How did I forget this?

So Justin and I went zip lining last Sunday at a place called Spookywoods about an hour away from here. And somehow in the excitement of a Halloween attraction, I forgot that zip line involved heights and a free fall of sorts and a faith in other people's equipment - all things that I don't like. So we end up on a tower about 40 feet up with me strapped into a harness and a dude that I've been asked to call Cap'n Crunch giving me a pep talk.

Justin (of course)was fine. I took 5 minutes to launch the firt time. I gibbered like an idiot making everyone else in our group so annoyed that they rocket-launched off the stands to get away from me. I required a pep talk and slight shove at each tower. And after 6 lines, I opted to head down to solid ground when we made it back to a tower with steps. FYI, no steps is quite the incentive to keep going.

To be honest, I enjoyed it in between my bouts of terror and I plan on going back. I'm getting too cautious in my 30s and it's not a fun way to live.

I wish we had photos or video but I was gripping the line too tightly to reach for my camera. Apparently my death grip was the only thing keeping me on the line.....

Race Day and Pumpkin Patch photos

A quick trip home and a long half-marathon!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

So tomorrow night Justin and I are going to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show! 
Can you believe Justin has never seen it??  (Of course, in his mind, he thinks I'm nuts for having never seen The Matrix.)  We will be the losers in the audience with no costumes however because we are slackers this year.  :-)

Work is going well for both of us but is very busy.  I was told during my first week at Urban Ministry that I would spend the first year having my immune system attacked by every germ known to man.  So far that has been true.  It doesn't help that in the midst of the germ attack I have been trying to keep training for multiple races.  I managed to survive the Kansas City Half Marathon (with the help of an inhaler) a couple of weeks ago while my brother and Uncle Dale kicked my a** and ran the full.  This was a drop in the bucket for Dale who actually followed up the KC marathon by running the Niagara Falls marathon the following weekend.  Lee, running his 1st marathon, finished with a smile in a little over 4 1/2 hours.  And Jackson, the world's cutest child, was there at the finish line with his "Go Daddy Go!" cheer!

I was excited to get to go home and spend some time with everyone.  Jackson (and I don't mean to brag) is addictive to say the least.  He is changing so much and can say sentences and sing songs and I got to spend so much time with him this past trip.  We spent the Friday before the race hanging out at Crown Center and went to the Crayola store and a dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. He didn't quite understand the dinosaur exhibit but did enjoy roaring at the large dinosaur models. 

So now we're just in prep mode for the holidays - the one drawback of living away from our families is that we don't get quiet holidays at home so the travel plans are in process! I'm hoping for snow!

Enjoy the pictures!

couple more photos

A few from the trip

Ah, October!

Justin: So it's October - we've already had a few nights that reached down into the high 40s! Of course now we're back to high 80s, but at least we were given a small taste of Autumn... And it's football season! Whooo! ANNNND, of course being October, that means that Stace and I celebrated another anniversary! Number three, to be exact. We spent a few days in the mountains and in true Keeling-Irwin style, really none of our original plans worked out. Oh we still had a good time, just not in the order we had anticipated.
I took the Friday, Monday, Tues and Wednesday off before our anniversary and we loaded up that Saturday morning to take off into the mountains. The dogs were at the kennels, getting some love and their needed vaccination updates, so we were free to fly!

Hurdle Number 1: It was a nice leisurely two hour drive up to Asheville and just before turning off I26 to head down the last hour to Gorges State Park, we discovered that there had been a slight mis-communication and, well, Stace's boots were left at the house. /sigh. Okay, I'm not driving an extra 4-5 hours to recover old boots. So it was down to the outfitters there in Nantahalla to see what they had! Luckily, after much deliberation and sizings, Stace found a pair she really liked and we were off again. NEW BOOTS! Whoo!

Hurdle Number 2: Did I mention that Stace has been sick for several weeks? Not bed-ridden or anything like that, but some congestion and general fatigue that we were self-diagnosing as "bronchitis-esque". So we get to Gorges State Park and discover that even though we had already planned on taking things slow and leisurely, we were going to have to go even slower as she wasn't as well off as she had thought. No worries, our planned campsite was only like, 3 miles away, and we could rest then just run around as we wanted. Just needed to sign in and let the ranger know our plans...

