Sunday, September 29, 2013

92 big ones

 Had an awesome weekend celebrating Grannie De in Santa Barbara last weekend. This amazing woman turned 92 and I think we all agreed that she is still sharper than everyone in the room!

 
 Thanks for being a great reason to celebrate Princess De!!
Enjoying a bit of the evening sunset light from the top deck.


Our weekend consisted of a lot of long beach walks and sand acrobatics with Trev's cousin Clai and wife Becky.


And of course some Grannie De Jeopardy in which she handily schooled the whole fam.


  The lone ranger.


Beach cruising!
 

Not a bad place to party.

Clai caught a stingray and a little shark right out in front of the house...really curbed my swimming desires.

Trev and the Robinson women!

Farmers Market goodness.

  I like this guy.


 I told you there was a lot of beach acrobatics.


The card Rob gets for Grannie De...haha.

 

 Sunset watching never gets old.
 Here's to many more Grannie De!!!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Not all work feels that way.

 Random shots from a work trip last week out to the middle of the 307.  

A really crowded highway headed out of town.

 Insane rainbow over in Dubois.


Rest stop sunrise.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

It's our anniversary!

Anniversary #6 in fact...what?? what in the world happened to those 6 years? Wow. Good times no doubt. So we decided to celebrate with a 3-day backpack trip in the Tetons. And it was wonderful. Here are some of the pics...

Trev meandering down a zig-zagging trail. Despite reports on the radio that it was supposed to rain ONE INCH! that day, we decided to go for it anyway and got barely a sprinkle on us. Goes to show, don't believe everything you hear...or maybe we are just lucky!


Beautiful scenery, dwarfed by Green Mountain on the right.


 We made it to our destination of Upper Green Lake and set up camp.


Trev trying out his best Blue Steel look. : )


Lakeside reading as the sun sets. Yep, I would have to say I'm pretty content.


Air. Earth. Water. Fire.


The next day we went exploring and wandered around this amazing expanse.


Lichen love. 


Then we hiked up to the Wilderness and Grand Teton National Park boundary and Trev was excited.


And I did a tree on top of the mountain. 


 Trev doing some jagged rock walking.


 GT National Park on the left < ME in the middle > Wilderness land (& our camp) on the right


I always bring this male model along to make the surroundings look better.


Our 6 year wedding anniversary (September 15th). Love this guy! (Lucky me, huh?)


We walked out to the tallest point at the end of this ridge, had a picnic, took a nap and walked back...


 Maybe it was more like a scramble.

 But a great way to spend the day!


Fire over fire.


Our last morning, this is what we walked out to...love.
Feeling refreshed. Thank you nature.
 

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Friday's rule!!!

 Yesterday was awesome.  Seems Friday's always give me really good perspective on how lucky I am to have the ability to have Friday's off.  When you break it down and really think about it, that is 52 days more a year off than if I only had two day weekends.  That is over 7 weeks of days off a year just with Fridays.  Sooooooooo, I remember this when I get up at 5:30 every morning and hitting the office at 6 am.  No matter what happens during my work week, I continually have Friday at the end of the tunnel to look forward to.  Fridays are my go to day to ride motorsports.  Not that our mountains really ever have anyone in them, but on Friday's they are even less crowded.  Yesterday was one of those days that you just want to put on slow motion, bottle it, and try to squeeze 32 hours out of the standard 24.  

Drew, enjoying the view at 10,000 ft high in the Palisades Range, south of Jackson.  

 Indian Creek Divide.  Amazing.  Allow a rant if you will..............., this quite simply is what makes moto so appealing to me.  We are 25 miles to the nearest pavement here.  It would take two full, full days to walk there.  If one wanted to mountain bike there, well, it would take the same amount of time as you would have your bike on your back the whole ride.  Moto gets one so deep in the backcountry and allows you to see terrain that you wouldn't normally get to see.  Drew and I had been up in this area a couple of times on sleds before, its a "really big" area.  Huge peaks, climbs, and passes.  Friday was the last day it was open for the season, it closes for hunting in the fall.  

 Off the divide, heading down 4,000ft.  Buffed single track at 10,000 ft with not a soul around for miles.  Does it get any better?

 Big country!!!  Drew, looking very small to scale going down the headwaters of the South Fork of Indian Creek.

 There was a ton of "no fall" zones on the way out.  Lots of sidehills with pretty serious consequences.

After a ten mile downhill, we came out to the what once was Palisades Reservoir!   Idaho sucked Wyomings water almost dry this summer.  Between irrigation needs for potatoes and dairy cattle, our waterways are as low as anyone can ever remember.  Scope the sides of the reservoir in the shot.  The lake level is down probably 50-60 ft!!!  

 What, a big adventure and we made it back to the truck before dark?  That never happens!  

Not to be outdone by Scuba Steve, Drew picked up a new YZ 450 of his own yesterday.  This bike will never, ever look like this again!  Priorities clearly appropriate.  A $7000 moto and a $700 truck.  Drew abides. 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

The End...

Munger closed on Monday.  Total bummer, but......, it will open again next July 1st, and you can better believe we will be there ripping it up again.  The final mission on Monday after work was pretty similar to all the rest.  Nothing short of amazing.  Sunset, with buds, doing fun stuff.  Just was missing Chels.  Jesse and Dane joined and we rallied until it was dark.

Jesse, climbing up the north side of Big Munger.
 
 Me, looking south over some of our favorite sledding terrain in the Pallisades.

We were the last moto'ers of the season and we got it to the very last throttle pull.  It was an insanely fun summer riding moto in the valley.  Gonna miss it, but now its time to ride in Idaho and down in the desert.  Soon enough winter will be here, skiing, sledding, hell yes. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

You Bet

The weekend camping moved from Fall Creek up to the Gros Venture halfway through.  Seems like most all of the valley is saying this is as wet of a September as anyone can remember.  It felt more like May up the GV than fall.  

Handy and all the fixings for fun.  
 
 Shannon and Zoe.  I think its safe to say that Zoe will be one of the more badass chics around.  She already is, having camped, chilled, and listened to dirtbikes all weekend long.

 Zoe in the Sportsmobile, sleeping.

 Sweet Teton sunset from the Wedding Tree.

 Steve managed to show up with a lil surprise in the back of his truck one of the days.  Holy shit.....A brand new YZ 450.  Serious moto envy!

And of course, the best for last.  Tanner, in all his 6 year old glory, sending it over, and over, and over through this great mud bog!  He was literally entertained for hours.