Two Adventures, One Weekend

Well, it finally came and went! My big bad hard road ride that I've been trying to train for all summer: the Wildflower Pedalfest ride near Mountain Green, Utah. It was 75 miles long, with 4,478 feet of elevation gain. 6 hours of ride time. 3,800 calories burned! I even held a heart rate of 180 bpm while climbing the big climb for an hour. That was a long time to hold that high of a heart rate. I did better than I thought I would! I thought I'd suck big time since all my training was so hard and I was so much slower than Katie and Jessica - my two girlfriends that I rode the ride with. But I did it! Yay! We made a little girls weekend of it and got a hotel in Ogden for the night before, went out to dinner in the historic district of Ogden, and then walked around a car show.

My fave car at the car show. 

At the start line.

At the top of the big climb.

At the top of the big climb. 

At the finish line. 

Since I was going to be out of town, Mike wanted some plans too so he went backpacking in the Uintas with Dave and a couple other friends. They hiked some peak that I think he called Yard Peak. It looked like it was super steep to climb it. He did a little fishing and a little hammocking. By the look on his face in his hammock pic, I'd say he was missing me a lot and just not having as much fun without me. ;)

See! I think he missed me. ;)

On the climb to Yard Peak

At the saddle to Yard Peak

Thunder & Bunker

For Pioneer Day weekend (July 24-25), Mike and I drove down toward Bryce Canyon National Park and went biking on the Thunder Mountain Trail and the Bunker Creek Trail. We took our new and very huge car-camping tent! That thing is 10 feet by 10 feet and tall enough to stand up in!! But we loved the extra space compared to our super small and lightweight backpacking tent. Thunder Mountain trail always impresses us and we always take pics since it's like biking through Bryce Canyon National Park, but you aren't actually biking through the park. Bunker... well, we've never been good about taking pictures there since it is a shuttled downhill ride so we're always cruising too fast to think about taking pictures. So no pictures of Bunker Creek - but we still love riding that trail!

New Adventures = New Blog Name

Last week I began to think that it's high time to change my blog name (and it's associated web address) now that I have partner-in-crime and new, permanent adventure buddy. :) So we brainstormed a new blog name.... and I've thought on it for this past week and haven't come up with anything better so I'm ready to do it! :) I'm announcing the retirement of The Adventures of Skier Jess at skierjess.blogspot.com. Change your bookmarks! Here is the new one: 

MJK Thrills N Spills at mjkthrillsnspills.blogspot.com.