Fall Fun with Grammie and Pappy

There’s no doubt that fall is finally here. While last weekend was pretty gorgeous (even without traveling to Ithaca), the weekend before was a bit nasty. Jess and her coworker Karen had planned weeks earlier to run the Devil Dash in Lyons, and the forecast promised to make the course even more devilish. The race, for those unaware, is your basic 5K run featuring the seven deadly sins (or various obstacles loosely based thereupon). There was a pit of blood (actually red water) you had to cross, a slip-and-slide into a mud pit, and a barbed-wire-covered mud trough you had to “swim” through—and that was just the last 200 feet before the finish line! There was also a steep hill climb that didn’t allow for passing (especially on the rain-slicked rocks) and a couple of big obstacles you had to climb over.

For Jess the rain (nearly snow) seemed to add to the mystique of the event, but I think she was the only member of the family thus moved. The rest of us were moved to shiver, despite knowing full well that it would be raining off and on and cold throughout. I feel especially bad for Grammie and Pappy, who had to endure this on vacation! By the time Jess and Karen started, we were all pretty wet. Grammy and Pappy found an awning near the start/finish area to huddle under, and Phoebe (dry in the Chariot) and I set off to check out some of the course. We found a couple of women watching the race on a covered picnic table and joined them for a bit. We were parked right in front of a series of dirt jumps in Lyons that had been used to add a bit of excitement to the race course. Some of the racers tried little jumps and spins off of the obstacles, but others struggled to even summit the little muddy hills (speed was the key to clearing the short but steep ramps). A few even wiped out spectacularly! Best of all, Phoebe met a couple of dogs; she really likes dogs, as long as they don’t get too close. It’s rough when your face is right at sniffing/licking height and you have short arms.

When Jess and Karen went by, we cheered quickly and hopped back into the Chariot (Phoebe) and raced towards the aforementioned mud pits. We arrived just in time to get a little video of Jess getting down and dirty. At this point I should mention that we were using the little point and shoot camera because I couldn’t find the Nikon as we were getting ready to leave. This along with the weather conspired to make me a generally grumpy and unpleasant person to be around. I would later remember that we had the camera the previous weekend when we helped Ben and Christina move into their new house, but that realization was still a couple of days off. In retrospect, I’m glad a didn’t drag the good camera all over Lyons in the rain anyway, and we still got some video evidence (along with Jess’s ruined sneakers) to prove the debauchery.

After the race, we snapped a couple of muddy shots of Jess and Karen before racing to the car. Jess tried to quickly strip down, towel off, and get dressed into some clean and dry clothing, but she was only moderately successful. It’s hard to get dry while standing in the rain (insert mental images of Sisyphus or Pyrrhus or your favorite doomed-to-fail Greek here). Tearing apart the Chariot in the pouring rain and stuffing it into the trunk wasn’t fun either. I’m beginning to see the appeal of a monster SUV. Once we were all in the car, we made the short drive over to Oscar Blues (along with half of the participants) for some good food and beer. The wait wasn’t too bad, but the sudden onslaught seriously slowed the procession of food from the kitchen.

The rest of the visit from Grammie and Pappy was pretty typical. Phoebe seemed to warm up to them pretty well, which was great, as she took her sweet time adjusting to the GPs Hazelton a few weeks earlier. Somewhat infrequent visits with family (along with a general lack of rain and the somewhat frequent devastating wildfires) is one of the only problems with living in Colorado. It’s been a great summer and early fall with so many family visits.

We just finished a crazy two-week span where Jess traveled to Chicago to do some campus travel for a whole week only to return just in time to relieve me from the joys of solo parenting. I then promptly left for Nashville where the American Vacuum Society was holding its international symposium and exhibition. You’d be surprised by how much there is to study after removing almost all of the gas, and you’d also be surprised how much it costs to do those studies.

Now we’re back to our normal weekend routine. The snow forecast for this weekend isn’t going to come, so hopefully we can get in some hiking or biking.