NH (the motherland)

A couple of days ago we returned from a tour of sorts through my old stomping grounds. We arrived in Manchester (pronounced "Manchestah"), NH, and visited my brother Jim and his family the first day. We then traveled out to Greenland, NH, near Portsmouth on the coast, to visit my little sister and her husband Ryan and their new daughter Ruby. Here's Molly and Ryan on the beach:


Here's Ryan and cute little Ruby:


While in NH I dragged Paige to what I consider is my hometown, Hancock, NH. We moved there from Massachusetts when I was about 4, and lived there for 7 or 8 years. It's a great old farmhouse, built originally in the 1700's. It's a tiny town, and my dad likes to boast that when we moved there, we increased the enrollment in the town's elementary school by 10% (there are 6 kids in my family).

Here's a picture of where I went to elementary school:

And yes, it's now the town hall.

Here's a pic of the local pond where we would take swimming lessons:


And here's the house:


Here's a picture of the barn where my mom would send us to play on rainy days:


And for those who are aware, EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports--yes, there are mountains out east) is an outdoor recreation store much like REI that is now nationwide. Well, fewer may know that it was started in NH in a town next to Hancock. We started going there when I was little and as it grew and expanded I have been amazed to see it in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and even Fort Collins, Colorado. Here's a pic of the original store:

Check it out at www.ems.com

We were only able to spend 2 days in NH before we moved on to Cape Cod where my family gathered for a reunion. But this has already been a long post so we'll save that for later. We had a great time, it was neat for me to go back and see the town and the house and relive those years, and I think Paige enjoyed seeing where I spent my formative years.

Death Ride 2009

yesterday we managed to survive another Death Ride, one of the more masochistic rides out there. it's out in california, south of lake tahoe. the scenery is stunning, especially when you're hallucinating from the exertion....

it was paige and i, mike scheuller (2nd from the right in the picture below), and mike's brother-in-law josh (far right). this was paige's 3rd, mike's and my second, and josh's first. this is the gang before we started:


it was an early morning start, and mike was trying to catch some last-minute z's:


...still sleeping....


below is the course map and elevation profile:




paige was very proud of her (mostly) white get-up, including white bike, white handle bar tape, white seat, and white shoes. here she is in all her celestial glory arriving at the top of carson pass:


here we are posing in front of the poster that all the "5 pass finishers" get to sign at the top of carson pass:


we survived!


here's the whole gang at the bottom of carson pass:


scheuller of course was the strongest of the day, no one was able to hang with him all the way to the top of any of the passes. paige was incredible, not far behind us the whole way and we were able to eat lunch together and start the last climb together as well. it was a lot of fun (despite the suffering--which i think you selectively forget because of the lack of oxygen), and we were glad to have friends there to share it with us.

Independence Day at 'The Lake'

It just wouldn't be a summer holiday if it wasn't spent with the Sonntag clan up at beautiful Bear Lake. We were surrounded by great people, mounds of yummy food, and enough cotton floating through the air that you would think it was snowing. At least neither of us have cotton allergies. Typical for Bear Lake, the water was a little chilly and it made sure to rain at least a little bit. We did some tie-dying with the entire family that made our hands turn out as colorful as our shirts. On Sunday we went to Bloomington Lake and played on the glacier. It was strange walking on snow in July. The guys were super crazy sliding from a high point on the glacier into the water. I think my brother Richard got the speed record. It was great to see the younger kids be a little daring and take their turn.