The End of a Good Time

So in case you haven't figured it out already, I'm back in DC, back to reality. I'm hard at work on the job search. Understandably, I'm taking a mental break from triathlon. I'm still training a little bit, but with nowhere near the structure or intensity that I put in over the summer. So that's it. I'm done with SwimBikeRunDog. It has been fun keeping track of my summer adventures here, but now my focus is elsewhere. This will be the last post on the blog. Thank you to everyone who followed everything I had to write this summer. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Adios,

Mike and Dixie

The Last Week in Montana + The Trip Back

Ok, finally catching up with some pictures from the last week in Montana and my travels back east, at least so far. I'm in Chicago right now with Maria et. al. I'll get to that in a minute. First, as promised, Dixie in a life jacket:

Alex, Michelle, Ryan, and I decided to go float the Clark Fork river on inner tubes. We wanted to take Dixie, but didn't want her to have to swim for two straight hours just to keep herself afloat. Voila! Put her in a life jacket that will help her float. We actually did it just as a joke at first, thinking she would not like it, but she didn't complain about it at all, so we went ahead with it.





In the background, you can see me being dragged out of the water by Dixie. She's quite the powerful swimmer - especially when I am trying to tow her but am sitting in a tube. Let's just say that she was towing me... and we went pretty much wherever she wanted to go.

Later that week, I went kayaking again with Ryan and his friend Juice. To put in a little bit of perspective just how out of my league I was, Juice is a close kayaking friend of the guy who currently owns the world record for highest waterfall drop in a kayak (186 feet - see the article here). Further adding to the craziness is that I was in an open-top inflatable kayak, not strapped into a smaller play boat like the other two guys. That meant I got dumped in the river. A lot. But that's ok, because I had a great time, my kayaking skills improved, and I even managed to stay in the boat for a few rapids that by right I should have been tossed out of! We went to a beautiful area about 45 minutes west of Missoula called "The Gorge," and we were basically the only people on the river. That meant that we could stay on rapids for as long as we wanted, paddling back up to the top of them and going through them again, or trying to surf waves (using the backwash off of rocks to stay in the same place on the river instead of being carried off by the current). All in all, we had a wonderful time.

Wednesday, as you know, I said goodbye to Montana and started my trip back east. I passed through the last two "new" states of my trip: Wyoming and South Dakota. All the other states I'll be traveling through I already passed through on my way West, so these are the last of the state welcome signs.

I drove to Mount Rushmore that day, and got to the monument just in time to see the evening lighting ceremony. As night falls, they leave the monument dark at first as they show a video about the history of the monument and of the four faces featured there. Then, once it is completely dark out, they slowly turn up the lights shining on the monument, and the faces start to glow!

Thursday I went from Rushmore to Rochester, MN, where Blake is studying at the Mayo Clinic. I'm glad I got to spend the evening with him, as we don't get to see each other enough any more. Plus, it gave us a chance to belatedly celebrate our birthdays together. Blake is 15 days older than me, but since we both have summer birthdays, we rarely got to actually spend those birthdays together--even in high school. So we make up for it when we can.

Friday I headed from Rochester to Chicago to stay with the McGuires for the weekend. We spent Saturday in the city, going to Wishbone for breakfast before spending the day in Millenium Park. Among other things, we explored The Bean (aka Cloud Gate aka the big mirrored thing) as well as the fountain that makes faces and spits at you. I doubt that is it's real name, but that's what I'm calling it.

Another day or two and I'll head back to DC. It has been a wonderful summer, I've loved the travels and had a great time, but it will be nice to get back home.

On the Road (Yet) Again...

I start heading back east to DC today. Should be back in our nation's great capitol about this time next week. I've "only" got 2,500 miles of driving ahead of me!

This map is kind of fun. It's a map of all my travels this summer, from East Coast to West Coast to Canada. Over 7,000 miles, it claims. I guess I now can officially say that I've driven across the country!

CLICK HERE FOR THE MAP

There are still some pictures from the last couple weeks here in Missoula that I have yet to post, so I'll try and get them up next time I have internet access, which probably won't be until this weekend. All I'll say about the pictures is "Dixie in a life jacket". Check back in a few days to find out what I'm talking about.

Feel free to give me a call on the road... It's going to be a lonely time.

Race Pictures

You can also see the official race photos at http://www2.brightroom.com/photobrowser.aspx?eventID=47481&bib=158

Seattle Pictures

Here's some pictures from our fun trip to Seattle:

Starting, of course, with more state crossing signs.

With my trip to Seattle, I have now driven completely across the country! Life list: check.

Yes, yes we did. We actually made pilgrimage to the original Starbucks.

We were quite tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing, though, as you can see from the absurd posing of this picture. And we didn't exactly go out of our way to find it, either. It is right across the street from the Pike Place Market.

With Mom outside Pike Place Market.

A quick shot of Pioneer Square, which has a wonderful book shop called Elliott Bay Books. I highly recommend it, both for the shop itself and for the wonderful cafe downstairs.

We took a ferry ride that started in Lake Union (east of Seattle), went through the locks connecting the inland lakes to the salt-water sound, then went through the sound back down to Seattle Harbor. The day was absolutely beautiful, and so was the scenery. It was great fun.

Space Needle.

Seattle skyline from the lake side.

Apparently this is the houseboat used during the filming of the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Quite the tourist attraction. And for sale! (If you have a few million dollars laying around...)

Crossing under a bridge. No clearance! Almost didn't make it. There was apparently only one foot of clearance between the boat and the bridge. They actually had to take down the antennas to make it work.

In the channel.

We have entered the lock to go down from the lake to the sound. This is lake water level.

And this is the water level of the sound.

O Captain my Captain?

Skyline from the west.

On dry land again, looking out across the sound at dusk.