Sea Otter Classic

There is an annual mountain and road biking race that takes place in Monterey, CA every April. It is a four day event with multiple races and competitions and a festival area with lots of vendors selling and demonstrating their products.

There are multiple races that happen throughout the long weekend that takes place at Laguna Seca, a race course usually used for auto vehicles, and across the mountain trails surrounding the area.

Brett, myself and a couple friends headed down for a full day of spectating and to check out the vendors that are stationed at the festival.

In the morning we found a really great spot to stand along the course and watch the racers compete in the downhill competition. After that was finished, we headed over to the festival to check out all the latest and greatest gear.

There was everything you could think of from socks, to helmets, to bike pieces, protein bars and so much more. We walked out of there with multiple bags completely full of swag and goodies.

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Yosemite National Park

Well here they are, here are some of the amazing scenic shots that I got this past Memorial Day weekend in Yosemite National Park. When I first uploaded all the pictures from my different cameras, I had a little over 300 {yikes!} I went through to delete the duplicates and pick the best ones. Now I am down to about 200 but that is still a lot. Let me tell you, it was a very tough choice to choose just a few favorites to show you because every single one was amazing and does not give the park as much credit as it deserves. This is definitely a must see place regardless if you feel you are an "outdoorsy person" or not, trust me!

Let's start from the beginning though, shall we? We arrived just south of the park entrance around 11 on Saturday morning, we took a quick stop at the place we were staying since it was on the way to ask a couple questions and use the restroom, then it was back in the car and off we go - or so we thought.. the road up to the park is a one lane either side windy road that as soon as we rounded a corner we immediately came to a complete stop and then sat in traffic for two hours, moving a couple inches every so often. That was kind of a bummed out way to start the trip but we were both so excited the time went by pretty quickly. Once we got into the park we took the first parking spot we could find and grabbed the bikes and off we went. We biked around the valley floor as the clouds and rain went on and off. We were determined not to let anything ruin our first day. The lower Yosemite falls was our first stop as we took the bikes all the way to the falls and locked them to a tree. It was so incredible to be standing so close to the waterfall and feel all the mist blowing over you from the falls. Then as the afternoon went on we decided to get back in the car and drive up to a couple of the famous look out spots; Tunnel View and Glacier Point. It seemed a lot of people had the same idea we did and it was pretty crowded but the low hanging clouds made for some interesting photos. On the way down from Glacier Point we even caught a glimpse of the sun setting! We arrived back at the house we were staying at to check in with the others, eat some dinner and get ready for tomorrow.

Sunday we had big plans, a long adventurous all day hike through Yosemite. That is the next post though, so stay tuned for that :] Monday morning we were dragging a little to get up and get going but it was beautiful perfect weather and we had reservations for horseback riding so we made it into the valley stables in good time. The horseback ride was a two hour ride through one of the trails to Mirror Lake. For me, it was a little disappointing and not quite what I expected but it was still fun  much and it was nice to take a ride and enjoy some more scenery before leaving. My horse's name was Vicki and she was sweet but a little stubborn in that she didn't like to wait or stop for the rest of the group she just wanted to keep going. Brett had a mule named Fred who was also great and didn't cause too much trouble. After the ride was over we went through a couple of shops in Curry Village and sat outside to have some {late} lunch. Then we had kind of a long trek back to the car to get out of Yosemite and make the long drove home.

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going off the grid

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn {okay, 6.30am} Brett and I are heading off to Yosemite for Memorial Day Weekend! We have been looking forward and preparing for this all week. I haven only been to Yosemite once in my life and I was very little with my family so I don't remember much. But today is crunch time so I am grocery shopping, finishing up laundry, packing up, charging; cameras, cell phone's, ipad's you name it.

We have a big all day hike planned for Sunday so this week I have been trying to load up on protein, also I haven't had any soda {ok, I cheated once at lunch} lots and lots of water and keeping the exercise pretty light this week as I don't want to be sore before I even get there. We also have a 2 hour horseback ride booked on Monday that I am really looking forward to because it is something I always loved and used to do when I was younger. Unfortunately, the weather report says rain on Saturday when we arrive so we are just going to play it by ear for what we want to do. Also, we cleaned out Brett's explorer with shock vac and all because if there is one crumb of food in there a bear will smell it and rip the car apart to get to it. {no seriously} There have been so many stories about this happening, I even heard a bear ripped open a car because there was gum on the floor - yikes! At least we took care of that earlier in the week. All that is left today is the finishing touches.

Here are some of my pictures as I am still finishing up packing. I hope you all have a wonderful 3-day weekend with your family and friends. This weekend... we are going off the grid and I will see you when I am back to civilization!

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cinco de mayo festivities

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day with lots of sunshine! In the morning through lunch time I went round to the local community pool my parents and I belong to. I swam there on the team until I was 18 as well as coached and gave private swim lessons every summer for about 5 years (also where i met Brett!) Anyway so they were having a little party with strawberry margaritas, and gin fizz's and lots of great snacks. After it was over we decided it was such a beautiful day we went back on our bikes to get swim suits and towels, make our own batch of margaritas and took them back to the pool to take a little swim and then tan a little. Then as the sun was starting to go down it was back into normal clothes and off to find some delicious tacos, the one picture above was a $1 street taco Brett tells me was delicious! I had my own fish tacos later with of course another margarita close by. I also decided to take my new light faded ripped jeans from Zara and my new neon yellow shoes out for some fun, what do you think? I hope you all have a fabulous week ahead!

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RedBull Ride + Style Competition

As a last minute, spur of the moment, 11am on a Saturday,  Brett "kidnapped" me and took me up to SF to watch this RedBull Ride + Style competition. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it was a beautiful day in the city so why not? By the time we got up there, the free style competition was just starting. There was a course set up right in front of the Ferry Building and there was artwork painted on the ramps by local SF artists - very impressive. There were about 30 riders or so who were invited to participate and it was split up into 4 heats. The judges would then pick the top 10 from each heat and let them compete again for the chance to be crowned the winner. As the heats went on, the riders became more impressive. Oh wait, I forgot to mention, this style of riding is called fixed gear, which means you are riding in only one gear and you do not have any brakes. That's right, no brakes my friends, so your feet must keep pedaling if your back tire is spinning and your feet are clipped in for "safety" {at least that's what I'm told.}

Anyway, it was extremely impressive the tricks that these guys could perform while riding fixed, one of the riders {turned out to be the winner!} even managed to do a back flip over the big ramp. Pretty impressive if you ask me. We stayed for the entire competition and were in awe of these guys. They were just all lucky that the weather was so warm and beautiful to allow this event to take place, because San Francisco weather has a mind of its own, that is for certain. I actually took about 80 pictures that day, some not so impressive and others were pretty amazing. I am sharing with you some of my favorites from the afternoon.

{note: these pictures were all taken by me and are not to be used elsewhere without any written permission, thanks!}

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