goeric. I took a few videos and I'll post them sometime, maybe (actually I am just counting on Goeric to whip together an edited version - update: here it is - a very large video). Us at the top of the world:

Easter in San Francisco

2009-04-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Easter is always a busy weekend in San Francisco and we stayed home to enjoy the beginning of Spring. On Saturday I played Lumberjack and took down one of the Eucalyptus trees in our backyard. Turns out cutting down trees is dangerous, don't do it yourself.
Sunday started out pretty conventional, with our first time visit to the SF Cathedral. This is an amazing buiding and is definitely worth checking out. If you can figure out how they keep the levitating cross from swinging North/South, please leave a comment on this post. After a really long mass that reminded me of my childhood in Vienna (they are still doing the kneeling business, and the "our father" was in Latin) we went for brunch at citizen Cake in Hayes Valley with Mike & Wei. When we got home things were just getting started in Dolores park. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence had taken over the grounds, and were dialing up the music, colors and occasional nudity. The party culminated with the annual hunky Jesus contest won by a "brokeback Jesus" duo.
We then walked to Potrero Hill where the annual BYOBW race was going full swing. Misha, Andrew an Bret were competing in the scuderia Target category, which made for a rather poor performance (Target's big wheels seem to get flimsier year after year, buyer beware!).
A few pictures.

Fleet Week 2008

2008-10-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend was fleet week in San Francisco. Fleet week is a gigantic air show/recruiting event put together by various military authorities. These pilots got some skillz, and pretty sweet flying devices. The setting of their performances is exceptional of course (SF Bay) - all in all a great time in the city. The pictures don't do it justice, and the sound is a big part of it.

Xterra Nevada 2008

2008-10-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Goeric and Cedric competed in Xterra Nevada. This is a beautiful race with a crisp swim in Lake Tahoe, a stunning bike loop (Flume trail & Tahoe rim trail) and a hilly x-country run. At least that was the original plan. It was very cold and windy on Saturday morning, so much so that the sheriff's department decided to cancel the swim for safety reasons. Hence we traded our wetsuits for running shoes and a duathlon-type running start. I struggled on the bike, probably due to a mix of the effects of the guelsome cold and lack of practice, and Goeric along with ~50 others passed me on the 21.7 mile (34km) loop in the mountains. I made up few positions in the run, but it was a little too short to matter.
Here are a few pictures of the event. We will be back next year - stronger, faster, further.

Safari in Tanzania

2008-08-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

We spend the last week in Tanzania, visiting a few of the major parks of the north. It was the dry season (so no mosquitoes, and lots of dust.) The whole thing started poorly, with a full day of waiting at Nairobi airport for the "delayed" Precision Air flight to Kilimanjaro. This was going to be our only logistical mishap on that trip, which is pretty much exceptional for African travel, so no complaints here.
After landing at Kilimanjaro international and meeting our guide, we drove to Lake Manyara, our first Park. We got there late at night, so our first "Game Drive" was to happen the next morning. The first game drive is a thrilling experience, because every sighting is a huge excitement (human nature, the amazement wears off after the 30th time you run into an elephant.) We saw a lion sleeping in a tree which is a strange behavior this park is known for. It really does not make much sense for me to describe things, you just need to check out the pictures.
In the afternoon we drove to Tarangire, our second park. We stayed at the Swala tented camp, incredibly luxurious. The food was exceptional (some dishes were decorated with fresh strawberries (!!), this is a tented camp in the middle of the bush. Craziness. There is an artificial
waterhole in the camp, which attracts elephants that spend their time hanging out in the camp. Turns out lions get thirsty, too, so at night a pride of lions came by and tried to convince the three large male elephants to let them have a sip or two. No luck, as the elephants did not bulge. Instead, one lioness decided to go for the herd of impalas that was grazing right next to our dinner table (needless to say we were eating outside: no fences, no walls...) As the impalas dispersed, the unsuccessful lion seemed to hesitate for a second to go for our plates of lamb shank (or was it our own shanks?), but then trotted back to her pride. Exciting. All night we heard the confrontation between lions roaring and elephants trumpeting, in the morning the positions were unchanged, the elephants were drinking and the lions had retreated into the tall grass.
After Tarangire, we visited Ngorongoro (long drive!), which I don't recommend during peak season (it's a zoo for dutch and french tourists) followed by Serengeti. During the drive to Serengeti we encountered an elephant in musk. This was by far the scariest encounter and you can check out this video of us ducking inside the Land Cruiser as the big male tries (and succeeds) to intimidate us. Another cool video shows a cheetah jumping off a tree it had climbed onto, which is not supposed to happen (cheetahs can't retract their claws, so they are pretty poor climbers). And here is a big cat scratching its back. Our most amazing sighting in Seregeti: Vincent Boone, a good friend from Belgium, in the Land Cruiser right next to us stopped to see a bunch of elephants tearing down trees. Small world...