Hurdle Number 3: Our planned campsite was under renovations and they were not letting people stay there.
/sigh. Okay, so not quite 5 miles away was another site on the other side of Rainbow Falls. Strenuous trail. Sites could be full. Ranger drove off saying encouraging statements like "Good luck" and "hope you don't get washed out".

Hurdle Number 4: Watching the regional weather the couple days before we left, we were seeing possible chances of 30 and 40% for rain in the area - which is a safe statement, considering the area is pretty much a rain forest. Yeah... That changed. A cold front was moving through and they were expecting as much as 6 inches of precip over the next couple days.
/sigh.

Well, we made it to the falls (which were pretty impressive) and then luckily it wasn't but a few 100 yards to a cool campsite. We got it all set up and even got to break in the camp stove I've had for over a year and never fired up. It's great! The name "JetBoil" says what it is, man. Probably took maybe 2 minutes to boil the water for our dinners. The tent went up just fine and we were pretty comfortable.

About 11pm the rain started.

Stace and I don't mind hiking or camping in the rain - seems to have happened more often then naught, actually. But except for the few moments the next morning it broke long enough for us to pack up and start heading out, it just never let up. We drove around for a while, checking out some small local markets, etc., and Stace called the Nantahalla Lodge to see if possibly we could switch reservations from Monday and Tuesday to Sunday and Monday... They let us! Whoohoo! So we went into Bryson City for a while and then headed up to the lodge and our cabin with views and a hottub!

Hurdle Number 5: Our first cabin had crappy views and was icky. This was reconciled with a couple phone calls and some housecleaning. Thanks Shawn! Next cabin ROCKED. We ran around the area, had some good food, saw some great sites, and got some needed rest.

Tuesday rolled around and after getting things thrown into the car (funny how neatly packed trips start out) we headed over to Robbinsville and The Joyce Kilmer Memorial National Forest. This was a really fun area with some incredible trees. We found a great little spot on Santeetlah Lake and made camp. No rain! Ha!

It was tough heading back to the Queen City... We really enjoyed Western North Carolina, as we always do and it has a special place with us.

Okay, now that the details of our trip are over, what else to tell you...
As with us all, it's just been so busy around here... Stace is still liking her job with The Urban Ministry Center and I'm still doing well with Duke Energy. We have gotten a new guy in to fill my old Hardware Engineer position so that helps my old team out as they are no longer doing every other week 24x7 oncall rotations... now at least it's every third week... Doesn't sound like much relief, but it's much better.
The pups are good. Porter turned 4 in September, if you can believe that. he's ust as big a goofball as ever. 97 pounds, we were told when we got him from the vet last. They also said he needed to lose 10lbs.
HA. Whatever, you quack.
Oscar is crotchity ever.

Stace has her half-marathon this weekend in Kansas City and she's way excited about seeing everyone. Wish I could go too, but just not going to happen this trip.

Hmm.. I know I'm leaving some things out... I'll think about it and include them in the next update.
Hope everyone is doing wonderfully and being safe.
J.

Stacey's photo-free news!

Hello everyone!

So I never have quite as pretty pictures as Justin but I'll try.  And I wait so long to post that there's too much to tell so forgive the list:

1 - NEW JOB!  I started at the Urban Ministry Center a month ago as their Director of Volunteer Services.  It's a completely new environment for me and one that I think I'm much more suited for.  There is a sincere lack of ego in the entire organization that I appreciate and this is definitely a new challenge for me.  My bosses are eager to have me bring their program up to speed with some new database software and more social media opportunities.  The Center is actually a homeless assistance center that offers basic services like laundry and showers but also houses counseling, addiction treatment and even an arts program.  It really is an amazing place. 

2 - TRAINING! - It's slow-going right now with the extreme heat we're having but I'm getting my mileage in.  I've got the KC Marathon in October (which I'll be running with my Uncle Dale and my brother Lee Mackenzie), the Dowd Y Half Marathon in November (running with super running buddy Sharon) and then the Kiawah Island Marathon in December (running with TNT coach Mike Finkelstein!). 

3 - PALE SMOKE! - No, that's no code for anything, it's the shade of grayish-blue that I finally settled on for the living room color.  After 3 years of looking, Justin no longer has to look at the garish teal wall that I was once so excited about.  I would like to say that the painting is done but I should have known better than to have started a paint job in 90+ degree temps.  We'll get it done soon though. 

