DALMAC - Year 2

Well, we started September out with an exciting bike trip.  We rode the DALMAC for the second year.  (Do you like how I just pretended like it's still the beginning of September and didn't mention the fact that I'm a month behind in blogging??  Pretty sneaky right?)  This year Samone selected a new route for us to ride, the 4 day East Route.  Last year, you may remember, we did the 4 day West Route and we rode about 323 miles.  It was an amazing experience and it made us want to do it again this year.  This year on the 4 day East we were scheduled for approximately 260 miles.  We didn't train nearly as hard this year, but seriously, I'm not sure that it would have made any difference whatsoever.  It was a rough ride all around.  We got all prepped in the weeks before.  We rode, gathered equipment, tweaked equipment and generally tried to get everyone organized.  I bought a new pretty road bike, a Dawes Shelia.  We borrowed an older bike for Freddy to ride and we got new tires and all kinds of other miscellaneous things.  Last year it was only Samone, Mike and I riding.  This year it was a large cast including, Samone, my brother-in-law, Scott, Mike, Freddy, Cheryl (Scott's sister), Steven (Scott's nephew) and of course, me.  A much bigger group to wrangle!  We finally got everything together though and Freddy, Mike and I headed over Wednesday evening to pick up our registration information.  Registration was interestingly different for me in comparison to last year.  Last year I was so nervous and worried about the whole thing and this year I barely wondered about our route.

The next morning, Thursday morning, was Day 1!  Freddy had his second football game on Thursday, so he was out for the first day.  Mike and I got up about 5am and got ready to go.  We left much earlier than necessary because we were meeting Hilary and Ricardo in East Lansing for breakfast before we began.  They were in town for the weekend for Hilary's brother's wedding and this would be the only chance we would have to see them.  You know me, always trying to do everything!  So we had a very nice breakfast at O'Neils and then headed towards the MSU Pavilion, where we would begin our journey.  We arrived and the rest of our rag-tag crew was there and ready to ride.  We kissed our supporters goodbye and we hit the road.  We had a nice ride down through the MSU campus and headed north out of town on Park Lake Road.  Mike and I especially enjoyed the ride through campus... just like the old days.  About 30 minutes into our ride, just north of town we ran into our first few problems.  Namely, Samone had something wrong with her tire and it was beginning to rain.  We all pulled off together and Mike fixed Samone's tire by trading it out with his own (foreshadowing).  Off we headed again and Scott and Cheryl were treated to a few small hills.  I'm pretty sure that they were wondering what they had gotten themselves into!!  This first day, we decided to all ride together in the morning to our lunch stop at my Mom's and then we would ride our own speeds and meet up at the stopping point for the night.  We made it all the way to Ovid when the tire that Mike had traded out from Samone's bike went down and I mean way down (See how effective foreshadowing is?).  We waited as Mike then proceeded to change a flat tube.  With the new tube in place, we were up and riding again all the way to lunch at Mom's house.  We had some delicious homemade pizza for lunch.  Pizza on the first day has become our tradition and I plan to keep it on every multi-day ride from here to eternity!  Sooo good!  Mike spent much of our lunch break tweaking bikes with everything from changing tires to adjusting seats and handlebars.  I, on the other hand, spent my break looking over my last minute purchases that were delivered to my Mom's place and eating way too much pizza.  In particular I was excited to see some energy gels in my package.  One that I bought was the brand GU and was Chocolate Outrage in flavor.  I was really looking forward to trying it out.

After lunch we had a nice flat land ride all the way to Midland... in the pouring rain.  It was pretty disappointing to ride in the wind and rain, but as we would discover in the days to come, this was the easy day.  Once we all arrived at the Bullock Creek Middle School, we commenced with showering and eating, two of the most important things to you when you ride over 50 miles in a day.  

Then Samone and I decided that we would be the two elected to drive one hour back to St. Johns to watch Freddy's football game and then take Freddy back to Midland with us.  Samone and I were feeling the days ride on our drive to the game, but we both perked up once we got there.  We had pretty good weather, no more rain and not too chilly.  The team played great and killed Jackson Northwest 34-7.  Then Samone drove us back to Midland while I tried to stay awake to monitor her driving.  It was tough for me to stay awake!  Freddy helped by chatting from the back seat.  Once back, we had a snack and headed to bed.  Mike and I elected to take the tent with the huge queen size air mattress, which was incredibly comfortable.  But it also turned out to be extremely noisy. A huge thunderstorm came through that knocked down tents and trees throughout the night.  We luckily only had to deal with a few drips and the crazy noise.  So to sum up Day 1, late start, crappy weather, lots of delays and a restless night.  You can imagine how much we were hoping that Friday would be a better day...  to be continued.     

