What to Take to Disneyland....

...someone in a wheelchair.

Can you believe Megan's Brother is still single? After his 3rd knee surgery, he is legitimately, temporarily handicapped. That worked out well for us. On Storm mountain, he got 9 of us straight to the front of the 60 minute line. It turns out that Walt has a soft spot for wheelechairs. Most rides have a separate handicap entrance. You roll up to the front of the line with your group, you get out of the wheel chair and onto the ride and the when you are done, you get right back into the wheelchair. After this fact, i started noticing A LOT of people in wheelchairs.

Kevin just got his own place so he no longer lives in his parents basement. Let me know if you want me to line you up with him.
As it turns out, the Jazzy® was also very convenient for carrying all of the overpriced Disney paraphernalia we purchased.

It rained the day we got there and the day we left.

Weather was sunny and in the 70's-80's the rest of the week. Water was cool enough that all of the local surfers had full wetsuits, but the kids didn't seem to mind since it was snowing back home.

We spent some time in OLD TOWN San Diego and had dinner at a Mexican Restaraunt. When there is an item on the menu that dares you to eat it and then makes you sign a waiver before you actually eat it, it might be a good idea to order something else.

Here Ryan is sweating and eating and the Hot burrito of Death, or something like that. He only made it about 1/4 of the way through it. He paid for it all night long.

RAGNAR Vegas & CX RACE in SoCal

I realize that almost all of our vacations are based around either a bike race or a running race of some kind. Well it just turns out that this year, we planned a trip to Oceanside with Meg's family, and then it worked out that Meg could go a couple days earlier and run RAGNAR in Las Vegas with a bunch of friends. We could pick her up in Vegas and keep driving to California. We could spend the week in Oceanside with the in-laws and then i could do a Cyclocross race in San Diego before driving back to Utah.

We came down and saw Megan at her second exchange and then went and stayed with my favorite Aunt Barb for the night. We woke up the next morning to homemade waffles and lotsalaughter.

We went and saw the ladies finish their 195 mile run and drove to CA. It was much prettier than megan had anticipated since you did a giant circle around vegas starting in Valley of fire, heading to Lake Mead and then down and around, ending up at red rocks casino.

We spent a wonderful week having a great time in Oceanside. We had to be out of the Beach House by 10AM saturday morning, so that was just enough time to drive down to Balboa Park, clean up some kids throw up in the back seat, warm up, and do a couple of races.

I really take for granted the CX scene we have here in Utah. You can sign up for whatever category you want and don't have to have a racing license. The fields are huge and growing. Going to California, i was confined to race with the cat 3-4 field since i am technically a Cat 4 cyclocross racer. I figured i would do 2 races, not knowing what the fields would be like, how big, how competitive etc.

I started with the Masters 35+ 3/4 race which only had 12 guys line up. I missed the hole shot and settled back into 4th place to see how the competition was. After a lap, i had worked my way into second. I attacked on a long, hard, muddy section and got around front. I kept the pace high and stayed there. Around the corners i could see a gap starting to open so i drilled it some more. By three fourths the way through the race, i couldn't see the 2nd place guy anymore. I eased up a bit knowing i was going to be racing again after this race was done. Now i know how Bart Gillespie feels.

The 3/4 race started right after the masters race was done, so i had time to pin on a different number and get back in line. This field was a bit bigger with around 20-25 guys. I started and dropped into 4 th place again. we rode like this for a lap, but i could tell this was a lot faster pace. On the second lap, the guy that was sitting in 5th came around me on a corner that there wasn't room for 2 bikes and ran me off the road. I am fine with racing aggressively, but don't run me off the road only to ride the same speed as i was that early in the race. I passed and dropped him a lap later while another guy and i were swapping 4th and 5th place as the first 3 riders were 10 seconds up the course. Most of the race went like this until about a lap and a half to go. I realized at this point that it was now about 2 o'clock. I had breakfast at 8 o'clock, which consisted of a bowl of frosted flakes and a couple of donuts. This is the point where i dropped from 4th place to 10th place and was just glad to get in the car and make the 7 hour drive to St George.

The good news was that for winning the Masters race i did get some socks, a water bottle, a gift certificate to a bike shop in San Diego that i would never go to, and some beer which i also gave to the 2nd place finisher.