Maria and Bill's wedding

High today (PIT): 64 F

Low today (PIT): 43 FMy sister getting hitched brought me back to the 'burbs of Pittsburgh for a couple of weeks in this odd time of October. The celebration got all 7 of us (plus in-laws) together for the first time in over 3 years. It was an absolute blast and I have never seen so many people on a dance floor at the wedding. My 5 year old niece Rosalie was the best at the reception - she partied with us until the second to last song before passing out in her dad's arms. Rosalie and her little sister Gretchen were flower girls and were adorable in their princess outfits of which they were extremely proud of. My friend Matt drive from New Mexico to come to the wedding before relocating back to Happy Valley for a few months. I saw relatives whom I haven't seen in years. Chaos I tell you, chaos. I am going to be ready for a vacation after this. Some of these photos are mine, some of them I stole from friends/family.

Maria and Bill after the ceremony ready to party.

Gretchen and Rosalie in their princess outfits.Fa la cool and the gang... this is a professional shot of my immediate family, in-laws (or outlaws?), and niecelets.

My sisters and Rosalie. These girls are hysterical when all together.

There was dancing..More dancing..And even more dancing!

Aurora Lit Tolovana Hot Springs

High today: 36 F (FAI)
Low today: 14 F (FAI)

We're going on an adventure!!! To Tolovana Hot Springs!!!

Holy cow! My body feels like I just ran a marathon, but I didn't expect anything less for the weekend since I haven't carried a pack since May and picked a not-necessarily-easy hike to start back up. Nine of us hiked out 11 miles on a sheet of ice and dirt to Tolovana Hot Springs where winter is trying to stay... to enjoy good company, hot spring tubs, and the simplicities of life in a cabin. (ok, there was a radio, an OVEN and range top, and even a guitar in our cabin...) Friday night we didn't get to the cabins until 1am. The hike was very tricky in the dark being that it was in fact a sheet of ice. Moreso, I kept slowing down to turn off my headlamp and look at the crystal clear sky. What was even better is that what was just stars evolved into a faint green aurora straight ahead. It got brighter at one point too which made me hike reallly slowly. haha. Having a day to relax those muscles and enjoy fun friends was a good buffer before hiking the 11 miles back out.

Above is my buddy, Kristen. We have known each other for 3 years now after meeting when we both worked as summer interns in Anchorage! This was our first adventure together since... well, I think the first summer I was here, really!Josh, Melissa and Kristen hanging out in their cabin.Here's everybody except Shake who was taking the photo!

Later that night, we made the mistake of letting Joel take care of the fire. All of a sudden it was as hot as the hot springs in our cabin with the door open!!! I could not believe it.

Water, anyone? If we get giardia we are all going down together....Luckily by morning the cabin cooled down a little bit.Ashlee and Joel brought a smorgasbord of deliciousness for breakfast! Of course that meant we had to do the dishes. :-PWe had the log cabin.. it was a pretty fun place up on the hill.

Andy, Katie and Ashlee enjoying a morning soak before hitting the trail.Time to hit the trail again! Too bad we can't stay longer.Picture below is Joel's but it is my fav of everyone's hiking photos.Our way out seemed icier than coming in, but I was glad to be able to see more than 20 feet ahead!
The scenery was pretty awesome despite the lack of snow. It was very refreshing to just get out, and I am still breathing in a good high from the trip. It was very satisfying to know that I am pretty much back to normal and can do physical activity again. Time to live it up! Joel above on the ridgeline and Ashlee and Katie below coming down the trail.

The last mile or so of the trail was beautiful. There was hoar frost all over the trees and it actually looked like it should look this time of year! Big thanks to everyone who made the weekend! It was a blast and can't wait to do it again.

Time to get down to the lower 48.... so excited to see everyone. Are those wedding bells I hear????

(some photos are courtesy of Kristen and Andy and Joel/Ashlee!)

My awesome job.

High today: 37 F
Low today: 17 F

A few photos from recent happenings.. been working a crapload lately to balance out the time I am about to take off but it is still easy to appreciate the little things...

I have been launching weather balloons for my research. I've gotten two out of three nights of launches out of my way and now do not need to stress out if I miss a clear night for a couple of weeks. Last spring was very tough trying to schedule anything because I would be basically "on call" for four months. The same is true now but it has all worked out very nicely. I am not concerned at all about scheduling trips on the weekends now because chances are we will get at least one more clear and calm night in November. This week's launches were fun because both nights I had some friends come down who wanted to see a wx balloon launch. Below is Adrienne launching one of my balloons.

Dani came down a couple of nights later with Bill and was having a blast.

The second night of launches the aurora decided to show its lovely face for me right outside the door. :-) I proceeded to call a bunch of people to let them know but was sad when the aurora quieted back down not even ten minutes later!!
...to something more like this...... but hey, let's face it.. once upon a time this green glow would have been a crazy deal to me!!
Where I launch my weather instruments at, the NPS is testing a bunch of stations that will be going out in the field. Someone was a little bit freaked out by them because they are all sitting there staring you in the face. Another professor in my department also set up his sodar which makes music! The music gets pretty obnoxious after a little while.... I was hearing it in my sleep one night which did not make me very happy.
Below is a radiosonde, the instrument which is launched with each weather balloon.. it measures temperature, pressure, and relative humidity, and then a bajillion other variables can be calculated through those measurements. Pretty fun toy, huh?!

First snow!

Yesssssssssssss! We had our first snow! (the first flurries were on the 22nd - just one day after average.) Not going to lie, I was a little torn about whether or not to want snow yet. On one side I was thinking about all the non-snow activities I might still be able to squeeze in once my knee recovers enough to play again, but on the other end, deep down inside, I was ok with the snow. I think that is a good sign to still get great joy out of the sight of the beautiful fluffy stuff whether in small flurries or in a horrendous snowstorm. Because hey, wherever you are living, you chose to live there. Why not rejoice in what you're given? I have never been around so many snow lovers and it makes it all the better.

Some flowers sport a couple of inches of snow in Delta.

Feels like summer never happened!

My friend Jenny gave me this plant on Easter of this past year and it finally produced a flower and opened on the first day of snow!

The only visitor we had was one of the flying kind...

Chucking bike frames

A couple of weeks ago we had a "frame throwing contest" at Adam's bday party. A frame you say - a picture frame?? Nope.. old, rusty bike frames that are no longer usable. What a flashback to undergrad days! Haha. Thanks to Brandy for the photos!

I won 1st place in the women's division thanks to good luck and unknown frame throwing skills.. yesssssss! Adam and I show off our awards.

And why such a flashback to undergrad?? Oh, you know.. mini-bike races.. and misc other things... here is a buddy from undergrad, Rich, jumping into very cold water on a 35 degree day at a race in Massachusetts circa '06.. I remember this one so vividly! We got him to go in twice! And yes, that's me giggling like a goof in the background..

Keep Pushin'

Bike mileage: 18

13 mph...14 mph...15 mph...14 mph... ok, it looked like I was going to crawl along at 14 mph comfortably on flat road. On a road bike on flat road that is a pretty poor pace, but what mattered was that I was spinning, and my legs needed to adjust to what seemed so unnatural.

3 months and 1 day since I have been able to bike on real ground without having any pain. But on this day, 20 days after surgery, I did it and did it well. Today I was very hesitant to go on the LOL ride today after having a slightly "down" morning with the knee. But it seems that pain while walking around is not translating over to pain while biking. So on this, my first bike ride more than 5 miles in over 3 months, I was able to bike the full 18 miles of the LOL ride without a flinch of knee pain. Nothing was catching in there.. nothing hurt. It was then that I decided the knee surgery really was a success because I am able to do what makes me thrive. About a third of the way through the ride I was able to pick up the pace a couple of mphs, but nothing like I was able to do comfortably back in June. I'm not really used to going slow.. not even when commuting... I like to feel the wind in my face. It's more of a game to me than anything seeing how fast I can go down a hill. But today I was not worried about bringing in the rear because I was focused on not pushing too hard and enjoying the aroma of the falling leaves and what color is still left in the hills... not to mention being extremely thankful that I could bike and not hurt. The things we take for granted! Ballaine Hill gave me hell getting up it, but it didn't hurt. Slow and steady was the game. My butt hurt halfway through the ride for the first time in many many years. My muscles were asking me what the heck I was doing to them. But it all felt very good. I let 'er rip down Ballaine Hill and got to a max speed of 39 mph before thinking about the cracked helmet from June's bad bike crash (pre-injury) sitting in my house.. which prompted me to give the brakes a little bit of love.

Celine came along too and we respectively represented our alma maters.. whose teams are football enemies. :) Goooooooo Nittany Lions!
I spent the first half of the ride talking with Lindy, and we found we had a ton of similiarities. She wrote a very nice write up on her blog. The next two photos I've stolen from her. :)

The LOLs, Ladies of Leisure, are a group of women who ride every Thurs in town and are what their name suggests. Though, I think they are 5 times faster than they were in early June when I last rode with them! The best part about them other than their love of cycling is that their rides are focused around what food people bring for the end of the ride. :) Glad we have our priorities straight!

