fishing and stoves

It's been a while.


last weekend I headed up with the 'Stream and dogs to Alcova for some great fly fishing. Landed my largest ever on the N. Platte, a 22" rainbow. I landed only one fish under 17". The Tundra towed exceedlingly well for it's first time.

rods rigged, waiting by the door

after last year's ginormous propane bill, I've been planning on a pellet stove to provide some heating all summer. So I bought a stove and flue kit and spent yesterday installing it.

here it is on the hand cart before I started cutting holes in the walls for the vent and air intakes.

It wasn't that hard to install. I just hope I met all the code requirements.

I broke it in and tested it out. I think this will save me some dough this winter.

tomorrow is Monday. 2 more weeks till I leave for Vegas and InterBike.

I've been doing cyclocross training on my home course (back yard) I'll need to step it up for the Wheeler and Dealer Cross Vegas race on the 24th.

Sore and alive

Well looking back on my accident I can be thankfull that it wasn't worse. My body would have been draged off the trail by a mtn lion and no one would have found my body.

I'm looking forward to the Ortho/MRI visit to make sure all is well for a speedy recovery.

in the meantime here are a couple of pics pre accident

for those of you wondering, the Stumpy got off with a chewed up grip and brake lever, no other apparent damages.

Lucky bastard.

Memorial day weekend

Loaded up the Bambi Thursday for an early Friday afternoon departure from work. I ended up working an hour longer than I wanted and got on the road at 2pm head for Buffalo Creek (en route thru Denver traffic). Stopping for gas at the Flying J before crossing into Colorado I was stuck behind some yahoo that must have been filling 100 gal side tanks of diesel before having to pay by cash at the register causing a longer delay.

This was my view for 20 minutes

Nice view huh?

150 miles later I arrived at the group campground. Not a bad drive after the gas line wait.

Being early I was able to setup near Chuck, the organizer of the weekend's camper. This put me near the keg.

Setting up the Stream I had endless encounters with the others already there on wanting to tour the living quarters. I left the door open intentionally for the rest of the arrivals to check out Bambi. I felt like an Airstream rep showing off all the features. Everyone loved it.

There where plenty of other dogs and dog lovers to keep Nikki and Axel occupied. They also got to run the trails as we did parts of the Colorado Trail and Gashouse trail to keep them in energetic check.

Saturday, after the girls group ride, Matt (a Skins teammate and my inviter in this shindig) and I took off for a ride on the Colorado trail. We went from the camp to the wilderness boundary, back to camp, to the parking area at the highway, and back to camp. Somewhere around 30 miles of single track and lots (LOTS) of climbing.

Matt is a climbing phenom. He came close to a stage win at the Tour of the Gila this year and was the highest placed Skins rider at the Dead Dog road race last year.

I don't try to compete with him when the road turns up. For the most part this is what I saw.

It was usually on singletrack but you get the picture.

\On Sunday, Matt, his wife Kat, friends Joe and ?, and I headed out and rode the course for next weeks mountain bike time trial race that would be held there.

It will be a fairly entertaining (and hard) course and I would love to do it if I wasn't committed to a friends B-Day party that day.

Here is a pic of Kat and friend behind Matt, Joe and I.

Fun stuff came to an end when I had to pack up and head back home.

Work was calling for Monday.

Matt's family accomodations