To do so we spent the night in Crystal River, Florida.  It is a small town about 90 minutes north of Tampa.  This place is known for its nearly 80 springs which provide a consistent 72 degree water year round.  In the winter, hundreds of manatee flock there due to the warm temperatures.  And, as always, Bree and I had to kayak somewhere.  So why not with the manatee?

I’ve been on a quest ever since California to find an orange growing on an actual tree.  We failed in California.  We failed in Hawaii.  But Florida?  Oh they are abundant.  We saw dozens of orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees lining the canal.  Too bad nobody was out or we would have paid them to pick one.

The entrance to Three Sister’s Springs.  This was probably the most beautiful piece of nature that I have ever seen (is there a better way to say that?).  It was really low tide so it was very hard to navigate the kayak up the channel due to the current and large rocks, but we finally made it.  The water is was amazingly clear.

A lot of the manatee hung out in the protected area (upper left), and would come in and out to hang out with the people.  They were remarkably friendly.  Definitely not afraid of people.  Bree even petted one (and I did too).  I was surprised at how big a lot of them were.  All of the pictures that turned out were of small ones, but some of them had to be eight or nine feet long.  I swear half of the sea cow filled up our camera lens.

We also kayaked out into King’s Bay.  It was really low tide, so there were a large number of boats stranded on the bay’s various shores.

The last picture is a boat docked next to an island bird refuge.  They have subsequently taken residence on the boat.  Not any of the other boats – just this one.

We have long wanted to get into mountain biking, but her lack of a respectable bike has made it somewhat difficult.  I thus did the contract work unbeknownst to her in September, and kept the prize (a Cannondale F9) in my parents’ garage.

The bike is beautiful (though I cannot say the same about the seat) – full SRAM components, lockout front shocks and a full disc setup.  Anyway, she was surprised.  That’s what mattered.

We spent Christmas eve together.  I was a total chef and made the samosas, while Bree made the traditional Christmas Eve curry.  She got me a pretty new hat.

Anyway, we should have communicated better on the stocking front.  We both bought each other candy.  Coincidentally we must have similar taste, because we bought the same candy for each other.  That said, we have mounds of junk in our kitchen – once you add in the goods from the neighbors and other family events.

We spent the night previous Christmas eve with my family.  We opened presents, had egg-nog, and played some hardcore Beatles rock band.  To the horror of all, my mom brought home the game Curses.  Let’s just say that our family doesn’t belong in the drama department as such a game requires.

I was particularly impressed with how much respect the British soldiers were paid.  Their graves were marked and decorated everywhere.

We then headed down to Walden Pond, which happened to be about 4 miles away.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  It was quite interesting that Thoreau wasn’t really out in the middle of nowhere.  He was in plain view of the railroad (according to the plaque), and was only about a 30 minute’s walk to his parents’ house.  Nevertheless, it was far enough.  We rode our bikes around the pond.  This pond is now on my top 5 favorite places list, in spite of our being about a week and a half early.

Freaky train.  That thing was absolutely flying.  Bree’s unnatural and unjustified fear of trains doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon (her words not mine)

Thoreau’s cabin site.  Including the chimney.  Needless to say, it wasn’t very big.

Bree showed me how to use the F-stop control to get better color out of our camera.  That’s why today’s pictures look so legit.

Next we took our bikes onto Battlefield Road.  It was kind of solemnizing to think that this stuff actually happened where we were standing – that on that narrow little road 1600 British troops marched through.  It was also amazing that the minutemen weren’t hundreds of feet away picking the soldiers off like you see in paintings, but right up next them – behind walls and boulders 50 ft away and out of the houses which were even closer.

An old house foundation.  A wounded British soldier was found lying on the porch there.  The family took him in to dress his wounds.

Colonialists built these walls while clearing fields.  They make great self-portrait shelves.  This one was taken at ye olde tavern.

To make a long story shorter, we’ll skip the details on the cemetery that Bree liked in Concord.  Following that we headed over to the Boston temple for some initiatories.

Bree thinks the architecture is very fitting to the area.  We capped the day off with a nice session of flying trapeze.  It was awesome, and much more relaxing than one might expect.  Kind of like skydiving.

For some reason Bree likes this one.  So whatever.  I throw it in.

Bree with the Purple Uni and me with my Red Rocket.  In front of a kitchen supply barn.  They unfortunately do not have bathrooms there.  Needless to say, our road bikes are sorely missed. 