It's good to be back before the snow flies!

The smell of autumn

Autumn has come and is about to go! One windy night and the leaves will be all gone. We got some rain yesterday that wiped a lot of the leaves down, but there are still a few hanging on. The smell of dying plants and high bush cranberries is rather pungent this time of year, sending one into a sense of euphoria.. errr at least to someone who likes this time of year! Breathe in it, suckers! It won't be here for long. Soon it will be skis and fat tired bikes. Not such a bad thing...
Steve, Cameron and I took on the Upper Chena yesterday and barely made it back to shore before dark. The Upper Chena is much calmer than the Chatanika but still pretty and had a few sweepers and small waves. We got caught in two rain showers in the 18 mile float, but honestly being caught in a rain shower means I was getting out, and that is always a good thing. Despite the lack of sunshine we still had a nice time enjoying the fall colors and laughing about the stuff we could have used that was accidentally left in the car.
Winter is looming.. at work I checked out the weather models and our first chance for snow is either the 22nd or 23rd. Did I mention how much I love snow?!

I spy something silver in the trees! Could it be the Silver Bullet???? :)

Bike some, ice knee well, repeat!

Chillin' on the Chatanika

Hoooooray! After feeling very down for a lot of this weekend because of perfect weather (70 and sunny, doesn't get better than that.) and inability to enjoy it fully AND knowing that last year on this weekend I had the most scenic bike trip ever, Erica and Steve invited me on a float trip up on the Chatanika. I was totally pumped about this, because I have been fighting with a semi-handicapped-ness in the sense that I am able to get around just fine and walk, but not for very long - so mentally I am in a go-go-go mood but my legs are like - "what the crap are you trying to do?! I still have stitches in me! You should be sitting down and wasting time away watching movies!" So, a less than 3 hour float on a new river was just up my ally. I sat there and barked orders at my paddling chauffeurs and provided commentary... and Twizzlers.

Colors are at their peak right now. But the good news is I get another (east coast!) autumn in October..... mmm speckled trees! Remembering that makes me not feel so bad about missing a few of my favorite weeks of the year here.

Erica was our guide. She used to be a canoeing guide down in Georgia so I trusted her with my life to not knock us in the water. So I guess this was a bit risky of a trip for me because it would blow chunks to have fallen out caught up in a sweeper without full swimming capabilities, but it was a risk I was very willing to take for this last beautiful weekend of the year. Everything worked out. But it sure was an exciting float trip. There were a lot of sweepers, tight turns, fast-moving water, and small rapids. A lot of stories didn't get finished because Erica and Steve would get distracted by more-intense-than-usual manuevers.

Cam tried so hard to nap on the trip but it was a bit too bumpy for him to pass out.. though it looks like he is below.

Thumbs up for floating something more exciting than the usual! I could get into this.

We made contact with a few trees... err.. maybe 4 or 5 total.. there were 3 in a row that we could not avoid. I was able to get my sunglasses on, sweatshirt hood up, and get down to canoe level but Cam shows some damage below from the sweeper contact. He was such a trooper!

I took a ton of pictures with Steve's fancy camera so once I get them from him I'll post more of the colors. In the meantime, my camera is at a near-death state.. moreso now because it got some water damage. It decided to turn on today (by itself), and let me grab these photos, so maybe it needs another day to dry out. Maybe it's just going to malfunction from now on. Meh, now's not the time to buy a new one so hopefully it will make it through another few months! This blog would suck without pictures!

Walk. Don't Run.

I got the nicest package in the mail today from some friends back in PA. The best part about it is that there were grilled stickies from The Diner in State College in it! Yummmmm. You know I am attracted to free food. In undergrad I was able to find a free lunch or dinner several times a week. Not so much here at the small university. Anyway.. too bad the package couldn't be retrieved on the 29th when it actually got here. Good thing is, the stickies are still absolutely delicious. :) Lots of other bum-around things in the package too!I've been taken care of really well by the friends I've been staying with. Anna has not only graciously invited me into her home (with running water!) but has been cooking for me as well. Here is one of my earlier meals when I was not able to keep much food down. The zucchini came out of my "garden". :) I can't tell you how miserable recovery would have been at the cabin for many reasons. I will spare you those details.
Here is a picture of Celine, Ashlee, Joel and Celine's parents visiting from the midwest, the day before surgery. Joel and Celine have been popping in and out of the place I'm stayinsg at. It has been nice getting random visitors.

Susitna registration is open!

Registration for the Susitna 100 and Lil' Su 50k is open.

....who's with me?!!!!!!!!!!!
(p.s. let's ignore the fact that I'm still using a crutch. It's 5 months away!)