Back home from Texas!

Just a great week in Houston, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, but the hassles of travel, oh my gosh! Here is just a little bit of a glimpse of the craziness at DEN this evening. The RCC was an absolute dump with paper towels all over the floor. We have become a nation of slobs...gosh I sure hope not!


Still, made it home safe and tired but home! Travelled back from Denver with Tyler and Chad who had journeyed to SoCal to test ride some new Trek Stuff on hill climbs and descents! Temps in the 70's and 80's and they report that the ride is incredible! New stuff from Trek...this will be pretty fun!

I liked Houston, but loved San Antonio and Austin. Could definitely spend a lot of time in both of those cities. S.A. is a bit more of a city whereas Austin is a little bit Madison, but a whole lot bigger. Sixth Street in Austin, is incredible and it would be great to get back down there again sometime but I will need to take the next day off!

Visited Bike Barn and Bicycle Sport Shop for the first time this week and both were incredible...each in their own different way. I guess you can say that they have fine tuned their business to their locale! Makes sense, doesn't it?


What this picture of BSS does not show is their coffee bar where Amy made me the best smoothie I have ever had. It was her signature drink and it was incredible! I then met Emily, a runner from Kansas, who made me the best espresso I have had in a long, long time! Great location and just an awesome town.

Meeting with Cindi at Bike World yielded dinner at their place and prepared by Whit himself. It was something else. What I loved about it was we were just a bunch of people sitting around being ourselves. It was a unique evening and I need to come up with some way to thank them both for their hospitality!

Oh, BTW, deziels salad dressing was pretty darn good! Need to get the recipe!

My role at Trek has really become FUN!!! and this is truly living the dream. It was interesting to listen to Brian Deziel...a true rock star...say he was living the dream when ever people asked how he was doing! This is really fun stuff...please pinch me! Is a dream?

Next week, it is off to RBC in Rockford...hopefully a stop in Chicago and then on to Battle Creek for the Team Active EOW (End of Winter) Sale.

2007 is starting to ramp up and it sure looks like this is going to be a VERY, VERY interesting year!

As I sign off for the night, I just thought that I would put a pic of the type of weather that I left today down in Houston. Do not look at the planes but pay attention to the sky. Blue and there is sunshine! Good night!

Happy Birthday Mark

Today is the day! # 23! and looking like a Disco guy this past summer!

WOW!

OK, so it has been a while.

My last run in the cold weather that caused so much gasping for air that I thought I was done for led me back to Dean and Dr. Gronski's team. I am now on a serious Prednisone taper that is about half way done and has me feeling almost human again.

Since my last post, almost 3 or 4 weeks ago, I have not run but did jog in and out of Hilldale the other day and did not collapse in search of air.

Since my last post I have travelled to Coralville, Iowa, Boston, MA and just this past week to Chicago. All good stops and I know we are making positive steps forward with the apparel and footwear. While change is in the wind, I feel that we are headed in the right direction.

The trip to Iowa City was an interesting one given the fact that I headed there in doom and gloom as evidenced by this picture.


On the way home the next day the clouds cleared and yielded a totally different look to the exciting terrain that is Iowa. This shot here is actually a bit hilly as I am headed down towards the Mississippi River in Dubuque, Iowa. You can almost make out the river at the bottom of the hill. Got to love those blue skies though!


While in Coralville I got to hit the team at Scheels. These stores are pretty awesome. Can't wait to get back to see them when they are in riding season. I have to admit that I have never been in a store that has a tree right in the center of the store, but Scheels is all about creating a sense of entertainment in their retail stores. This was an incredible difference from the store in Mankato that Di and I stopped at when we went up to visit Gustavus Adolphus with KJ a few years back. This place is so much more incredible it is hard to believe. This is their model for all of their shops.


My time in Boston was accentuated by the Cartoon Network's stupid idea of putting up electronic gizmo's to promote some lame cartoon. Having arrived in to Logan on the 10th of September a few years back, I know how sensitive this area is to things like this. They did lose a lot of people from the local area. You just have to think about what you are doing!

Shot this as I headed over the Charles River as I made my way to Landry's on Commonwealth. Right in BU territory and a great meeting with Mark Vatour and met Mark Phelan. Great visit and we need to get our line better to rock with these guys.



Dinner after day one in Boston took me up to Newburyport for an incredible dinner with Jeff Williams, Ron Shinn and Greg Hannoosh at my most favourite restaurant on the North Shore: Glenn's. The martini's were as awesome as ever!

Lots more to get caught up on given my time away and how I am feeling.

This weekend, it is Chicago and then Texas. Stay tuned!

Oh, one more thing before I sign off for the night. This was the view from the gate at MSN at 0600 as I headed towards Providence via ORD! this almost looks artic-like doesn't it? While I do not fly American, I did think that this pic did a great job of capturing how pleasant the morning was. I get to do the O-dark 30 thing again this coming Monday. Here's hoping it is just a tad more tropical?


Thank goodness I am headed to Houston and points "warm!"