Many, many game drives later we were heading back home with a ton of memories and vivid images of the amazing fauna of East Africa. We ended up spending 6 days on safari, and that is way sufficient. You sit in a car all day long, so even though the scenery and the sightings are amazing, you get tired of it at the end. Mixing it up with some physical activity like climbing Mt. Kili is probably a good idea. I hope you get to do this, it's truly amazing.

A few tips we gathered:
We can't speak from experience since this is the only place we went on Safari, but from our pre-trip research it seemed that Tanzania has some of the least spoiled national parks, as the Safari industry has developped later than in South Africa or Kenya. Not sure how true this is, but in any case we found the Parks to be immaculate and developed in a very respectful manner

When to go
August is the middle of the dry season. This has a few advantages (no mosquitoes, no rain) but it also means you won't see the large herds of wilderbeest (=gnus) and zebras in the plains of the Serengeti. You will see these animals, just not the huge numbers you can see there in January.
From discussions with locals, it seems that February is an interesting time to go, as there are many calves and cubs, and the grass is green, so it is much easier to spot the animals that are optimized to blend in with the golden grass of the dry season (most big cats. gazelles, etc.)
If you want to experience the migrations of 1M+ wilderbeest, you should go to Serengeti in May when they start their movement northwards. You may be treated to a "river crossing" although there is a lot of luck involved there, as the crossing times are pretty random.

Medical stuff
Before you go to East Africa, you probably need to update your immunizations, and possibly take prophylactics while you are there. Check the CDC website for requirements and recommendations. We were there during the dry season so although I took Malarone (a no-side effect antimalarial drug), it was probably useless as there were barely any mosquitoes. We also brought DEET and stopped using it after the first two days. This may be different if you are going during the rainy season, however.
For personal comfort bring lots of sunscreen, and I wish I had brought saline solution for my eyes and nose. It is very dusty, and rather windy during the dry season, so your nose and eyes dry up badly.

Zurueck nach Wien

2008-08-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

We celebrated my dad's 60th Birthday in Vienna with the whole family. I had not been back for 15 years, and it was Maureen's first time in the imperial city. We all stayed together at a "Heuriger" very close to our old appartment. Since I could not sleep due to jetlag I got up at 3 AM and ran through our old neighborhood for a few hours: it was weird seeing the sights from when I was a kid (Primary school, day care, old church, grocery store where I used to pick up rolls on the weekends, park we used to luge and ski, etc.)
Vienna is a beautiful city, if you have not been you should go. It is truly classic without flamboyance, and romantic without the cheese. A few pictures.

Dansk Kalifornik

2008-07-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

We drove to Santa Barbara last weekend for Nathalie and Olav's wedding. We stayed in the town of Solvang, puzzling... I actually saw tourists from Europe, Japan, Kansas and more flocking the (danish) one-dollar stores and (danish) pizzerias and pie shops, the whole thing remains a mystery. Absurd.

4th of July

2008-07-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

We spent the 4th of July in the town of Columbia, an original mining town turned state park on the way to Yosemite. If you have been on thunder mountain at Disneyland, imagine this the size of a small town and you'll get a feel for what this place looks like.
The town has a nice airport (used by tankers for fire fighting operations) and a beautiful fly-in campground with spacious campsites in the shadow of giant oak trees. it's first-come first-serve, but even on this holiday weekend there was still plenty of room left (~9 aircraft for 25 sites).
We landed at noon on Friday. There are a few hills around the airport, and I botched my approach after changing my mind about which way I would land (the preferred runway seems to be 17 when there is little wind), I ended up slipping the plane all the way through final.
The state park is a 10min walk from the airport, and after setting up our tent we walked to the mining town. Everyone was out and about, celebrating in red, white and blue. Plenty of good ol' fun, with a pie eating contest, a greased pole contest, needle in a haystack, nail pounding, cake walks, bucket brigade and a fire engine exhibition. Very exotic!
Following Arnold's request their was no firework display at night, so we snuggled into our sleeping bags early for a delicious 12hour night. Here are a few pictures of the trip