4 - JUSTIN IS AWESOME! - Did I mention that my hubby recently got a promotion?  He's really flourishing at his new company and it makes me proud to see that he's finally being appreciated for his skill.

5 - SHORT HAIR! - Yeah, I chopped it and if I can ever get it styled as well as my stylist, I will post a picture.  I was a little nervouse because this is the shortest it has been since junior high but I kind of love it.  In fact, I'm cutting a couple more inches off next week at my hair appointment. 

6 - BOSTON CREAM PIE! - Okay, this is pure frivolity but this Ben & Jerry's flavor is amazing!!  Run to the store now and stock up because it's seasonal and will be gone soon and you will all be sad to have missed it.  :-)

So that's the quick run-down.  I will get better about posting.  I might even have photos soon.

Hope you're all well!

Stacey

Justin: A couple of photos.

Sunset on Lonesome Mountain

Some fresh cherries from the farmer's market and Stacey's favorite bowl

Be well.

Go West, (Not So) Young Man! Part 2

So our odiferous shuttle driver dropped us amigos tres off here at the lake where we would start winding our way around the left side. See the mountain just over Keith's head? That's Lonesome Mountain - some 11,300 feet high. Our original plan was to cross that plateau on the right side of it.

A few hours later we crossed into this view of Lonesome Mountain.

This is Becker Lake, at 10,000 feet where we made our first nights camp.

That is Becker Lake below us now, as we're working our way up to Albino Lake and on to Jasper Lake. That snow in the photo above is now on your right.

Albino Lake - still mostly frozen. Not a good sign considering it's only at 10,100 feet and we were planning on going to 11,000+ across the plateau... See that saddle in the upper right? That point is 10,300 feet.

This is Jasper Lake, just over that saddle I pointed out, with Paul and Keith as a slight scale. It's still about about a 1/10 of a mile from where they are standing down to the water's edge. See all that snow? Not good. Considering how slowly we've had to go and how much time we had left to cover a LOT of distance, we decided to go ahead and ditch the origianl plan and trek on down in elevation to a known trail that would wind us around for 20 miles or so and back to the truck.

This is around to the left and down from the Jasper Lake over to Golden Lake.

My rock star brother, Paul, finally across that 250 yard, hip-deep snow field. We know it's hip deep as I fell through a few times.

Looking down the valley with Golden Lake behind us. Those boulders on the left are mostly larger than our Xterra. No, really.

See? Find Paul and I bouldering with 45lb packs on.

Down the boulders and back up the other side.

A beautiful snowy tarn.

Sunset on Lonesome Mountain from our next camp

Nice spot for lunch, eh?

Directly behind Paul is where we were originally planning on being... See all that snow still up there?

Bullwinkle!!

Down in the tree line again - an incredible cedar forest.

Granite Lake.

Refilling our water. See those rapids? We discovered that we were supposed to cross those. Nope, not doing it. That's is all waist/chest deep snowmelt at 34 degrees. No chance risking hypothermia or worse, especially since we'd probably have to bail about 5 more miles down the trail down to another swollen stream. So yes, we had to bail up top because of too much snow, and we had to bail down low due to too much melted snow. Oh well.

After a very painful back-track up the mountain (read 900 feet in 3/10 of a mile), we headed towards a nearby trail head and were given a much needed and appreciated lift the some 20 miles back to the Xterra by a verynice couple from Florida. If you look into the cab you will notice a small hammock... There is a pomeranian in it.

Since our Absaroka trek got cut short, we decided to spend some time in Yellowstone.

Fairy Falls

The sulfer and other minerals from the hot springs are what cause the red/orange color.

Imperial Geyser - not looking so royal that day.

The blue and orange mist are reflections in the steam from the minerals in the water below.

The Grande Tetons!

We were going to go camp in this park in Bridger National Forest, however camping was prohibited due to bear activity. About 300 yeards down the road we saw this 2 or three year old black bear crossing.

Friday we spent a large amount of time driving around the Wind River Mountain Range. A very impressive range with several 13,000+ foot peaks, however they are simply not easily accessible. The closest trailhead to the treeline is 12 miles long, as opposed to the Absarokas where we were almost above tree line at that lake where we started.

I'm missing some photos... I'll dig around and post them later.