Allen's Pig Roast Graduation Party

allen (a friend from wachusett ski patrol) graduated from nursing school and we celebrated! the day started off with an amazing mountain bike ride in leominster state forest. then we headed back to allen's house for a pig roast.

allen, the mountain biking nurse!

the pig in the roasting thing

the caterers cutting up the pig (yuck)

ari was a very happy boy!

the four of us who ate the pig's eyes and tongue
(i will tell this story in a future blog entry)

chip's house

south hampton, ny
this is one of my favorite place to be! ari seem to think the same thing.

ari, running in the water. ari has always been a very hesitant dog but as he is getting older he is becoming more confident and playful! he continually surprises me.

i think he is proud of himself for playing in the ocean!

curran and ella playing on the beach

princess ella

there are lots of things wrong with this picture, but i love it!
ari's eyes are watering, drool is dripping from his mouth (yuck), and the beautiful, rocky, new england, coast line is highly evident! ari is five years old. sometime it is hard to believe that i have had him so long. i can't imagine life without him. he is my best friend!

not from iowa

21 june 2008
19:45

endurance
south hampton, ny

shortly after coming through the shinnecock inlet into the bay, the coast guard boat turned on her lights and started following our boat. we immediately cut the engines and slowly came to a stop. after they rafted up against us, the young boys from iowa informed me that they would like to come aboard for a safety check (my first thought was why now? i am late for dinner, and i still need to get the boat through the locks. then i thought maybe one of the boys is from iowa!!). before i let them board i smiled and asked them where they were from. sometimes it is fun being a girl :) they looked at me like i was a little fruity, smiled, and then, one at a time, told me where they were from; texas, new hampshire, maryland, and pennsylvania. i was very disappointed, not one of them was from iowa... i must of had a disappointed look on my face because the maryland boy asked “why?” i, with a straight face, said, “i was hoping one of you was from iowa” and walked away to get the boat’s registration with a big smile on my face!

the safety check was uneventful, i was thankful that everything was on the boat and where it was supposed to be. the inspection took forever because the boat was 47 feet and their list went on and on. they checked everything except for our flares, because they said you need them during the day?? that did not make any sense to me.

i was boarded twice last summer and i am assuming most of you will get boarded some time this summer. if you find a uscg person from iowa, get your picture taken with them!

heaven!

make a cow happy, drink milk

Harpoon Brewery in Boston to the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vermont (B2B)
Saturday 14 June 2008

total miles - 147.5
total time - 8:34
average speed - 17.2mph
total climb - 7742 ft (according to my garmin)


prelude - before i signed up for the b2b ride, i had a friend check the elevation gain. he came back to me with a 3300 ft elevation gain so i decided to sign up. i knew i was not in great climbing shape and the idea of riding 145 miles was daunting enough without having to deal with tons of climbing. lesson learned - check the elevation of the ride yourself, don't listen to friends...

04:55 saturday morning, i rolled out of bed, put on my bike clothes, said goodbye to ari, and rode around the corner to matt's house. we then rode to the harpoon brewery, in south boston, at a leisurely pace (4 miles). my peloton was staging at 6:05 and starting at 6:15. when we arrived their were cyclist everywhere! i grabbed a bagel, while matt grabbed two muffins, and wondered over to the cycle loft tent to see if they could correct my shifting issues. while my bike was being worked on, matt proceeded to eat another muffin (i am not sure where he put it but it went down??). after my bike was sorta fixed (i still need to change the rear derailleur hanger, break cables, and other misc stuff...), we met up with cal and kent and went over to the staging area. then matt went back to the food area and ate another muffin! i would have been sick if i ate one muffin, somehow he was able to eat 4!!

the first 10 miles of the ride were uneventful except for the fact that we were going at 11mph?? the peloton captain was riding like we were on a picnic ride. eventually a few of us decided to lead a breakaway and we started riding at a better speed. at about mile 15 i decided we were going a little fast and i was afraid of bonking. matt decided to slow down with me. he pulled me to the first rest stop (46 miles in). we were averaging 17.8mph and i felt great! after eating a cliff bar and filling our water bottles, we left and started climbing (look a the elevation graph, #1 is where the rest stop was). then we just kept climbing! matt eventually took off (he is an amazing climber) and i kept a steady pace with a few guys i met earlier in the day. after what felt like forever we started going down! it was up and down for a while then around mile 93 we started another endless climb... before this climb i felt good. i was still able to eat and think (when riding distance your brain eventually goes to mush, i usually an unable to multiply double digit numbers in my head when this happens, all i can do is keep peddling). about three quarters of the way up the beast of a hill, the cycle loft support truck stopped and was giving out water and coke. a man was drinking a coke and he asked if anybody would like some. i reached out and took a few sips (only in cycling would you take a drink from a random stranger...)! i eventually made it to the top and started to descend to the next rest stop. when i rode in i found matt (he had bonked and did not look to good). i filled bottles again and tried to eat but nothing would stay down. i was really tired at this point (110 miles down) but i knew i could finish. matt and i stayed together for the next 20 miles and then we started climbing again (who would design a ride where you are still climbing at mile 133??). i was starting to lose it at this point and a guy rode up beside me and said "17 to go!", i snapped back with, "we have 7 to go", he then proceeded to tell me that the finish was at 147 miles. "shit" was the only thing that came out of my mouth! with seven to go i knew i had less than a half hour of this torture, with 17 to go i had another hour! needless to say, i kept riding and yes there is a hill at the end that really, really hurts to climb, but when you come over the hill, you roll down into the brewery parking lot!

when i went over the finish line i immediately gave my bike to whoever would take it. even though i love my bike, we needed some time apart...



- the title of this blog entry comes from a sign on a barn that made me smile during one of the horrendous climbs. this was a beautiful ride (once you left the city).

Il Moro Di Venezia 2008

21 may 2008 - 1 june 2008
st. thomas, st john, and the british virgin islands
belli presi bene!

i actually think this is matt's boat but we had the same one - 47 catamaran

st john - my favorite of the usvi's

francesco

francesco and george - i am not sure what i think of this picture. there was certainly a lot of love on our boat!

my first anchoring by myself!

bengerwin and felicita assembling the mit flags that ben, george, and i stole during dinner the night before. we were pirates, it was a lot of fun!!

luca and bengerwin

the flags proudly displayed!

ben, luca, gerome, conrad, brent, and antonio

luca and francesco giving george a little more love??

our dinghy line which we ran over three time...

our boat
ben, francesco, antonio, asbjorg, me, george, luca, felicita, laura, and luca