Typical pose for the long car rides to and from Colorado.

Tracy is taking advantage of her new boat on the lake.

We’ve been making a lot of feasts.

The snow was crazy. We ended up losing power and water for about two days each. We had a minor pipe issue but nothing compared to a lot of the people in Texas. I went for a run the day the snow started to melt. It was wild to see ice floating in the creek.

We also volunteered at a vaccination center.

The week after the snow storm, the sun came out and I spent some time at Mt. Princeton resort. I was only out an hour, but I got so sunburn.

I also used the break in the weather to stain the deck and create a planter around the side of the building. I planted flowers in there today.

The dogs and I tried out the Colorado trail again to see how high we could get before the snow set in. We made it about 300 vertical feet further than last time, but there is still a lot of snow. Darby still can’t resist rolling in the snow.

Very tired dogs after a day on the trail.

Last week we made a trip back to Austin for Preston’s graduation. It was held at the Erwin Center since his graduating class was 625 students. He went to an all night party afterwards and will arrive in BV tomorrow.

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I drove back to BV the morning after graduation. The weather has finally turned nice so I set up the deck and made some corn and potato soup.

The dogs and I made our Sunday pilgrimage to Deerhammer. Izzy and Darby assumed their positions after they cleaned the floor of any scraps.

Tracy has taught Darby to eat her evening treat on a towel.

This Monday we are heading back to BV. I plan on being there for the summer, but Tracy will be back and forth. This spring has flown by. I’ve been staying active and ran the Tinjas 50k again. I also have the Tangle 30k Sunday.

I ran down to the park to meet Tracy this weekend. It must be a sign of luck having a Cardinal perch on your car because this little guy didn’t want to leave. He danced around on the top of the roof

Today I power washed the pool filters. The blue is a piece of blue plastic that dissolved in the filter. It was everywhere and stained the pool rocks. It took a couple hours but I transferred it all from the pool to me. Meanwhile, Izzy was a sun dog watching me.

This year, I’m running the High Lonesome 100 again. The race director put together a promo spot based on last year’s race. You can see me a few times at the start line.

It’s been a busy new year. The first weekend was the annual Bandera 100 race. Unfortunately, the venue changed again to Camp Eagle. The loops were similar to Cactus Rose, just 5 miles longer with more climb. It was much harder than Bandera so I finished a little longer than usual.

We’ve had some cold days and Izzy took full advantage of the fireplace.

I got some work done around the house which included sanding and painting the railings

I did a little work around the house which included sanding and painting the railings. We also had the trimmers come and take care of all the trees. It’s pretty crazy how they scale everything to thin out the trees.

We’ve had a lot of rain so our trail trips were less frequent than previous years due to the flooding. Izzy still managed to get her sun in the yard.

I did a little cooking and took inspiration from Tracy’s sister’s veggie chili recipe. I also joined the NAU board foundation and made a quick trip to Phoenix for the first meeting. NAU rented a suite at the Suns stadium. It was nice meeting other alumni, but the Suns lost big.

Our furniture was scheduled to be delivered again in BV the first week of February. We had lunch with our friends, Dave an Jani. Coincidentally, their daughter was working in the doctors office in our building. We also made 3 trips to our favorite watering hole, Deerhammer.

Mid-week, we got a lot of snow and the dogs didn’t know what to think of it.

Our furniture finally made it and I took a picture of it with the drone.

When we got back to Austin the weather was incredible for a few days and we put in some miles at the trail.

We replaced the rug in the living room with one Tracy had ordered to BV

The holidays flew by. We did our yearly jello shots at our neighbors White Elephant party.

The three of us rode our bikes down to the Trail of Lights at Zilker Park.

For the last week, we were at Tracy’s sister’s house. Her dog Tucker is the laziest dog I’ve ever met. He loves to lay on the love seat in all kinds of crazy positions.

He’s actually asleep in the picture below.

On Christmas day, Tracy and her siblings always take a picture holding the Joy pillow.

We are back in Austin now, but I wanted to add the last picture of BV – Tracy at the dog park at sunrise.

Saturday night, the 3 of us met some friends at the Planned Parenthood dinner.

Alan and I used to work together at Dell.

Helen is his mom and Cara, his wife.

Isn’t that a group of strong women.

The event honored Cecile Richards who is the outgoing CEO of Planned Parenthood.

A surprise guest was Nancy Pelosi, who introduced Cecile.

Afterwards, in the park next to the hotel, there was a Beto rally that featured a concert by Willy Nelson.  It’s estimated that 10k people showed up.  We were a long ways back, but Tracy managed to get close enough for a zoomed in picture.

I’ve been the project person the last week.  Between IKEA and Container Store, I’ve been busy.   Our master closet got an upgrade of new shoe shelves and drawers.

The master got a new dresser under the TV.

The same dresser went in the upstairs bedroom.

IKEA was out of the big drawers, but I was able to put half a dresser together.

Yesterday in yoga class, I was told about a half marathon that was sponsoring a few of the local non-profits.  The race started close to where the Cottonwood aid station was on the HL100 and ran through the autumn-colored canyon to the main road heading into town.

There were 214 people in the race and I finished 9 minutes shy of 2 hours and took 48th place.

Afterwards, I was tired and Darby had no issue lounging around with me.

 

Tracy came last week and one of the mornings had an incredible sunrise.  The picture I took was amazing but Google made the colors a little more vivid.

We took the dogs on the trails.

Darby won’t jump on the swing, but Izzy has no problem hanging out.

The last couple weeks have been filled with house duties.  I feel like a logistics company with the amount of stuff coming in.  I’ve put a lot of furniture together and the picture below is the new couch and fire table on the patio.

I spent all of Sunday in the garage putting in shelves and organizing all the building stuff the previous owner left and our camping stuff.

On Saturday, I met Mike at Winfield and paced him over Twin Lakes to Hope Pass.  We were a little slow on the uphill, but Mike lit it up on the way town and we beat the time he wanted.

Google magic helped the picture looking South from Hope.  Huron Peak is to the left in the distance.

The dogs and I went back to Leadville to watch Mike finish with his best time ever – sub 29 hours.

The dogs and I have developed a routine of going to the dogs park before sunrise.  Some days we are treated with incredible views.  The weather and fires make for interesting cloud formations – a couple of them are below.

Tracy arrives tomorrow.  We are excited to see her.

One thing I forgot to post was that Tracy’s sister came to visit us.  It was a short visit but we had a great time.  We were able to climb to the shoulder of Mt. Yale.

Last night they began setting up for the Trans Rockies race in the square across from our new house.  The dogs and I went out and watched the start this morning.