and sun!

What a sweet day, great weekend, busy, but solid. Dan Williams & family stayed with us for the weekend and while it definitely is an adjustement to have 2 toddlers in the house - and an extra couple labs - had a lot of fun. We hit-up the Acquarium for the action on Saturday, then a friend's 40th birthday, beers were drank, good times had. Sunday we tackled the Mercury Brewing Highland Games in Topsfield. Andy, Brad, Justin and others were on-hand to drink many beers and participate in classic Scottish games of strength. The sun was shining, 200lbs of sand needed to be carried, hammers tossed, rocks flung, and cabers flipped. As the event continued various foods were brought-out for the participants and spectators ($10!). While I found myself outmatched in strength, Justin exploded on the scene and took the winner's cup (full of beer of course), from Andy who had outmatched the others 2 years ago. Dan out-walked everyone in the lightweight's sand carry and did well aginst the heavy's too... just good times, great folks. Our kilts had been fasioned that morning by a quick-sowing Jennifer (4 kilts/1 1/2 hours!), but she got it done with some old bedding - and while we were obviously the new kids at the Games, Jenn's efforts helped us fit-in!

Today we got-out for a freeride in Lynn Woods. Even though this doesn't have much to do with the ride itself, Jenn and I ski at Sugarbush with this really cool couple, Mike and Sarah, and they came-down to Highland Games yesterday which was cool. Anyway, Mike rips on tele-skis and has some real interesting past experiences with getting freaky on any scene involving ripping... anyway, Mike came-out today in Lynn after a 2 year hiatus from the bike. Sweet! Dude hadn't pedaled for 2 years and did just fine riding with a bunch of folks who are fanatics. Crazy. Here's hoping he gets back into it (i'll be calling him to ride, no escape!)... Andy's buddy John rode some insane shit. I watched. Andy made it all look easy even though feeling rough from the night before... I'm better suited for doing a more technical xc ride versus a freeride, but going-on any ride with folks who are far superior to you in any skillset really helps ya' try new things and build confidence... so I dig it. Rode the hardtail today too - with no vision correction - wanted to practice riding blind on the a bike that makes me choose good lines... got some confidence up on the smaller drops at the end of last year, would like to get that back this year. i have plenty of confidence doing anything on a race course, but when freeriding i think too much about the potential for crashes - just need to relax and need time out freeriding to get that. we'll see...

when I got home from the ride it was time to help Jenn clean-up from our houseguests, but still managed to get 90mins in on the indoor to really stretch the legs and open-up a bit after taking 2 days off. It's barely 9p, the windows are open, I'm beat, and it's not completely dark outside yet - finally, summer.