Sophie in San Francisco & Biking in the Wine Country

2008-06-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Sophie came to visit us for 10 days and re-discovered San Francisco and Northern California. After a sporty first day (a unplanned biking through the steepest hills of San Francisco), we had a busy week, full of American adventures: biking through golden gate bridge, bay tour in a Cessna with Cedric the pilot, American BBQ, blues concert, good food, and biking through the wine country. We spent the last week-end in Healdsburg, with Trystan, Beth, April, Eric, Misha, Steve, Marisa, Sophie, Cedric and I and tried as many wines as we could, following Misha in his quest to get drunk, and trying to bike safely through the vineyards and wineries.

For more pictures: Sophie's trip, our pictures from Healdsburg & Misha's.
Maureen

Auburn International Triathlon

2008-05-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

Goeric and I competed in Brad Kearns' Auburn International Triathlon on Sunday. This is one of the most scenic races in the area (scenic=hilly and twisty=tough). Ray had been the instigator of the whole adventure but had a last minute "bike accident" and had to bail. To his credit he and Robbe still came down to Auburn to cheer us on. It was really warm this weekend (107F/41degC) so things got a little hot on the bike and then really toasty on the run. The race started as anticipated, I exited the water a little before Goeric, and then he caught up with me on the bike. Unfortunately for Goeric, his brake came loose and started dragging against the rim. This added handicap allowed me to stick with him, then pass him and pull away in the last 10 miles (he stopped a few times to try to adjust the bike). The run was brutal. Really hilly. Really hot. I don't recall running a slower 10K, ever. Still waiting for the official results, guessing a 2h50 for Cedric and a 3h12 for Goeric. Pictures.
update: official results ; Goeric's pics

Boston Marathon

2008-04-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

We took the red-eye to Boston this Saturday and spent the weekend visiting the "most historical" of US cities. Beautiful weather made for a great time: we walked the Freedom Trail on Saturday, then visited MIT and Harvard with tour guide Misha on Sunday, who had flown in that morning. On Monday, I ran the 112th edition of the Boston marathon. This the oldest, and by some measure the most prestigious, Marathon of modern times (the first was held in 1897). This event is a huge circus, the whole town mobilizes for this and although the participant count is not that large (25,000 runners) the organization outshines any race I have ever been to. The runners are shuttled to Hopkinton from Boston in a gigantic convoy of hundreds of buses, waved through traffic by police as if we were royalty. The Athlete's village in Hopkinton is rather "rustic", basically a bunch of tents with runners trying to stay warm in the morning fog. Note to prospective runners: if I have to do this again I would time a later arrival, as the two hour wait in the cold thoroughly chilled me down.
At around 9AM starts the he usual pre-race routine: judicious timing of port-a-potty visits, tightening of shoes, warm up jog. I feel horrible, as the cold made my legs super stiff and numb, but I try not to think about it and join the huddle of my fellow runners in corral 1. Gun goes off at 10AM and off we go. The excitement, combined with the fact that the course is a slight downhill for the first few miles makes most of us start way too fast. I reach the first mile marker after 5:45min, here goes my well thought out plan to run a perfect 6:15 pace. Right around the first mile marker I see Lance Armstrong and his entourage, there are so many people bunched up around him that the narrow course makes it difficult to pass. Of course my secret objective is to beat Lance, so I get overly excited that I passed him so early and keep moving way too fast. My average pace over the first 6 mi (10km) is 5:55 (3:40min/km). I am mad at myself and my legs are killing me, this is the dumbest marathon start ever. I decide to force myself to stay behind a guy who "feels slow" and after a few trials I find the perfect pacer who runs a clockwork 6:17 per mile. I promise myself to stay behind him for the next 10 miles, no matter what. This was the right decision as my legs loosen up a little and the next 10 miles are uneventful. My first half time is 1h19, the Wellesley girls are crazy (runners actually do stop to kiss them) and I am thinking that this next half will be a world of pain. The Boston course is rather difficult, because of the "Newton Hills": a series of 4 hills between miles 16 and 21, a time when most of us are running on fumes. On top of the first hill my legs show signs of seizure, which is a bad omen with 10 miles to go. I slow down a lot knowing that if I actually seize up the race is over. There is roadkill all over the place, runners limping along the side of road (including a few pros), reminding us to take it easy. In the third hill I see Misha and Maureen (actually I barely see them, I was pretty "focused" at that point) and I am thankful I have made it this far and still no sign of Lance catching up. Heartbreak Hill is the last of the 4 hills. It is very painful, but its legendary reputation had increased my expectations and so it turns out to be not that bad. Now we are in the 20-something miles, it finally feels like we'll get there. My legs feel terrible, I keep telling myself to slow down "you can loose a minute or loose the race" is the mantra. The crowds get huge as we get into Boston, so it's hard to take it easy, I run a mile in 6:15 on cheers. Pretty stupid. A couple of bumps but a mostly flat road gets us into downtown Boston, it's complete mayhem in the city 100s of thousand of people lining the streets, the last 2 miles drag on forever but I turn around (for the first time in the entire race) and see no signs of Lance. Let's enjoy this. Slow down. A lot. Finish line.

