My moms and pops are winding down their 5 year stay in Hawaii. This week the movers came to pack up their belonging to ship back to Utah. For the last couple weeks they’ll have to make due at the luxurious Turtle Bay Resort on the north shore. That is where the surfer girls in Blue Crush worked and there was also a TV series filmed their last year. They enjoyed their time there and are looking forward to being closer to family. We’ve loved visiting them almost every year on Oahu. It will be good to see them more often when they are back on the mainland.

Getting ready to hit the road. It might be a long day. Dylan and Gavin weren’t feeling well last night. They were laughing at me at work because the campervan looks loaded down like the Beverly Hillbillies: 5 bikes, waterski, raft, skateboards, etc. “You need more stuff on your van”.

We bought the van from a girl who’s boyfriend was a stoner, rasta guy. I’m always a little nervous crossing the border worried that the dogs might smell a hidden stash. Just like I was fully expecting the van to pull some Herbie Love Bug moves when we went to the Redwoods in Humbolt county last month.

So far my scariest border crossing was 6 or 7 years ago when I was bringing our old mattress up to Shannon’s parents house. The guy at the Canadian border wouldn’t let me bring it into Canada. Something about health concerns. It was only a year or two old, it’s not like it was old and ripped up. So I turned around, went a 1/2 mile back and put it in a storage unit for Shannon’s parents to try getting later. I go back to the border and the quick turn around must have flagged my car. I was told to pull over to the right for additional screening. I pull over and 4 border guards are heading towards my car pulling on gloves. Ordinarily this would be no big deal, but I had a several illegal fireworks in the car. They were the bomb looking balls with fuses and tube shaped launchers. I had stuffed some in a pair of rollerblades, thrown a towel over the launcher, etc. I remember it in slow motion. The lady had one of my rollerblades in her hand and was tipping it. A few more degrees and the bomb-looking firework would have rolled out. The guy that stopped me in the first place came to my rescue. He yelled from his booth that I was “OK” and that he had just turned me around earlier with a mattress. She safely set down the rollerblade and called off the search. I was on my way. Shannons parents went and got the mattress across without a problem.

My friend Tom is helping me add stuff to the Blog. There is an “e-mail me” feature under Admin, links to cool websites, podcasts and more coming soon. Thanks Tom!

Maria (Shannon’s sister), her boys and Jamie the babysitter spent the night with us last night. They are on their way from Sac’to to Vancouver, BC. One of the advantages of living here is that we get family visits as families travel up and down the west coast. David (brother) lives in LA, Paul (brother) lives in Seattle and Bob & Lois (parents) live in Vancouver.

Gavin is going to football camp this week. He liked the first day. Hope he likes 92 degrees today.

This Friday I’m taking the kids to Chilliwack, BC for a few days. Shannon will enjoy a quiet weekend alone, go to her soccer meeting Monday, then take the train and meet us at her parents next Tuesday. I’ll stay through the weekend and then take the train back. Shannon will stay two weeks with the kids.

The 2005 Tour de France ended today. Guess who won??? Lance finished his historic final tour with win #7. Not too many moments of drama for him this year, but it was still fun to watch. Rasmussen, the guy trying to hold onto 3rd place for a podium finish, had a miserable individual time trial yesterday. He laid down his bike in a tight turn, went over the handlebars on a downhill and got two flats. In the course of all that, he had 4 bike changes. He slipped down to 7th leaving the top three: Lance, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich. Now we can dial back our dish package until next year.

Made it out on the boat yesterday. We went on the Columbia river just a couple miles upriver from the airport. There were 4 families and two boats. Great weather, but the water was pretty rough.

Another lady and I ran herd on 8 cubs at Camp Ireland today. Plenty of goofy songs and skits that the kids love. I missed the cool stuff: BB guns were yesterday and archery is tomorrow. I got to see SLINGSHOTS, which was a crummy plastic slingshot shooting hacky sacks at a target 4 ft away. This council has some amazing properties. They have a huge, beautiful camp, right on the beach, 3 lodges on Mt Hood, one which is right on a ski run and several other campgrounds up in the Cascade mountain range.

Gavin is having a hard time staying healthy. He had the chicken pox (even though he was immunized) right at the end of school, a nasty ear infection when we went to the Redwoods last month, and now another crusty, oozing ear infection, plus a possible mystery virus. This latest ailment nixed the trip to Central OR that was supposed to start today. Since they couldn’t go I took the kids to Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. Great movie. Kids liked it, too.

There is another entertaining Mark Burnett reality show that started last week on CBS: Rock Star:INXS. Thirteen singers are auditioning to be the next lead singer of INXS. They perform with a great house band in front of INXS, Dave Navarro and a studio audience. Viewers vote, one of the 3 lowest vote-getters gets booted by INXS. The singers are mostly really good. Jordis is my favorite so far. The last time I saw INXS was in San Jose in 1993 the day Kurt Cobain killed himself. Michael Hutchence (who later hung himself) said that he was “mates” with Kurt and dedicated a song called “Kill The Pain Inside” to him.

Everything finally lined up for us to put the boat in the water: it was warm enough (~90), we were home, the battery worked and we had some time. We went to a lake that is about 45 minutes away. Good times. Pulled the kids on a tube-thing and Dylan tried the kneeboard and wake board. Shannon slalom skied and I wake boarded. Dylan is doing cub scout camp all week. I’ll be spending the day there on Wednesday. Shannon is taking Gavin and Grace to central Oregon Wed-Fri.

