In which I drive across the country

Well,  halfway across: Minneapolis to St. George, Utah. The trip odometer read 1657.1 when I finally arrived and shut off the car. Bearing in mind the warnings of few places to stop once I got to the west, I filled up long before I needed to. First in Minneapolis, just before I started off. Then, in Papillion, Nebraska after spending the night with my sister. Then, in Ogallala, NE; Golden, CO; and finally Green River, UT.

Iowa was less flat and boring than I thought it would be, but still it wasn't really interesting. I was also in a hurry because I left later than I'd planned and my sister was expecting me by 7. There was a rainstorm part of the way, but it wasn't bad at all. Omaha is just past the borders with Iowa and Papillion is a suburb just slightly to the south. Omaha, from the little I saw of it, is not very picturesque. My sister and her hubs were very welcoming and I got to hear about Tom's new job and my nephew's great swim team. Who knew swimming was big in Nebraska?

The plan for Day 2 was to get to Ft. Collins, CO. I wanted to tour the New Belgium Brewery, but alas no tours on Sunday and Monday. I got a weird vibe from the town, so I just stopped for treats and then continued on to Denver.

Side note: they drive like crazy out west. I thought Colorado was nuts, but then I got to Utah and it was even worse. They are good with passing and merging, it's just that it's really FAST. Driving 80 was standard in Colorado, well, up until the mountains. In Utah, 85 was common and in one case I passed a guy, then realized I was going 100. Volkswagen can handle it just fine.

I was getting tired as I got to Denver, but I wasn't seeing a good place to stop. The mountains kept getting bigger and then the traffic started thinning out and I realized that I was not going to find anything if I kept going. I pulled over and checked for a hotel (and bedbughotel). Found a Days Inn a couple exits back and turned around. I made good use of their treadmill the next morning. I managed to scare myself enough not to head out to the trail I'd researched online. Running at one mile of elevation is hard. Plus, I found out that my exercise induced asthma is also elevation induced.

The part of the trip that intimidated me the most was driving through the mountains. The last time I tried was 20 years ago and I couldn't do it. I didn't have much choice this time, the mountains were between me and my destination. I knew to stay in the right lane and engine braking worked great in 4th gear. Really the hardest part was the altitude. The higher I got, the crappier I felt. Hard to breathe and nasty pinchy headache. It felt a little like a panic attack wanting to start, but I just kept breathing slowly and also drank about a gallon of water. Eleven thousand plus feet was just too much. That was the highest I got before gradually descending (at 7% grade! ). I guess an Everest summit is not in the cards for me!

The rest of Colorado was beautiful. Utah was, too. Everything is so amazingly gigantic. It was like watching a movie. I didn't have music on most of the time because the scenery was just so fantastic.

The last hundred miles or so weren't quite so fun. Lots of rain and people still insisting on driving 80+ mph. But I got here. All in one piece with the car intact.

I didn't think I would like driving this far all by myself. Turns out that it was a really good experience.

War kittens

Six weeks of bike commuting

Depending on whether you map it with Google maps or GPS it with a phone, the distance from my house to my work is 9.1-9.5 miles. I go with 9.35 miles because that is what GPS most often tallies. So, you end up with an 18.7 mile round trip. When traffic is good, it takes 20 minutes by car. Via transit, the bus travel alone is about 36 minutes (plus a half mile walk to and from the bus stop on either end).

How long does it take to ride? Well, that depends. If you go too far up the river on the first day, forgetting that turning at Lake St. the preferred method, it takes a little over an hour and you go an extra mile. If you switch out your knobby mountain bike tires (26x2.25, 65 psi max) for narrower slick tires (26x1.6, 80 psi max), adjust your seat properly and raise your handle bars a bit, it takes 43 minutes. Going to work is actually uphill... there's an overall elevation gain. I'm excited to see how long it takes me to get home.

Bear in mind that I am still the slowest biker in the Twin Cities. Really. Chubby dudes on fixed gear bikes routinely pass me. My "fast" ride today? Not even 13 mph. I think my kid runs faster than that.

Oh, yeah, so six weeks. This is the sixth week that I've been biking twice a week to work. I bike on my days off running because there's just only so much time in the morning. If unions were stronger and the knowledge economy operated on a 6 hour per day 4 day per week type of arrangement, then I could probably fit it all in. Damn union.

EVEN HOTTER (and then not)

Then on Thursday it was 96 and that was hot. And then on Friday it got up to 102 when I was riding home from work on my bike. And that was really hot. So hot, in fact, that I got home and stowed my bike and drove to the library to pick up my books on hold. Yes I did.

There were some rather unremarkable thunderstorms and intermittent rain Friday night and then Saturday morning I got up at 5:15 to run and it was only 64. 64! Almost 40 degrees cooler than the previous afternoon! I felt a little cold. So I ran 15 miles and it was pretty fun. Later in the day, GF made me a pie. Mmmmm, pie.

This morning was 71 degrees, 8 miles and the dog. The first two parts of that were good. The dog, not so much. 

HOT

 The highs have been really high over the past week. The lows have been record-high, too. Monday it was 99, Tuesday 97, yesterday it was 101. Oh, and the dew point was 77. Today's high could be 100. The thunderstorms we were promised for tonight seem to have been pushed off to Friday night.

What was originally intended to be the Red White & Boom Half Marathon was truncated to a 5 mile run. It was 84 degrees when I got up at 5 a.m. My internet running buddy picked me up & we luckily scored excellent last minute parking near the start of the race. The sky looked like the picture above (no one I know is in it, but the sky looks good and scary, doesn't it?), threatening thunderstorms, but nothing ever happened. It was quite the sweat fest, but was actually kind of fun. We ran through sprinklers at one point. I think the volunteers might have been hotter than we were because the air wasn't moving much.

You would think that after running in crazy heat and humidity I would have tried to spend the rest of the day inside. Yeah, well I'm not that smart. GF & I headed over to my flyball neighbors and we proceeded to spend much of the early afternoon hiding under a tarp and eating. We finally hid inside with the air conditioning and watched a movie.

This morning, it was only 82. Eight miles were on the schedule and they were run at the pace the schedule told me to run, but that was purely coincidental. I just ran as easy as I could without stopping. Tomorrow is a day off running and I'm excited to see how biking goes with the new skinnier slick tires I'm putting on tonight.