Stealing Is Ok

from family...right? :)  Thanks, Becky for the video.

And yes, we felt the earthquake around these parts.  It was a bit surreal and at first I just thought I was feeling dizzy or something.  Until Jenny comes flying out of her office saying, it's an earthquake guys, I'm standing in the doorway!  And the ladies from accounting came screaming down the stairs and out the back door to stand in the parking lot.  And Hamlet tried to jump into Crystal's lap he was so scared.  I personally thought it was cool and a unique experience.  But honestly can't imagine going through a devastating one or being any closer.

Anyway, enjoy the final recap of our visit to NM/CO.  It's a fun little ditty Becky put together...that I've stolen.

Oh, go jump off a cliff…

That might be a pretty mean insult…but not when it’s cliffs like this!  Sorry, the pics aren’t great b/c most were taken with my phone.

Monday of our trip Jack & Becky took us up to Abiquiu (abi-cue) Lake to test our nerves jumping from up to 35’ or 40’.  Brian & Jack had no fear and jumped right in off the tallest point.  Becky coaxed me to the 20 footer where I stood at the edge for forever before I decided to head down to the 10’ ledge.  She jumped off with no problem! I can typically “turn off” the fear factor in my brain and just go for things like this, but for some reason I was exceptionally timid this day.  I only jumped in 3x from the lowest edge before we decided to swim to the far side of the lake to skip rocks.

On the far side of the lake I got a little more comfortable with the water and Becky and I had fun doing front and back flips off a rock.  I even successfully completed 2 front flips with a full twist.  Too bad I couldn’t bring the camera with me :).  Jack attempted several times to do a front flip but just couldn’t quite get it.  He’s more of a diver and did some good dives off the rock!  After a bit, we decided to swim back to the cliffs so I could take some pictures of everyone jumping.

top of the ridge, the cliffs are waaaaay down there. midway down the ridge, getting closer! one side the other side

Sequence of Becky, Jack & Brian jumping (this is about 20-25’):

And from the higher point (35-40’):

And Brian and me jumping!":

hi-fiving at the bottom!

Here’s a video of J, B & B jumping off the high cliff.  It was a beautiful day, perfect weather and we were the only ones there for most of the time.  The water was great and no one got hurt.  Yay!

Cliff jumping in Abiquiu!

Number 5…

Is alive!!!  Go Team Blue!

Well, we did it.  Becky and I have now run 5 half marathons together over the last 5 years!  Amazing really.  Amazing that we’ve run that many races together.  Amazing that we’ve done it consistently for 5 years!  Wow, 5 years has gone by fast!  It was my 7th race and her 8th. Lately, before every race I think to myself, “Hmm, isn’t it time I try to do a full marathon?”  And promptly after my race I remember why I haven’t ever attempted that!  Sore legs, tired body.  Maybe one day, just not yet :). 

Special congratulations to Brian!  Way to knock out your FIRST race!  I’m so proud of you!  And us sea-levelers survived.  7700’ is quite the elevation change for us east-coasters!  We hyper-hydrated at the advice of a friend of ours from church and it definitely seemed to help.

I must say that this race was by far the prettiest one I’ve done.  It began in beautiful Ouray, CO (pronounced your-ay).  It’s considered the Little Switzerland of America.  Cute town, gorgeous surroundings.  And ended in Ridgway, CO.  There were pretty views  all along the race course. 

We enjoyed some yummy Mexican food after the race before we made the 7 hour drive back to Santa Fe!  Fun fact (well, fact in that it’s true to me): Ouray had the highest concentration of Jeeps & Land Cruisers of any other town I’ve ever visited!

More about other parts of the trip to come.

New Mexico Day 1

Well, we’ve arrived in New Mexico yesterday and were met at the airport by Jack & Becky.  Because they don’t have a Chick-Fil-A in Santa Fe we hit it up in Albuquerque before we headed out of town.  After lunch we loaded up in the Flex to take a look-see of the area!

  Yay!  Glad Jack maintained his concentration on the road :).

They took us the long way around, the scenic route, to show off the lab and hospital in Los Alamos where Jack & Becky work.  The drive was so pretty.  The landscape is vastly different than our tree-filled southeast homeland, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.  It’s neat to see the variety of landscape across our country!

I like the style of the buildings around here.  Very adobe and Mexican-esque. 

The damage from the fire that raged through the area a few months ago was evident all along the scenic route.  The meadow below was surrounded by blackened trees.  The meadow is incredibly vast and you could see herds of something way off in the distance.  It is so pretty!  It was strange to see such greenery after so much brown.  These pictures make me think of something you might see in Ireland or something (though I have no idea if that’s accurate because I’ve never been there :-D).

Once we got to Becky and Jack’s home we all got dressed and went for a quick run.  Gotta try to get acclimated to this elevation before our half marathon this weekend!  If you’re wondering, the breathing part was ok for Brian and me but I was struck with a stomach bug that hindered my run pretty significantly. 

After our run we got cleaned up  so we could head out to Jack & Becky’s favorite burger spot, Bobcat Bite!  It’s a small place tucked just off the road out of town that only seats 26 people at a time.  You can read more about it here.  I enjoyed the bacon cheeseburger while Brian tried the bacon-green-chili cheeseburger.  It was yummy and it was fun to experience this place they’ve raved about since they’ve lived here!  Oh, and this is “monsoon” season so we actually have witnesses several fun thunderstorms roll through the area and had a few sprinkles since we’ve been here.  The area only gets 11” of rainfall per year!  After dinner we came home and I crashed.  Having been up since 3:45 Eastern time, I was pooped! 

We sure enjoyed our BIG burgers!  Mmm!

And a couple fun pictures.  Brian took a nice shot of the clouds.  And Becky and I realized we both bought grey & blue shoes that look incredibly similar.  It’s like we’re twins or something!  Ooh, this might mike a good Friday Who’s Who!  You all are getting too good at telling our faces apart :).  We are having a GREAT time here!  Can’t wait to see what else is in store for our visit!