Cabo Wabo

2008-03-11T21:13:00.001-07:00

For Maureen's 25th birthday, we made the trip south of the border to discover what all this cabo fuss was all about. Lots of silliness, two large casas and more booze than our old bodies could handle. Here are the pictures. Breaking news: misha's pix.

Disneyland

2008-02-06T20:50:00.001-08:00

We spend this Tuesday at the happiest place on earth. It was a ton of fun. We had the park to ourselves at night. A few pictures.

We got snow - lot's of it!

2008-01-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

It has been unusually wet and cold in San Francisco lately, which translates to a ton of snow in the Sierras. We flew to Salt Lake a few weeks ago to get a taste of "The greatest snow on earth" and I doubled down for epic skiing in Squaw during the Product Team Ski Trip. Several feet of powder. Very satiating. Here is proof (tilt your head sideways for this one) of knee-deep greatness, as well as a bunch of pics:

San Francisco Bay Trail Ride

2008-01-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

Disappointed by the snow conditions of last weekend, we decided to plan a bike ride for MLK weekend. We settled on the Northern part of the San Francisco Bay Trail, a network of trails that is supposed to allow you to hike/bike all around the bay area. The full length will be well over 300miles when completed (but as it turned out, we are not at that stage yet...) Misha, Mike, Maureen and I set off from the ferry builidng at 9h40AM on Saturday. After crossing the Golden Gate bridge and leaving behind the familiar neighborhoods of Sausalito and Tiburon, we ventured into uncharted territory on our way to meet up with Jeremy (he had taken the Bus to Novato). When I say uncharted, I mean it rather literally as I was using a crappy printout of the Bay Trail maps, big mistake. I will take the time to write up my suggested route and post it here for future generations of adventurous bikers, and this route will definitely include certain "adjustments" to the route recommended on the website above.
Summary of Saturday morning: magnificent ride through Marin county, a beautiful loop around China Camp, and then things got ugly. We reached John F McInnis Park,where there were supposed to be a dense network of paved trails leading north to Ignacio (and Jeremy). The reality looked like this (more pictures to come once Misha uploads his):
and involved mountain biking for 45 minutes through marshland, scaling a 40 inch pipeline and driving through a US army restricted airfield. Of course all this offroading claimed the fist mechanical of the day (puncture, Maureen). Needless to say we arrived late and the restaurant we were supposed to meet Jeremy at for lunch had closed. We filled up at an Italian restaurant (Grazie on Grant), and hurried back on our way in order to beet the sunset. The afternoon riding was mostly Highways (37, 121, 12), not great but at least we were going at a quick pace. Unfortunately, we had a string of bad luck (3 flats in 90 minutes) and we were caught in darkness on Old Sonoma Road. 45 min of scary night riding later (we had two lights to share amongst the five of us) we were quite pleased to see the Marriott.
The second day was uneventful, we left late (11AM) after stocking up on tubes and truing my back wheel at a local bike shop, destination Berkeley. The ride was mostly Highways, and roads through crappy industrial neighborhoods, but there were occasional highlights such as the stretch north of American Canyon, the ride through Valejo, the crossing of the Carquinez Bridge and the stroll along the Richmond seashore. Total mileage: just shy of 145miles (233km). Pictures.

Christmas & New Year 2007 in Belgium

2008-01-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Dinosaurs museum with our nephews and nieces

The Village People at St Idesbald - New Year 2007

Giving thanks

2007-12-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

We improvised a Thanksgiving at home this year. Laurent. Audrey and their baby (Antoine) came to visit for the weekend and Wei brought two Jahrs to the dinner. The belgian cooked American style turkey was pretty yummy, and it came with all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes.
We had a relaxing long weekend driving around, enjoying wines in Sonoma, and walking around many neighborhoods of San Francisco and Berkeley. Check out the pictures here. Maureen

Already 140 miles and more to come ...

