Pending Road Trip... why not??

Stay tuned for updates from the road and the A-team reunion upcoming this weekend. That's right, Miss Alie Kenzer will be on the east coast this weekend to check out some cyclocross action courtesy of the Delaware Cross Coalition of Delaware, followed by a little road trip action...

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After the usual bike racing, we head south for the music city itself, Nashville, Tennessee. Do you think we're ready for it??? After soaking up a little country music and sightseeing and BBQ action, the yellow car heads back north for the USGP cyclocross race in Kentucky. Look out Louisville, here we come!!!

New England World Championships

Arguably the best weekend New England bike racing is upon us... the Gloucester gran prix!! As if they needed to do anything to attract even more spectators to Stage Fort Park, this year's race will also feature a beer tent and beautiful weather. So, check out the race preview, dig out the cowbells, and bring some sunglasses!! This race will not disappoint... and neither will the Richard Sachs team!

Seriously though - look at that face. How could that guy disappoint??

hikin' and bikin'

Another beautiful September weekend has come and gone. Sadly, this was my last weekend with Kaity in town! We spent Saturday doing some hiking at Mt. Monadnock in Jaffrey, New Hampshire... neither of us had ever been to the mountain, and it was an awesome day!!! We did some scampering, some scrambling, some climbing, and some obtaining summits. There are lots of pictures starting here.

So, after spending some leisure time at the summit, we scampered back down and headed for home. Sunday was yet another cyclocross race, where we headed to the annual Sucker Brook "cupcake invitational" cyclocross race. Richie and I celebrated the highly-anticipated cupcake extravaganza with this mondo pastry...

Sadly, I was not allowed to eat my cupcake before my race... but I did eat it very shortly thereafter.

Wallace Girls in Vermont

After fetching Kaity from the Berkshires on Saturday night and saying a quick hi and goodbye to our brother Dan on his birthday, we headed north for a Vermont road trip en route to visit friends in Waitsfield. We hit up the Apple Barn in Bennington (they were selling pumpkins already!!), the Bennington Monument, outlet shopping in Manchester, a fun store in Killington with unusual clientele, a sweet waterfall on route 100, and then finally made it to Scrag Mountain Road for the night. We caught up with some old friends from Dartmouth bike team in town for the Green Mountain Stage Race, and then left early Monday morning for a journey homeward via a stop at Dartmouth for breakfast and a quick hike. And now, I get to keep Kaity for a whole month until she goes back to Chicago for school at the end of September!!

Home Again

Amy's awesome adventures took a journey north this weekend, to the far reaches of Aroostook County in Maine. Below is a typical view of the landscape and the roads I found for some biking on a few days there.

It was a bit hillier than I expected! But really, I didn't do that much biking. I did enough to make myself not feel lazy, and other than that I did some hardcore relaxing. This involved some boating, some swimming, some wedding attendance and dancing, more boating and swimming and camping, lots of campfiring, a bit more drinking, a bit of target practice at coffee cans and possible fowl nuisances on the lake, several viewings of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, plenty of good eating, sleeping, and sunning.

I think I'll have to return to the county soon

On Saturday I made my first trip out to Montague, Mass to see Darcy and Steve's new apartment. It's a great little place right on the Saw Mill River (great swimming hole), across the street from the Lady Killigrew (great cupcakes!!), and in the middle of the woods (great!). Here is a picture of Paul the Cat, holding down the window sill as we made dinner.

We were also joined by Matt White for our tasty dinner of skillet pizzas, and then all headed to the Lady K for dessert and a drink. This certainly outdid my wild friday night of laundry and working on my 1000-piece puzzle.

Today I dropped in on my grandparents for lunch, and then did some shopping with my grandmother. I realized today I have so many things I have in common with my grandmother... general love for dessert, general dislike of shopping, and a similar stories of her easy distractability leading to small disasters... in sharing one of these such stories, we ended up going east on route 2 instead of west when we were trying to go home. oops.

After I left their house, I was struck (thankfully) with a need to go ride my bike, and headed out for one loop of the Fitchburg road race course... yes, I even rode up Mt. Wachusett, which even I enjoyed on such a nice day.

Weekend at Home(ish)

After a brief visit to Portland on Friday for some motorcycling, eating, drinking, and general relaxation, I headed home to the Berkshires early Saturday morning to spend the second consecutive weekend with Kaity and Dad. From there we headed to a Wallace perennial favorite summer destination - The Great Escape in Lake George, New York.

I guess the Great Escape is one of those things in life that you remember as being one of the most wonderful fun amazing best times when you were a kid... when you go back years later and see it through slightly more grown-up eyes, you spend half the day looking for hand sanitizer. Nonetheless, The Comet is still hands-down my favorite roller coaster, as demonstrated below by my fellow Wallaces, a.k.a. Team Yellow.

We rode the Comet at least four times. Awesome.

In any case, the Great Escape was actually good fun, between the Comet and the pirate ship and the Raging River, and some wicked short lines due to passing rain showers throughout the day. We managed to stay dry until we hit up the Raging River on the way out, got reprimanded for running in front of the fantasy land parade, and then hit the road again to drive still further north to the Adirondacks.

Once arriving at Mandy's house in Keene Valley, we had a dinner that couldn't be beat, enjoyed a FIRE in the fireplace because the cool weather warranted it (August!!), watched a movie, and passed out. Dad and the dog and I opted for a camping experience in the lean-to and slept in sleeping bags on a bed of balsam boughs, listening to the rain pound overhead and the stream rush downhill through the woods.