On what is probably the single best road-ride on the freaking planet.

The burning bush

A sweet barn

Too bad I don’t have time to ride her…  She is beautiful though.

• 21 credits of engineering electives/mathematics courses.  This includes such glamorous titles such as “CPU Design Lab”, “Parallel Programming”, “Scientific Visualization”, “Discrete Structures and Mathematics”, “Low Level Computing Systems” and many others.  It’s either that or postpone graduation until a YEAR from December, as opposed to May.  Considering the potential income lost, a conservative price tag for postponing graduation would be in the neighborhood of $19,000 (less taxes).  That puts things into perspective.
• A thesis that I have no clue about.  Enough said.
• Work at 20 hours per week.  Otherwise we lose benefits and tuition reimbursement.  Again a wise investment to keep.
• LotoJa.  At least that day of reckoning is only two weeks out.  Still a little nervous about it, though.

It is obvious that this schedule WILL be detrimental to my health and well being.  I think it’s worth it for just two more semesters though.  I suppose I’ll just have to hold on tight and see how this goes…

It was a long night before the ride.  Following my Wasatch Boulevard tour on Thursday, I came down with what has made me the sickest I have been since high school.  I have had a fever for three days now and have woken up (or remained awake, rather) in cold sweats for two or three nights straight.  Having not been able to remember how this “being sick” business has felt, I can now sympathize with poor Miss Bree who comes down with everything.  Anyway, I wasn’t going to let that deter me from riding one hundred miles in one go.  Stupid me.

The ride was absolutely beautiful.  I didn’t realize there was that much space up in Logan.  We would go around mountains to open up to little sub-valleys completely expansed by safflower fields.  There were even a couple of lakes that we passed.  Luckily for me, it wasn’t a horribly difficult century.  It was relatively flat and very low key.  All of the riders were horribly friendly – to the point where groups would form on the road among solo riders.  It was also interesting to see the caliber of people there.  A ton of people that were 60+ riding both the 60 mile and 100 mile rides, people with mountain bikes, people that I wouldn’t so much classify as in-shape, and then there were the average cyclists and even the pros.  It was such a good mix – I think it is going to become an annual event (especially considering the price point).  It was very well organized in terms of rest stops which had their own variety of snacks at each one.  I was just very impressed – considering what we paid to ride it.

Kirk, Bree, and I in good old Preston, Idaho

Long story short, Kirk and I finished the 100 mile route and Bree finished the metric century.  I’m so freaking proud of her – she hasn’t ridden more than 20 or 25 miles at all this year in one sitting – and that only once or twice.  She just pounded through it and gave me the support I need by participating.  Good job Miss Bree.

Bree’s grandparents have a timeshare on a houseboat at Lake Powell – so all of the Fotheringhams went down to hang out for the week.  Being a working man (and Bree a working woman) with big kid jobs – we weren’t able to make it down until Thursday.  A few days there plus a night in Parowan and it was at least a final escape.

Thanks to the Fotheringham’s uber-nice boat, we got a chance to do a little skiing, wakeboarding, and surfing.  Yes.  Surfing.  Bree is awesome at it.  I am not.  Nor am I any good at wakeboarding. Proof follows.

The final day was spent in the Red Hollow slot canyon accessed from Orderville, Utah.  It was an awesome canyon.  We parked at what I believe is a water treatment facility just outside of the canyon, and hiked along the sandy streambed into the canyon, sticking left and entering the red one (the stream splits and goes into both a white and red canyon.  Red is what we wanted).  It was about a mile and a half into the canyon, where it quickly turned to a very twisting and very stepped canyon.  It took a lot of stemming to get up (hanging onto either side of the wall to climb up over boulders and the like).  I was a little disappointed at the lack of water, though.

Above: Bree stemming up over a boulder

Climbing up the first section of rope.  Luckily there were established ropes already in place.

There were two section that required a quick climb up to the next section.  Bree did phenomenally.

At the top of the canyon, the wind kicked in.  Freaky.  Being a simple fluid moving through a tight canyon, it sounded exactly like the beginnings of a flash flood.  Holy crap scary.  We knew there were no clouds in the sky, but you can never be too careful.  Just about as we were about to take off for a segment which had higher ground, the wind died down and Bree realized our stupid mistake.  I was thankful.