2007-12-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

After a few months of watching Cedric biking to work once or twice a week from San Francisco (42 miles/68km) and thinking he was crazy, I finally got tricked into trying it out (for some reason, Cedric always succeeds to convince me to do these things - it sounds like so much fun when he talks about it...). So one morning Misha was nice enough to let me borrow his bike and surprisingly I really enjoyed my first ride, trying to keep up with Cedric aka speedy gonzales (love the draft).
The next challenge was to convince Cedric not to buy a new fancy bike for himself and recycle his "old" bike on me: I wanted my own new fancy bike!
After a lot of test-riding, the best fit was a Trek Pilot 2.1. Two weeks later, the bike already clocks 140 miles (225km). The pictures are from a weekend ride with Jeremy around Tiburon (paradise loop). How is the weather in December where you live?

Steady as she goes

2007-10-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Nike women's marathon. Tens of thousands of women runners flock to San Francisco for the occasion, pretty amazing stuff. Wei ran her first marathon, and Mike ran his last (or so he swore at the finish line). Maureen joined them for the second half. Beautiful weather, good times, pictures and a cool video here.
UPDATE: Wei's official time: 4:03:04; that's 266th out of a bunch of people. Unnur also finished, 1865th in 5:09:05 Both promised to work on their sexrank for next time, whatever that is. Reminder: the SF course is very slow (=hard), so don't go on comparing these times with flat courses.

Catalina - Airport in the sky

2007-10-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend we flew to Catalina, a small island off the coast of Los Angeles. We packed a crew of 7 into two planes (C172 & C182) piloted by captains Roetter and Dupont, and headed down to SoCal on Friday afternoon.
Our first stop was supposed to be an isolated campground in an idyllic setting in the outskirts of Pismo Beach. The airport was indeed on a beach, but it turned out the place looked like the backdrop of a Mad Max movie with every "car" we came across towing another vehicle of some sort, liquor stores selling race fuel, and modern frontiersmen circling their (airconditioned) wagons in the dunes and entertaining themselves by burning the aforementioned race fuel in devilish 4-wheeled toys.
We were back in the air on Saturday morning. A beautiful flight over the ocean, with the Californian coast to our left and the Channel Islands to our right. Lots of pictures. After a little more than an hour we reached Catalina. The airport was built on the top of a mountain, it is a rather intimidating sight as the terrain drops off at both ends of the runway. Some say it is like landing on a (3000ft long) aircraft carrier. I would not know. I don't land on boats. The runway is also curved, so that you only see about half of it once you touch down, giving you the illusion you are running out of room, spicy...
A 35 min bus ride later we arrived in the town of Avalon, mingling with L.A. fauna. We ditched our original plan to camp for a last minute hotel room vacancy at the Glenmore Plaza (thinking of going? don't be fooled by the rates, lodging seems to be crappy but expensive everywhere on the island). Avalon is a great little island town with nothing much going on, probably very relaxing for a few days at a time. We spend the afternoon walking around and (for Mike and I) pondering if we should heed the warning signs for excessive amounts of Enterococcus faecalis (yes, it is what it sounds like) in the water, or go for a swim anyway. The water is amazingly clear down there, this is probably a pretty good diving/snorkeling spot. To be investigated further.
Saturday night was spent at a local karaoke bar, some of us enjoying the music, some the beer, and others marveling at the advances of plastic surgery and the effect of alcohol on a person's dignity. On Sunday, we rented "power" boats and fooled around in the water for a while before hopping back into the plane for a last good view of the island. Alex took his aircraft non-stop to Palo Alto, whereas I had to do a fuel stop in Oceano. We had a little hiccup on the ground (starter would not engage) but resolved the situation with the help of a fellow piloteer. Turns out the starter on this line (2006 C172SP) fails every 200hrs. Good to know. We landed in Palo Alto just before 5PM. Good trip!
Amy's pictures, Mike's pictures, my pictures and a cool video of the Avalon take-off

Xterra 2007

2007-09-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

We spent this weekend at Ray's place for Xterra Nevada 2007. Brad Kearns, Goeric, Ray and Cedric had signed up for the race. Unfortunately, poor health took a toll on our crew and only half of us ended up competing in what was going to be a rather "unique" Xterra. Weather started playing tricks on us on Friday, when Ray spent almost an hour looking for a hole in a unusually overcast bay are sky. After fitting all my gear (including my bike) into the back of the very spacious Malibu Mirage we took off hoping for a short hop over the mountains. Unfortunately, ATC somehow thought we were headed to Oregon, and we ended up erratically navigating the crowded SFO airspace, following the confusing directions of a confused air traffic controller. Soon enough they realized their mistake, and we were back on track to Lake Tahoe.

