Well, we’re in Fort Collins, our stuff is in storage, and we’re heading off tomorrow for the next adventure. We decided last week to sell the VW. It was definitely the best travel vehicle, but we needed something that would be good in the snow and would also be a good everyday car in Colorado. The Honda Element has been on our radar for quite awhile, so we bought a 2003 AWD model with low mileage and so far we’re really happy. Erin and Judy drove it 1250 miles from the Bay Area to Fort Collins and had great things to say about the comfort.
We’ll try to keep up with regular updates, either here or on Facebook.

In preparation for our 2 month road trip across the US in our Westy, I decided to add Yakima roof racks and our SpaceBooster box for added storage. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of “stuff” we have inside the camper, so that there will be room for the two people and two dogs.
Here’s a shot of the new racks from the rear. I was able to get the towers on ebay for a good deal, and I already had the bars. The only really costly parts were the pads that mount to the camper roof:

Here’s a closeup:

This is the box and racks viewed from the front:

And here are some closeups of the mounts on the fiberglass camper shell. It measured twice, drilled once:

This year we decided to stick closer to home for Labor Day, and headed up to Rafi’s cabin near Bear Valley for a long weekend with the in-laws. Judy, Joe and Javier joined us Friday night through Sunday afternoon. We ate some really good food, spent a windy day at Lake Alpine and Ebbetts pass on Saturday, and had a great bush-whacking hike up behind the cabin on Sunday. We spent a lot of time sitting around outside talking and relaxing. Unfortunately the Sierra’s are very dry, and we didn’t want to risk a campfire. But, we did manage to make Erin’s yummy banana smores over the gas grill. Here are some pictures of the weekend:

This past weekend we traveled to Sonora, CA for the wedding of Erin’s cousin Jenelle to Mike. The wedding and reception were at the Sierra Glen Ranch in the hills above Sonora. The weather was great, and there were close to 200 people in attendance. Congratulations to both!

No man is truly married until he understands every word his wife doesn’t say — Ken Davis, September 27, 2009

Well, Erin and I decided to join Team In Training to get some much needed exercise and to help a great cause. We started the season a few weeks late, but got a quick catch-up on Saturday with a run in San Jose; I ran 8 miles and Erin ran 5. I’m training for the Nike San Francisco Marathon and Erin is training for the half marathon at the same race. She’s run 2 marathons already and is going to try the half this time. Soon to be posted will be my fundraising webpage. Everyone get your checkbooks ready, we each need to raise $3,800 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Donations to Bryan can be made at: This link!

Donations to Erin can be made at: This link!

Here’s a picture from Tom and Arlene’s 2008 Christmas Card. I just found and scanned it, so there’s a little crud on the photo. They tore down the original farm after finding out it wasn’t sound enough to renovate, and this is the final result. A little different than the original building, but close enough and it suits their modern needs.

Saturday Erin and I hiked up Mission Peak, something we’ve both wanted to do for a long time. It’s about 6 miles round trip on an out and back hike, with about 2000′ of elevation gain. The trail is mostly fire road, with a smaller path near the peak, and lots of people were out enjoying themselves. Along the way we say lots of ground squirrels?

There was a strong Bay breeze and it was uncomfortably cold at the top, so we ate our trail mix quickly and headed back down. This picture is a very cool orientation post that has 3/4″ pipes welded into it. Originally the pipes were numbered and there were plaques describing what was to be seen through each hole. Unfortunately vandals have removed almost all the numbers so you’ve got to guess. It’s a really cool idea for a summit attraction though.

Erin, Oscar, Anna and I went up to Bear Valley this weekend and stayed at Rafi’s cabin (Ani’s brother). We got to spend 3 relaxing nights away from computers, traffic, work…. Mostly we slept and did some hiking.

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Click the picture below for a slide show of my photos from the trip: