Pioneer Day

Alisha says: Dave and I had quite the adventurous and busy Pioneer Day. First we rode our razor scooters downtown to watch the Days of '47 Parade. There were thousands of people but we found a small patch of grass in the shade to sit on. We saw some very impressive floats and people including President Thomas Monson and Governor John Huntsman.



After the parade we were off hiking at Brighton ski resort up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We hiked for several hours and saw several lakes. The scenery was very beautiful. After a small rest at home we went to the batman movie, The Dark Night. Dave had been looking forward to seeing this movie for quite a while and gave it two thumbs up. On our drive home we even got to see the fireworks at Liberty Park.

Alex and Elizabeth's Rocky Mountain Wedding

Dave says: Tonight I returned from a quick trip over to Colorado to see my childhood friend Alex Toussaint get married to Elizabeth Hoyme (who went to the same school growing up). Alex and I grew up riding bikes together and traveled all over Arizona before my family moved to Utah. It was a nice wedding on a hilltop manor designed just for such occasions. Weddings make you think back to your own special day and I was sad that Alisha had to stay in SLC to work.

The trip was also a chance to see my parents and take a brief trip over to Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike up into the mountains to Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. On the way back, we got caught in an absolute downpour (including hail) with no rain coats and were soaked through. The Denver/Boulder area does have some impressive mountains, but I didn't realize that you actually have to travel a bit to get to them. One of my favorite things about SLC is the Wasatch mountains shooting straight up only a mile away from our house.

Hill Climbing and Mountain Biking

Alisha says: The inevitable finally happened. There was a mountain bike race that Dave couldn't miss and a hill climb race that I couldn't pass up on the same weekend. I was a little nervous going to a race without him there to be my bike mechanic/support. Luckily, I met a new friend Leah, and we went together so I wasn't all alone. After last week Dave made me upgrade to a cat 3 which means that I race in a new category with all of the cat 1,2,3's. Sundance was a very scenic 8.7 mile hill climb. I had a great race. After riding in a group for a couple of minutes I went to the front and put in a good effort. After a while I looked back and it was only me and one other girl. A little after the two mile mark I pulled away from the other girl and continued to crank it all the way to the top and finished in first with a time of 48:13. One funny thing is that I wear mountain bike shoes and so for some reason everyone thought I was some new chick who is mainly a mountain biker. If they only knew that I still ride platforms when I mountain bike :).

Dave says: Alisha has definately found her area of expertise on the road bike. Even in the most difficult category she won with two minutes to spare. In other news, I went from hero to zero in today's mtb race at Snowbird starting out with a strong effort and leading the first lap and a half. Unfortunately, a combination of downhilling like I was on ice skates and cracking on the climbs left me in fifth (not an inherently bad place to finish, but in this case it was given the small turnout and the absence of big shots like Mitchell Peterson and Alex Grant (off at Nationals). Race winner Chris Holley has now bumped me out of third place in the overall standings and it will take a bit of luck and a lot of hard work to get that spot back with only two races to go. Maybe it's my turn to go to Alisha's races and hand her water bottles :).

Lots and Lots of Apricots

Dave says: It's apricot season in our backyard and we must have picked over a hundred already. All our cherries had worms this year, but fortunately most of the apricots are pest-free. Plus, they are much bigger than the typical homegrown size that we've seen around the neighborhood. To get the high ones, I made us an apricot picker out of an energy drink container and a long stick. If you're in SLC and you want some, stop by and we'll hook you up.

Porcupine Hill Climb

Dave says: This pic above is my favorite. These guys look like they are killing themselves while Alisha is just chilling in the back of the group.

Alisha says: Saturday we did Porcupine Hill Climb, a 14.7 mile climb up Big Cottonwood Canyon. This quote in the Deseret News pretty much sums it up, "In the women's race, 25-year-old Alisha Welsh powered up the hill with an impressive time of 1:10:49. The next women to cross the line was Alison Frye at 1:14:38. Laura Howat rolled in third at 1:15:26." I don't know if there is something wrong with me but I love hills. I felt really good during the race and very motivated to keep on catching the people (guys) who were in front of me. For awards I got a neat big glass jug that you could take to the Porcupine Pub and Grille and they would fill it with your favorite beer, I had mine filled with root beer. Doing so well in this race is probably my biggest accomplishment on the bike so far.

Dave says: WOW, Alisha pulled a four minute gap on the steep slopes leading up to Brighton Ski Resort. She's showing her potential as a climber and has put in tons of effort to be this good. For example, tonight she rode with me for three hours as we hit Emigration Canyon, Little Mountain, and Big Mountain Pass. With several more hill climbs coming up in the next few weeks, I can't wait to see what happens.

State Championship MTB

Dave says: I've had a couple days to reflect on what was perhaps the toughest race of the season for me (I guess that's fitting for a state championship race). It was a battle all the way to the end to land a solid third place finish. I traveled up to Solitude the Tuesday before to do the week night race series and preview the course. The result was a mediocre sixth place finish and I feared the worst for the weekend. I decided I needed a strategy change and some extra rest. To compensate for a rough course full of rocks and roots, I raced my full suspension Epic rather than the Scale. The trade off was adding six pounds of extra weight to carry up the longest climb of any ICup race but it was probably worth it.

With a long climb at the beginning, the race blew to pieces fairly quickly and I found myself in a good position holding second place behind Alex Grant. By the very top, I was already dead and Blake Zumbrennen's insane downhill skills proved too much for me to handle. For the remaining three laps I would see him right in front of me at the end of the final climb, only to lose him screaming down the rough singletrack route to the bottom. I almost cracked by the last lap, but held it together for third. It was a good effort that left me not only with sore legs, but also sore arms from the rough stuff and even weird pains in muscles I didn't know that I had. Of course, now that it's over, all that is nothing but a fun memory and I can hardly wait until the next race.

Fourth of July Weekend

Alisha says: The 4th of July was such an awesome day! It started out with a nice long bike ride. I rode from our house all the way up Big Cottonwood Canyon and Dave pre-rode the State Championship Mountain Bike course at Solitude ski resort. Then after enjoying an afternoon of being lazy we went to Sugarhouse Park to watch the fireworks. We had heard that they were expecting 50,000 people to show up at the park so in order to try and avoid some of the craziness we drove some of the way, parked the car, and then rode our razor scooters the rest of the way. It was awesome, we were cruising down the bike lane passing tons of people who were walking. When we got to the park there were soooo many people. We did one lap all the way around the park on our scooters and then found a small space of grass by the orchestra to put down our blanket. We listened to the music and people watched while we waited for it to get dark. At 10:00 they started the fireworks. It was a pretty good show. I love the ones that look like a big chandelier in the sky. I couldn't help but think about all of my many blessings as we sat there watching the fireworks.

Tonight: We had Richard and Brittany over for a little BBQ. They brought their ice cream maker and we made some delicious home made ice cream. We went for a walk to Gilgal Park and then played some games. It was a fun evening.