A Bountiful Thanksgiving Weekend

WAH! I can't believe that Thanksgiving has already come and gone, thrusting us into the throes of the holiday season. Time certainly seems to have flown this year, and it moves faster and faster as I get older (much to my grandmother's delight!). I hope that you all had a fabulous holiday.

Mike and I headed north on Wednesday last week - I needed a hair cut ;-). Yes, I travel all the way to Maine for my haircuts - it's cheaper and they do a better job! It snowed on the way up, so we stopped to get our snowmobile registrations for the season, just in case. We also picked up a new bumper for my sled after last year's close encounter with the tree. Unfortunately, we didn't end up with time enough to ride, but heard that they were already running Jefferson Notch!

Thanksgiving Day, we headed to Mike's parents' in VT for the day. Got our fill of yummy turkey, potatoes, squash, stuffing and cranberries, and even brought home leftovers for the best part of Thanksgiving Dinner - Thanksgiving sandwiches!

My SIL works at JC Penney, and had to be at work on Friday morning at 3:45 AM! Given her commute, that meant leaving her house at 2:30. Personally, I think the whole "Black Friday" early bird thing has just gone too far. We did, however, head over to N. Conway to try to do some shopping. We found that the sales weren't that great, and anything we really wanted was already out of stock when we got there (before 8:00 AM). We did manage a few purchases, and a couple of good scores at the Pearl Izumi outlet, but it wasn't all we had hoped it would be.

Saturday's frigid temps somehow didn't deter us from racing at Sterling, but I will cover that in a separate post.

Yesterday, several friends met at our house for an epic MTB adventure, under sunny skies and with much warmer temps than on Saturday. We all started out together and headed into the PR to kick off the ride, splitting into two different groups as we went - the boys and the girls ;-). We did the TT loop in the PR and I showed Tami and Susanne how to ride the "gravity cavity", which was fun! After a great loop there, it was time to head out to Estabrook. Here, the boys were going to continue on to Great Brook, and we were planning on a small loop before heading back home.

Somehow between the PR and Estabrook, my legs completely died. I looked at my speedometer a number of times on the rail trail extension, only to be completely discouraged at the amount of effort I was putting in to go so slowly! Tami, Susanne and I stopped at the entrance to Estabrook Woods for some food, and then went in. I managed to conquer the "run-up" hill for the first time ever - riding all the way to the top! Woohoo!

While trying to decide if we would do the short or long loop in Estabrook, we came to a stream crossing, filled with baby heads which I walked. For some reason, Susanne thought she could ride it, but ended up in the drink, one side in the creek, and the opposite foot still attached to her pedal! She was wet and stuck. I decided then that we needed to head back home since we were now all tired, and making some bad decisions! Susanne did comment, however, that to her credit, she rode through the hard part of the creek ;-). Too bad I didn't have the camera!

All epic rides should be followed by vast amounts of food, and this one was no different. I had made a big-assed lasagna the previous night (the sucker weighed about 25 pounds), and we feasted on that, garlic bread, yummy salad, shrimp cocktail, ice cream and cookies - oh, and beer! It was a great day, and a terrific way to end the weekend - thankful for great rides, good friends, and our families.

And lastly, yesterday was also my parent's 40th wedding anniversary! Congratulations mom and dad. Here's to many more happy years together. I love you both.