THE IRON HORSE IN DURANGO

A few months ago, Scot's uncle Buck (a.k.a. Jack), Aunt Jo and his cousin Hannah called to talk Scot into riding in the 50 mile (all uphill mind you) Iron horse bike race. When Scot agreed, he also convinced Sarah she should train and do the race with them. She agreed. They paid their entry fees, ordered jerseys and we blocked off the Memorial weekend for the trip. They did a lot of training...I know - I watched them & cheered them on as they left the house for training rides. I know, it was thoughtful of me. ( : A couple weeks ago, Scot started having some respiratory issues, and they just hung on for dear life. He went to see his Dr. a few times, and didn't seem favorable. Poor guy hadn't been able to train for weeks AND his Dr. advised him to take it easy for a couple more to allow the infection to move through. He had hopes of a big comeback in time for the race, but as we got closer and closer, reality set in and he had to make the call to bag it. Sarah, on the other hand, forged ahead in preparation (even after taking a few weeks off for her big European tour to see Mom and Dad, and Camille and kids).

The kids were really looking forward to going down to Durango - and we certainly were not disappointed. They LOVED being at Uncle Jack and Aunt Jo's. It goes without saying that Hannah was very popular between the two of them. Shortly after we arrived, we were hanging out, watching cartoons in the room where Ethan and Sarah were staying when Brynn stumbled upon some of Hannah's craft drawers. When she turned around, she looked like this, and she was so proud of herself. We all had a good laugh at her expense.

May 29, 2010 was the Iron Horse bike race. We woke up really early to head up to Silverton before they closed the road from Durango for the race.

We dropped Jack, Jo and Sarah off with their bikes close to the start of the race, and Hannah off at a place called "Bread" (I'm still not sure what they sell there...) to meet up with her friends, and headed up the mountain.

There was a one way train of cars weaving and winding up the pass and just as we were passing through the area where they were closing the road, Sarah called to see if she had left her biking gloves in the car. She had. Bummer. There was no way that we could turn around if we were going to be at the end of the race, so we just had to continue on.I worried the entire drive up that her hands were going to freeze, or that she was going to have a problem on her bike and fall and injure her hands - but I had to get over it.

We got to Silverton early and parked our car along the main bike route about a mile or so from the finish line & went on a walk to get some breakfast and check out the finish line etc.

Shortly after our little tour, we saw some of the pros coming in to the finish line (which was FAST), so we decided to head back to the car to wait and watch for Aunt Sarah. We did some activities, ate some snacks and before we expected to see her - there she was with her green jersey, black vest etc. I got some pictures as she was passing and that was all she wrote.

Shortly after Sarah passed, I put the kids in the stroller and we headed off towards the finish line to meet up with Aunt Sarah, and Scot stayed at the car to watch for Jack and Jo.

By the time we met up with Sarah, Ethan and Brynn were fast asleep. We cheered Jack and Jo on as they crossed the finish line, picked up Sarah's jersey, grabbed some cold bottled water, stopped by to use the restroom, and headed back to meet towards the car to meet up with Scot.

Did I mention that Jack and Jo live in the most amazing place? This is the retreat where they live...the view from a

back porch. After the race, we made our way back through traffic to Durango, stopped for some delicious Mexican food, and went back to Jack and Jo's house to hang out and recover from the long race.

My legs were killing me. ( ; The kids were ready to be free to play and run wild, so we went out into the yard and let them do some weeding. They were in heaven. Ethan's favorite tool was extremely dangerous - but I kept my cool and allowed him to be a boy and move the earth.