Finally a weekend together in the White Mountains. We met a cool couple to ride with first thing, Shawn and Brigid, and then we napped, ate and had a camp fire. The next day we prerode the Xterra course that we were going to do this next weekend and ended up walking more then riding because no one had done any trail maintenance on the course, so that talked us into saving our money and going to SanDiego this weekend to ride and surf and say screw racing because we both have this weekend off. We are both getting the ocean itch and need to be in the water again. We leave Friday for Cali, stay tuned for some water shots.

Got Trees?

Technical in spots.

Havin fun riding on my new bike.

Brigid, Shawn, Me and Kevin!

Me and Kevin riding!

Campfire at night with friends we met, Shawn and Brigid.

Dessert, Yum smores.

Dinner!

Breakfast!

Camping at the White Mountains.

I finally get a few days to breathe. On Thursday I started a 3 day pre-session that I thought was going to be just your basic, meet everyone, conference style gathering to get us prepared for the real thing, was I ever wrong. It ended up being three 9 plus hour intense days with 4 hour readings per night, tests and a 5 page paper, welcome to the MBA program. And for all of that I officially completed one credit hour. Tuesday night was the first "official" night of class, class is 4-10 p.m. every tuesday night, the program consists of 6 trimesters each lasting 13 weeks, one class runs the entire 13 weeks (this semester it's financial accounting), another last 6 weeks (Leading people in organizations) and another last 7 weeks (Marketing Management) for a total of 9 credit hrs per trimester never taking more than 2 classes at a time. That means I'll graduate in May 2009 after completing 54 credit hours, its going to be brutal but I'm psyched to do it. I've also been taking classes to get my Arizona real estate license, its 90 hours of class work then you have to take a test with the certifying company then an AZ state test. I've only got about 6 more classes so I should be able to test around mid June. Spring and I are heading to the White Mountains this weekend, it finally worked out for us to have a weekend off together. The plan is to rage on some singletrack, camp, catch some fish and drink some beer, shouldn't be a problem.

Here are some some pics my friend Sarah gave me. Dirty girl!

Me and Jake at the start.

Me and Sarah after race, after a few to many shots.

Mark, Molly, Nora and Todd before the race.

Do you think this will be enough food for 50 miles?

In four days I raced 50 miles on my mountain bike, hung out with friends and camped in Prescott, camped at Fort Tutthill in Flagstaff, finding out there was a Ziggy Marley concert right beside it, that I got to watch for free, mountain biked one of my favorite trails in Flagstaff with my friend Meryl, and hiked Picacho Peak on my way home. I had to go to work today just to get some rest. Kevin had to go to school all weekend but we are planning a trip again this Memorial Day weekend to the White Mountains or somewhere with water and cool temps.

From the top into the sun.

From the Top of Picacho looking at the steep shadow.

Half way up Picacho Peak. These birds were waiting for me to lose my footing.

I always wanted to do Picacho Peak because it is just outside of Pheonix, but we are always in a hurry to get home or out of the heat. Well around 5:00PM last night when I was driving home, I was not ready to end my little vacation so I stopped. I made it to the top and down within two hours and it was beautiful, I was the only one up there. I can't believe we always drive past, this is worth the stop.

While I was sitting here on the side of the trail, I heard something, I looked up and it was a deer. It ran so I missed the shot, but is was a perfect day Mountain biking.