Jay Richards

School cranking up this week of course. Thursday was actually the first day all the kids went since they waited a few days before cutting the Kindergartners loose. I took the kids in this morning and the class situation looks great. Jens has the same Kindergartner teacher Jack had and also Jon when Callaway was in existence. All the kids have excellent teachers. Super positive and friendly. Although Jake said some of his teachers are cranky. I am still bummed about the Callaway closing two years ago...just because the enrollment is up for another year and question the facts/figures/vision of the superintendent/school board members had at the time. Jonell was PTA president at the time and along with other parents did what they could to keep it open but no dice.

Coming home on the bus the first day. Jens loves that of course.
Wednesday Lars and I did close to a 50 mile off road ride up to White Earth State Forest. Pretty much fast rolling forest roads and a little quad trail. Longest ride time and distance wise I have done in a month I think. Felt good to get that out of the system.
The quad trail is really overgrown. The chamomile nearly knocks you over if you get over to far.
Rode past Rainbow Resort. Good to see they will be hosting a JOQ race again.

Last time Lars was at Rainbow he was waving the flag nicely. Jake will probably do some J2 races and has a chance to make Nationals I guess which will be held at Truckee in March. They are doing some interesting planning to make the event more "green".



Tom Warner (thanks Tom!!) sent me this photo of Bruce Adelsman who took the above picture. Still looking for a picture of Bruce standing in the water at the bottom of the first lakeside drop.

Our cat has a lot of nerve. One of the highlights this summer has been all the hummingbirds. In a few days I am sure they will be heading south. I actually thought they would have packed their bags with the cold weather this week which has been awesome by the way. If I catch that cat....
Jonell's parents returned from Norway the other week having a fantastic trip Jonell's dad has been sending me some pics and of course they are beautiful. The photo below was taken in western Norway near Sognefjord. When we lived there, we spent a week with a family up in the mountains living on a farm. Incredible country. Hope to get back and visit some day. Would be fun to do the Norway Birkie or the Norway bike Birkie (similar to Cheq). It was held last weekend.
The latest on Cheq. now is Jonell and I are back doing the Short and Fat on the tandem. Jon too young. I called and left message on cell to Jonell. When she got home, she went out with Jens on Kids Comp and was cranking the Fuel and broke the chain. Then took out the pink resort cruiser and did some hill repeats on Suicide.
After the rain on Monday night combined with the dirt jump traffic over bike race weekend, the jumps are perfect right now. Lars is sticking the no footer quite nicely now. Says he wants to hit the gap jump before he goes back to Durango. We've been keeping Lars busy when we can with good cross training resort chores like rock picking, wood splitting moving stuff etc. Hopefully we can work on the new singletrack a bit. Drizzly weather.