Wyoming vs. Texas, Laramie, WY, Sept. 12, 2009

The University of Wyoming signed a 3 game series with The University of Texas and because of a quirk in Texas' schedule, the series started in Laramie. Marc, a friend of Rodney and his brother Roger since 5th grade, works with a Texas grad named Haywood. Haywood basically promised tickets in Austin next year if we took him to Laramie this year. So, we got excited and booked rooms and bought tickets in February in anticipation.

Marc, Rodney, and Haywood flew up on Frontier Airlines, met Roger at the airport, and drove up to Laramie. We decided to stop in Ft. Collins to pee on the Colorado State University sign have lunch and stopped at the New Belgium Brewery. Turns out they don't have lunch, but we had some tastes of some beers, notably, the Hoptober, which we bought a 12 pack of for the rest of the weekend. We had lunch at Beau Jo's where we had pizza and Fat Tire. We then drove up to Laramie, replaced Roger's forgotten tickets at the ticket office, and checked into the hotel. We then drove up to the Snowy Range Wyoming Highway 130 to make Haywood run around the car at 10,800 ft (3292m). After a couple hours hiking and gawking, we ate dinner at The Old Corral in Centennial. We then finished up the evening at The Buckhorn Bar, where we met plenty of Texas folks and enjoyed the UW Band, Marching Thunder, come by. There was also a live band on 3rd, with some cheap Budweiser, that we enjoyed for a couple hours before stopping at the Ranger Bar, where everything's stranger. It was actually an early evening (midnight).

On gameday, we got up and had breakfast at Shari's, then headed to the Library for some pregame beer and banter with the Texas fans who had reserved the entire restaurant before the game. Luckily, some were adventurous and joined us in the bar. We headed early to the game and enjoyed the first half, where Wyoming had a blocked punt for a touchdown for a 10-6 lead, before going into the half down 13-10. Alas, Texas asserted it's #2 ranking and scored 28 more points in the second half while Wyoming did not score. We had fun anyway! We had went back to the hotel and headed downtown, aiming for Chelo's, but it was closed, so we had a beer at Bud's Bar, then dinner at our favorite, Jeffrey's Bistro. After dinner, the line was long at the Buck, so we introduced Haywood to the Cowboy Saloon, where we watched it fill before finishing off at the Ranger again.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at Shari's again, then walked the campus. The Geological Museum was open, so we enjoyed it, then hit Taco John's for lunch before driving back to Denver and flying home. It was a great trip!

Bike the Bay, San Diego, Aug 30, 2009

Rasila decided to sign us up for a bike ride for our anniversary this year, especially because we did not do the Rosarito-Ensenada this year due to it's late resurrection and the general turmoil in Mexico these days. So, she signed us up for the Bike the Bay event.

We went down Saturday night and spent the night with David and Jill. We had dinner at a new Mexican Sushi Sports Bar (yes, it really exists and was quite good) and went to sleep early since we had to get up at 5:15 AM

Sunday, we had bagels and bananas, walked Ziwi, then headed down to the San Diego Convention Center, which was the parking for the ride. We rode over to the start, grabbed some Peet's Coffee, and waited for the staggered start at 7:00 AM. We were in about the 5th or 6th group, starting about 7:30AM. The ride went along Harbor drive, then up 10th to just under the bridge, where we road an offramp up to the main span. We were separated by the concrete barriers from the car traffic and the bridge was actually much easier than we expected. Riding up Turtle Rock in our neighborhood is much tougher!

We cruised down the back, past Coronado Golf Course, the Hotel Del Coronado, the Navy Seal Base, then down the Silver Strand to Imperial Beach. The Bayshore Bikeway is a great ride. We came back up through the Chula Vista Marina, the 32nd Street Naval Base, the NASSCO Shipyards, and back to Embarcadero Park for the after party. We made it at about 9:30, 2 hours for the ride.

There was Peet's Iced Tea, Carnitas and Fish Tacos, and plenty of Vitamin Water, various Teas, and Karl Strauss Brewery for consumption. A 3 "man" band called the "Blond Brothers Band" (ages 13, 14, and 20) entertained us. They were quite good. They said they had "ongoing technical difficulties" since they had no beer from the beer garden ;-)

We didn't win anything in the lottery drawing, so we left about 11:00 AM, then dropped by to shower and pick up Ziwi at David and Jill's and made it home about 2:00 PM.