Lance “made ‘em suffer” in the Tour over the weekend. Today was a rest day after two of the hardest mountain stages. The T-Mobile guys kept attacking and Lance was up to the challenge. He pretty much locked up win #7. The top picture is Lance and his main rivals: Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. The bottom one is what happens to the idiots that chase after the riders.

Just back from cycling trip to the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound with the 14-18 year old scouts. Drove to Anacortes (almost to the Canadian border), then took an hour and a half ferry ride to Orcas island on Wednesday. Biked up Mt Constitution (2500ft) on Thursday. 60 miles on Friday, then back home today. On San Juan island we got a good look at a pod of killer whales. Great time, great kids…not a stinker in the bunch.

Dylan and Gavin had their 2nd to last baseball game last night. They are on the same team. They have made some progress in the last couple months. Gavin was playing first and after just missing some throws he caught a line drive hit and ALMOST got the runner at first before he tagged up. Dylan socked one out to right field. The coach on the other team was good for some laughs. He is WAY too into it for 6-8 year olds. He would scream at the kids for missing a throw. “Concentrate Andrew, concentrate!!” He started with his game face on his way in from the parking lot. We were waiting for him to make the kids “drop and give him 50″.

The spring league had a team with wacky coaches, too. There were five of them, all in full uniform (Giants). They had a batting coach, two base coaches, etc. Calisthenics before the game. At the first of the season they were all up in the kids faces, by the end they had mellowed quite a bit.

The Tour de France hit the French alps today and Lance pounded his main rivals. That guy is amazing. The first week had some cool highlights: Lance passing his #1 rival (who started 1 minute before him) in the individual time trial, Utah native wins first stage & holds lead for a few days, Discovery (Lance’s team) wins the team time trial. Lance should still have his hands full with 2 weeks left and plenty of guys trying to spoil his retirement party.

June 18, 2005. Summer started yesterday. Thursday was the kid’s last day of school. On Friday, Shannon and her mom took the kids on the annual trip to Sacramento. Last month I did the Reach the Beach: 100 mile bike ride to the coast. Today I did one of the other “big rides” of summer. The Tour de Blast is an organized ride up Mt St Helens. I’ve done it most years since 1998. The weather is almost always nasty and there is rarely more than a glimpse of St Helen’s. Two years ago 500 riders were stranded at the top by a nasty cold front that moved in around 11 AM. My friends and I made it to the top, where it was snowing lighty, turned around and headed down. That was the closest I have every come to frostbite. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I would ride for a while, stop, try to warm up, repeat. This on a day that looked sunny and clear at the bottom. We left the jackets, gloves and warm tights in the car. Other years it was snowing on the first pass, so we turned around sooner. With that in mind, I brought along every jacket, vest, glove, liner, etc I own just in case. All week they were forecasting rain for Saturday, so I was planning on showing up, getting my t-shirt, riding 10-15 miles and heading back. After last fall’s burst of activity and all the 25th anniversary (of May 1980 eruption) media coverage around here, Shannon was sure that it would erupt and that I would die. Crossing over to Vancouver, WA, the clouds parted and Mt St Helen was visible. The weather at the start line looked great. Turns out the only thing I needed, but didn’t bring, was sunsreen. It was perfect weather all the way up and there were great views of the new dome that started after last fall’s activity. The ride is 84 miles and gains 8,000 ft in elevation. That’s the equivalent elevation gain of going up Parley’s Summit twice. I’ve been getting lots of miles in and am 25 pounds lighter that the last time I road it, so I felt pretty good. On rides like this there is always someone at about your level that you yo-yo with: they pass you, you pass them, back and forth. I marked my guy after about 15 miles. He got pretty good lead on me, but I passed him with about 200 yards left. Same thing on the way down. Passed him right before the finish line. It took me 3.5 hours to get to the top and 2.5 hours to get down. Only got up to ~48 mph on the way down this year. I’ve gone over 50 with more weight and a tail wind. It feels cool to go around 40 with a tail wind because there isn’t much wind in your face and its eerily quiet. A guy was bugging me about ten miles from the end. Before passing another cyclist, I would turn around to see if there were any cars coming. Some guy, right on my back wheel, would give me this goofy grin. He was drafting off me. Following closely behind another rider saves you about 30% effort to maintain the same speed. I do this all the time when I ride with the Ring Men. Historically, I’m the guy drafting, but I’d take a pull when it’s my turn. (None of the “Ring Men”, my riding buddies , made it this year) I don’t have a problem if the guy would have taken a turn, but he was content to suck my wheel. I slowed down and he just stayed there with his goofy grin. I was averaging about 20 mph on that section. After about 6-7 miles of this I kicked it up to 25-26 for a while and dropped him. Problem solved.

Happy 4th of July! Picture taken at a 4th BBQ in front of the flag Sen. Jake Garn sent me when I got my Eagle. It flew over the US capitol. We take a photo in front of the flag every year…its a fun tradition.

Shannon’s 4th of July Half Marathon: Finally, after months of training, Shannon ran her half marathon. She started running, for the first time since high school, back in March. Is she motivated by her 20 year reunion this Sept? When we went to Hawaii, I even ran with her (for the first time since my brief stint on the Millcreek Jr High track team) We ran in Florida, too. She did the race with Monica, Ashley, Pam and some other friends and finished in 2 hours and 13 minutes.