The next day we woke up to snow and 23 deg F (-5 deg C), highly unusual for September in Nevada. Of course I was not equipped for these kinds of conditions, so Ray hooked me up with full gloves and arm warmers.
Maureen and I left south lake at 7AM to meet up with Goeric and Marie-Catherine at the expo area (Ray was one of the health casualties and stayed home to rest). We picked up our race packets, sized up our competition, and changed into our wetsuits. It was cold, really cold. I ended up waiting in the water for the start (yes, this is Lake Tahoe: if it feels warm, something is wrong...) I barely heard the cannon, I think my ears where frozen shut at this point. I swam poorly, maybe it's the altitude or maybe it's the cold but my breathing was off and so was everything else. I swam the 750m (~1/2 miles) in a slow 16 min, and ran the relatively long distance to the transition zone barefoot. Big mistake. At the end of the 2-3 min run through ice and snow, I could not feel my toes anymore. I should have heeded the advice of the MC who "strongly recommended" racers to wear shoes during the T1 run. I knew better of course and my toes would remain numb for the next 2h30. After squeezing my frozen feet into my bike shoes and strapping on my helmet, I decided I would not need the arm warmers after all. Second big mistake. My brain must have skipped a beat because of the cold or something. Anyway. The ride was cold and slippery (about 75% of it was covered with snow and/or ice), but this still is probably one of the most beautiful courses in the world. Goeric, who had come out of the water just a tad after me passed me within the first 30 min, no surprise there. He would gain even more on me during the rather technical descent and ended up almost 10 min ahead of me in T2.
The last leg was uneventful, it is a very twisty run and it is hard to go really fast because of all the obstacles, but I managed to make up some time on my favorite leg. Our finishing times: 3h07'51 for Goeric and 3h10'09 for me. Here are the pics.
We'll do it again next year!

Tintin in Waikiki

2007-09-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

Pedro came back to visit us two weeks ago and this he brought his lovely wife Aurelie with him. In order to hedge our bets against the sometimes chilly Californian summers, we decided to spend one weekend in the Wine Country, and the other in Hawai'i. Good times all around, here are the pictures Pedro took, and here are mine.

Better late than never for more pictures and stories ...

2007-08-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

These past 3 months have been pretty busy in terms of visit, travel, week-end getaways, open houses, ... So it's never too late to post more stories and pictures.
Last May, before our trip to Mexico/Belize, Cedric's parents visited us, to attend Cedric's (hopefully) last graduation and also to climb Mt Shasta. We prepared a busy schedule full of local californian experiences, to make them discover all the great things about the Bay Area: week-end in the Wine Country (in Healdsburg) with biking among the wineries, Berkeley graduation, Mount Shasta backcountry skiing for Cedric, his dad and Goeric (see Mount Shasta Part Two), San Francisco sightseeing, flying tour of the Bay Area with Cedric the pilot, great food tasting, and whale watching trip. We hope this will give some great ideas of traveling to California to some of you.

The same day Cedric's parents flew back to Belgium, we took our plane to Mexico.
After our trip, we tried to have a few "relaxing" week-ends, going to open-houses, and enjoying the numerous festivals and concerts San Francisco offers during the summer.

We also went rafting with Wei, Mike, Misha and Benjy on a class 4 tour. That was so much fun ! A little bit like the Radja river in Walibi but of course in much better ;-)

For more pictures, check Mike and Misha's pics.

The last 2 weeks of July, I flew to Brussels to attend a conference in Amsterdam (some pics here) and also took advantage of the week-ends to visit family and friends in Belgium. It's always good to be back home (even if this involves catching a cold in the long flights) !! There are so many babies back home now ....

After I came back, our busy week-ends started again: Steve and Marisa's wedding in Olema (close to Point Reyes), a great surprise week-end in Seattle and orcas island, and this week-end, Cedric is running a 200 miles relay in Oregon (Hood to Coast) with other crazy super fast googler runners. For live info, go to http://h2c2k7.blogspot.com/ .
Stay tuned for more adventure-stories from California ! Maureen
PS: pre-race pics from H2C