Bikes, Bruises, Booze, and Binging - A Thanksgiving to Remember

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time to be with your family, eat until you're sick, and drink for 12 hours straight. This year did not disappoint.

It started at Bill and Kathy's. Josh and I had spent the morning at the skate park and making appetizers (pigs in a blanket) which also became a pseudo-lunch (healthy, I know). The drinking started in earnest at about 2:30. I had brought a 20 oz bottle of my apple mead and proceeded to drink almost the entire thing before dinner. Needless to say, the huge meal helped me out. It was great seeing Bart and Kate, gabbing with Jacque and Kathy, and just chilling out.

Around 6:30, we arrived at my parents house and I promptly started arguing with Tad. Aren't the holidays such a great time to catch up with family members? The night turned into drinking beer and bickering around the kitchen table until Josh got a phone call from the AG household. My parents were all about partying, so we all arrived at the AG's in time for MacDaddy to pour us a shot. Everyone loved the family, and it was a great time. Although Connie and Craig both dropped the ball on my new bike....ugh.

(Speaking of my new bike....I got a new bike!! Josh found a killer deal on an Ironhorse 7Point5 that we just couldn't pass up. We picked it up a few Saturdays back and promptly took it up to Bountiful. I had such a great day and I am so excited about it!)



So the rest of the weekend consisted of bouts of studying in between bike rides and more partying. Friday night was Ricky and Molly's shower at the Hidden Valley BerMansion, complete with a full sushi spread and martini bar. Drunk again. But turkey burning was on the agenda for Saturday and we met up with a huge crew to ride the LCC covert White Pine trail. Extremely difficult, but after the second lap I started to feel more comfortable. I ended up doing the pipe ride and subsequent pipe drop, and I have to admit I felt like a rockstar.

Sunday = more turkey burning. Due to Craig and Rob's pure frustration, yet another huge crew decided to head up to Alta. It ended up being a beautiful day, and the manmade snow wasn't too bad. Connie and I hacked it up on tele gear, and there was a veritable feast of turkey, stuffing, crack cookies, and beer at the top of Collins. The hard core crew had brought their bikes up to Alta and completed the Thanksgiving LCC duathlon with style on the White Pine trail. I wasn't part of the hard core crew, as I sadly had to go home to put some study time in.

So the result of an awesome four day weekend? About 2 pounds of extra junk in the trunk, sleep-deprivation from three post-1:00AM nights, gnarly bruises in mysterious places on my legs, complete depletion of the Petersen PBR stores, a couple of school assignments in the bag, and a huge mutha-fuggin smile on my face.

(3rd ski day, 1840 vertical feet, 3 miles)