 

Auntie-Nephew Weekend 2010

Well I'm a couple of weeks behind, but it's because I've been so busy!  That means I have a lot to catch you up on!  Two weekends ago we had the annual Auntie-Nephew Weekend 2010.  We went to Freddy's football game in Charlotte on Friday and then we headed up to the ORV trails near Baldwin, MI with the dunebuggy and the jeep for Saturday and Sunday.  The crew that we headed up north with included the two nephews, Walker and Joe, myself, Mike and Freddy.

Friday, I picked up the boys after school shopping with Freddy and my mom in Birch Run.  We ran up to the high school because Freddy had to be dropped off for the first football game that evening in Charlotte.  Then Walker, Joey and I all stayed to help with the team dinner.  It's kind of funny, but I really am learning all kinds of new things about a sport I've known my entire life.  I never had a football playing brother, so I guess I just missed many of the things that go along with having a football player.  It's a very interesting learning experience.  I'm also learning all about the St. Johns community and school traditions.  We've lived in St. Johns for over 5 years and you miss out on a whole portion of the community activities and traditions without kids.  I knew that all along, but I guess it's just more fun than I thought it would be.

Let me give you an example.  For the team dinner we worked quickly to get the food all ready for the boys and coaches.  At the appointed time the team all filed in very seriously and silently.  I was very surprised at how quiet they were and then I was quickly informed to be extra quiet as well.  The captain gave the marching orders to the rest of the team as to how they would proceed through the line (seniors first, of course) and said a really heartfelt prayer.  Then the boys came single file through the line quiet and polite, each saying thank you as they got their food.  We gave them more water and they finished up eating.  Then another surprise!  I was quickly told that each player gives each of the Moms a hug after eating.  I stood with a huge smile, told each boy good luck and received about 40 hugs.  I loved it!

On we went to the football game.  It was fun.  St. Johns killed Charlotte 54-21.  Freddy even got to play!  He went in on defense in the 4th quarter.  He got tripped up his first play in and then came out to talk to the coach.  Then he went back in for the next play, where he was actually close to getting a tackle.  But instead of a tackle, he got a 15 yard personal penalty!  He followed the offensive player right out of bounds and apparently the referee thought he pushed the opposing player once out of bounds.  We don't tend to agree, but oh well, at least he got to get in the game.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early so that we could head up north and go offroading!  The boys were bright eyed and excited through the whole 2 1/2 hour drive.  We got to the trails about 11:30, unloaded and headed out.  We had so much fun.  The jeep was a lot to handle with the big tires, so Mike drove it pretty much the whole time and I drove the buggy with rotating passengers.  I had a lot of fun ripping around the corners and up and down the hills of sand.  I must say we all looked pretty sweet in our skull bandannas too!  I think people were jealous.

After a good long day of riding, we "kinda" broke the dunebuggy.  We had a leak and ran out of clutch fluid.  Mike was able to put most of the brake fluid in the clutch pedal so that it would work better, but that left us with no brakes.  Whoops!  Freddy, Walker and I headed out to the nearest service station to pick up more fluid and Mike and Joey headed back to the parking lot with the buggy.  It was evening by then and time to head to the cabin.  We loaded up the crew and vehicles and headed to the little cabin we had rented.  We all had showers (much needed), dinner, a little campfire and then we headed to bed.  

The next morning I made pancakes and the boys packed up the truck.  We all ate and then we decided to drive to Lake Michigan near Ludington to hit the beach.  Mike found this fantastic little beach where the boys found a geocache.  Then we swam in the frigid lake for a few hours and had a picnic lunch before heading home.  Freddy had football practice that we had to hurry back for or else I think we all would have liked to stay on the beach a few hours longer.

It was a wonderful weekend with the boys, we really enjoyed our time with them.  And for the record... Joey and Walker won the cow game, despite my best efforts to sabotage them.