to bring you last night’s sunset, taken by balancing my camera on my side-mirror as I was driving down University Avenue in rushhour traffic—a technique I can’t recommend in good conscience. Pretty though.
Now back to wedding coverage, although it may be a while since I have 837 photos for the next couple entries.
Thursday was spent almost entirely outdoors, and occasionally under water, specifically the White Salmon River (i.e. glacial run-off). This is NOT warm water. That morning about 40 of the wedding guests headed to the town of White Salmon to Zoller’s Outdoor Odysseys, where we suited up for a 2-3 hour rafting trip. My boat contained Bryan, the parents and Rich and Karen Perzentka who are partially/completely blind respectively. This turned out to be to our advantage as our guide, who was very knowledgeable about the area, gave long descriptions about our surroundings. This did not however entitle us to a gentler ride as became extremely apparent about 2 minutes into the trip when my Dad and I, sitting in front, found ourselves submerged up to our necks in ice water! The class 2-4 rapids turned out to be a blast though and I didn’t really freeze until the end… which was a class 5 waterfall. The guide urged all of us to feel free to walk around the falls, but Karen’s response was “We haven’t really done anything exciting yet” so, after a bit of boat-switching, down we all went. It was not a dry experience. But super fun!
One coffee and long shower later we were off to the next event — a grill-out on Jen and Anil’s land (i.e. Duterland). Located outside of Snowden, WA, Duterland has about 20 acres of natural prairie surrounded by big trees and a phenomenal view of Mt. Adams. It was fun but weird to drive out to the middle of nowhere and find a field full of friends and family! Jen and Anil raise bees (10 hives) as part of an agricultural deferral program, and it was fascinating to learn a little bit about beekeeping. They’re also building a yurt, so the 8-foot high storage platform served as a shelter as the sun went down and things got a little chilly. It’s possible the homemade honey mead and beer helped warm us up a little too — despite the freezing temps everyone seemed to have a good time. Thanks to Tom, Lona, Justin and Bryan for the Duterland photos!
The “next event”, as referenced below, was the wedding of JenO (now JenD) and Anil out in Hood River, OR. I supposed I should actually start with the wedding shower I hosted, along with Stacey, Maria, Marlene, Mary and my mom, back in June. Friends, neighbors and family (am I the tallest?!?) turned out for a fun luncheon, complete with bee trivia and wonderful gifts for the newlyweds to-be.
But the real event was Sept. 23 — we flew out to Portland the preceding Tuesday and spent a fun night at the Kennedy School, an old grade school purchased by the McMenamins which now houses 35 guest rooms fashioned from former classrooms (complete with original chalkboards), a fun restaurant, multiple bars, a movie theater, soaking pool, and brewery. And is conveniently located about a mile from Jen’s house.
Wednesday we had an excellent breakfast at the Tin Shed, went for tours of both Jen’s and Anil’s homes and then headed east out to Hood River. It’s a beautiful drive along the gorge with mountains, waterfalls and kiteboarders everywhere you look. We arrived at the condo my brothers and I had rented for the rest of the week and it too was fantastic… three large bedrooms, three full bathrooms and all the comforts of home at a very reasonable cost. From there it was off to tour part of the “Fruit Loop“, some thirty vineyards and orchards in the Hood River area. Still full from the huge Tin Shed breakfast, I declined to go out to dinner, but the rest of the group went out to the 6th Street Bistro, which was reportedly very good.
Sunday, September 10th, marked the fifth Ironman Wisconsin event held in Madison and this year we were pretty excited since I had signed up my sister JenO last year (at her request). I designed shirts for the support crew (front | back), Jen arrived with a few days to prepare, Anil flew in the day before to surprise (understatement) her, we all carbo loaded in preparation for the big day and all was well come Sunday morning. Save for the weather.
Dressed in our blaze orange shirts and long underwear, we all showed up for the 7 a.m. start and cheered for Jen as she swam 2.4 miles in Lake Monona, coming out of the water in the top 500 men and women’s combined. She looked strong and determined, and it was fun to watch the peelers (headed by our friend Rob) help the athletes struggle out of their wetsuits. Jen hopped on her bike, and started out on the 112-mile bike segment, and Bryan and Anil and I went for breakfast and coffee, commending ourselves for getting up so early and cheering, tough work that it was. We caught her again on the bike in Middleton and on both loops in Verona, the latter of which was definitively torture. The bikers had to head straight into 20-25 mph winds and a steady drizzle to return to Madison and we later learned that Jen decided to quit on mile 109. Who could blame her – her feet had been numb for 8 hours and finishing the swim and bike were accomplishments in themselves. For reasons unknown though, she decided to keep going on mile 111 and we were happy and relieved to see her coming up the Monona Terrace helix into the transition area. Twenty minutes past and again, I thought perhaps she had called it a race. As it turns out she was getting a footrub by a sympathetic volunteer so that she could get the blood back into her feet. That accomplished, the volunteer gave Jen a plastic bag to wear and she was off to run the marathon portion of the race.
The drizzle soon turned to a steady rain but it was fun to surprise Jen with the arrival of Carol and Ravi from Michigan (Anil’s mom and brother) when we saw her again around mile 8. Several of us went to dinner on State St. as the sun went down, and although I was convinced that was the way to go last year, it’s harder to go in and eat soup and warm pizza when your sister is the one outside running in the rain. We eventually saw her again at mile 13 and she still looked strong even though many of the people around her were not looking so good. We later heard tales of torn tendons, horrific bike accidents, severe hypothermia and even a snapped femur. Bryan and I ended up going for a brisk walk just to warm ourselves up and then headed up to the finish line near the capitol. As usual there was great music playing and hundreds of people cheering on the finishers, although the crowd was a little subdued compared to past years, most likely due to us all being wet and partially frozen. Relatives and friends unexpectedly started showing up and when Jen crossed the finish line we all cheered, cried (i.e. mom) and tried not to slip on the wet bleachers. We raced down to find Jen, who seemed strangely unharmed by the days’ events and in good spirits. Photos were taken and we headed home, but not before returning one of the finishers to the Monona Terrace, who we found wandering around cold, confused and lost. A 6-time Ironman finisher, she said the weather here in Madison was the worst she had ever encountered and it had clearly taken it’s toll.
Great debates then followed discussing whether this year’s miserable weather was better or worse than 2005’s 95° heat. A topic which apparently is irrelevant given registration for Ironman Wisconsin 2007 opened the following day and all 2500 spots were sold out in 45 minutes, $500 registration fee not withstanding. Mine was not among them. Kudos to JenO for surviving the elements and even running a good race. On to the the next event…
I’ve got half a dozen major entries coming down the pike but am waiting on photos, camera cables and evenings with nothing to do so it may be a while. In the meantime I’d like to hopefully improve your life by directing you to Skin Deep, a site run by the Environmental Working Group which does environmental investigations, one part of that being extensive research on popular health & beauty products. A surprising (and disturbing) number of which are toxic. I became interested in all this after getting acutely sick this spring while using a skin cream I purchased online, which turned out to be high enough in mercury to contaminate the whole detection system at the Wi State Hygiene Lab to the point where it had to be disassembled and cleaned. Not good. At any rate, I’m now fine and a slightly wiser consumer. There’s a section where you can look up safety ratings for specific cosmetic products, so take a few moments to check out what you’re slathering on your face in the morning.
