A weekend away

Last weekend I went home to visit my family, especially its newest member, my nephew Caleb.  I'm not a kid person.  I don't dislike them, I just don't hang around them often, and babies used to be outright scary.  But, when the baby is in your family things are different.  This little guy was so darn cute.  And he's pretty easy going, and mostly happy.  What baby doesn't cry a little.  He is a little attention monger but that's what babies do.  In my mind, he's also the king of funny faces.  He's got a million.

I was home for Caleb's baptism and it was only a four day trip.  I got started off with a 45 minute delay due to the incoming plane being held up because of storms in Colorado. We didn't take off from SeaTac until after midnight.  What a long night.  After napping on and off it was really strange to see the sun come up as we accelerated the clock forward a couple hours. 

I knew running would be tough.  All day Friday I was running on fumes because of my lack of sleep.  A day's worth of grocery shopping in the suburbs was probably more draining to me mentally though.  I'm just not a fan of people.  But Costco wasn't the terrible experience I thought it would be.  This one wasn't jam packed full of Canadian's and their carts full of milk.  Actually, there was barely anybody there at all.  I still can say that I just don't like the place.  It is the end product of industrial farming, convenience and cost over quality, and marketing misguidance that rules our society.  My hippie mind couldn't help but get frustrated and overwhelmed at the same time, but my food ideas are better left for a whole other post.

I did sneak in a whole two miles of running though with Ryan Schlegel.  He's coming off of a long term injury also.  He got sick of "traditional" medicine.  Pills, rest, cortisone, surgery, etc and decided that strength work, massage, form drills, caution, exercise, and similar means were the way to go.  I did my best to show him a good set of additional running form drills to help him out.  After that we did some really easy grass loop running around the park in Hampshire.  Man, I've got some old school memories of that place.  

Saturday was the baptism and because I could only manage to drag my sleep deprived butt out of bed at 9 am, I didn't run.  It was in the mid 80's by then anyway, and although Hampshire isn't a bad place to run, its not great either.  Caleb was pretty good for his baptism.  He wan't much of a fan of the water part, which is a surprise considering how much he seemed to enjoy his bath the night before.  Then it was back to the house to eat, hang out with the family, and drink a few brews.  Hummus sandwiches for me.  Shhhh.  Don't tell my dad.  I don't know what he'll think.  He's a meat and potato guy all the way.  Most of the afternoon was so hot that you could only manage to be in the sun for a few minutes which slowed down the bags playing.  But once it started to cool off and the back yard was covered in the shadow of the house, we started playing more.  Leslie threw out of her mind and probably outplayed me in all but the last two games.  Ryan and his brother Adam went at it on the other end and were fairly impressive.  I finally gave up and went to bed at 10:30.

Sunday I did get up and run because everybody in the house was sleeping in.  Mid 80's and humid.  It felt like somebody was squeezing my chest for the first few minutes.  Another great reminder why I moved to Bellingham.  I will ALWAYS take 50's (even with drizzle) over mid 80's and humid.  I managed to run a pretty good feeling 6 but it was all asphalt.  One big country block which felt like 15 miles, but the watch doesn't lie.

I fully intended to run Monday morning early, but right about the time when I was getting ready to go out, mother nature let loose with a good old fashioned Midwest thunderstorm.  Sideways rain.  Thunder.  Lightening.  Black skies.  Tornado watches.  And to top it all off, the power went off.  There would be no running.  My parents were without power for more than 24 hours.  The rain ended up following me everywhere I went.  About the same time we landed in Denver (or somewhere 20 minutes outside of Denver, if you've ever flown there you know what I'm talking about) an even bigger thunderstorm started.  The light show was amazing, even in the day.  Our flight heading to Seattle was delayed over an hour leaving me in SeaTac at 8:45pm.  Such a long travel day.  And wouldn't you know it, it was raining in Seattle too.  And for those of you who don't have a clue, Seattle typically isn't rainy in the summer.  Its absolutely perfect, except this year where I feel like it will never be warm or consistently dry.

All in all a great trip.  I like visiting family and friends.  Getting to see Ryan and Erin was great.  I owe Erin big time for being my chauffeur to and from the airport.  She's always there to greet me when travelling.  But..... the midwest still sucks.  The weather especially.  Can't wait until I get to go in the middle of winter.