Natalee Fuller

Shiver me timbers!  Me Buccaneer Bruce celebrated a birthday last week, so course, me rounded up a few pirate mateys to drink some grog around ye ole' lake.  Scallywag K decorated Davy Jone's Locker with all kinds of pirate Jolly Roger swag and booty!

Buccaneer Bruce got his own special birthday hat that he wore everywhere.  And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. In the yard...

On the water...

Out to dinner...

The lily-livered SOB tried to commendar the good ship Formula, but me cast a dark black spot on him.  Instead, me and my mateys did some swashbucklin' on thar water.

Ahoy, and happy birthday me Matey Bruce!  Now where can I find me a bottle o'rum? 

Figure I'll give my Colorado vacation wrap up in one post, so grab a beer and sit down for a long one.

Pre-Race
I arrived in Colorado Thursday and my bro and I headed straight to our destination, the town of Leadville.  A few months ago, Brandon asked me if I wanted to participate in his mega-run of a lifetime, the Leadville Trail 100.  Hell ya.... but it what capacity?  There was Crew Chief and Pacer.  I, in no way shape or form, wanted to ever slow my bro down during a race in the mountains, so I opted for Crew Chief.  Sounded like a job of executing a plan of strategic nature and efficiency.  I'm in!

We arrived to 10,000+ feet around noon.  Got checked into the hotel and started talking game plan.  Brandon led me through all his gear bags, food preparation, and race strategy.  Once we got through the serious business, we headed over the Scarlet to meet some character named Brooks.  Brandon and Brooks have been eFriends for some time, and it was cool to see that they finally got to meet.  They had 2 for $1.00 PBRs but I had my traditional J&D.  Go figure.  After drinks, we met up with some other LT100 veterans and newbies (also going for the Leadman award) for dinner at the Tennessee Pass.

It was great to be around such inspired and adventurous spirits that had decided to tackle this beast of a race.  Besides hearing about epic shart stories, I learned the best way to clean up after a running deuce is using flat rocks.  The experts have all the secrets.  Suprisingly, this came in handy days later.  B and I crashed around 9pm to prepare for a short nights sleep on Friday.

Friday, we went over to the medical check in at the local gym and hit breakfast with a few of his running mates before the pre-race briefing. 

I met more of his friends and finally got to meet Mr. Jon Teisher, aka PittBrownie.  We've had a bit of online banter back and forth about who's colleigate team was better.  I'll just say that I was owed 2 drinks on JT's dime, but unfortunately his drink of choice is PBR.  What is the deal with the PBR other than giving you the shits?  (From what I hear)  So thanks to JT, I tripled my beer consumption for the year after calling in his debts. 

In between my beers, I managed to get a 4 mile run up into the northern range that I was at last year.  I decided to get the incline over with first, and I was sucking wind but that's expected when you came over from 500 ft above sea level 24 hours prior.  Felt great during the run, how can you not with mountain views covering 360 degrees.  When I got done, I headed back to the Scarlet because that's where the "big deals" hang out, and was introduced to JP, my co-pilot for the first half of the race.

We all headed back to the hotel for some more pre-race preparation then awaited the rest of our crew, Kim and Kayla.  My other two nieces stayed out of harms way and in Longmont with friends.  We all hit the sack as early as possible because B and I had to be up at 2:45 am for our race check-in by 3:45 am.

Race Time
B's internal alarm went off a bit early, but we all got up at 2:30am, fired up, and ready to race!  I put on my Team Shart jacket and we headed out!

You can read Brandon's blog for all of his race details. I'll give you the race from my perspective as Crew Chief.  I also MacGyvered my Flip camera to a lanyard to capture some live action at the aid stations.  B's got that posted too. 

At each aid station, my job was to have each of his aid station drop bags ready for loading up the pockets in his shorts, get his water bottles/camel back filled, and basically have everything including the kitchen sink, just in case he needed it (batteries, tape, mole skin, extra headlamp, extra iPod, extra watch).  There are 4 aid stations to the turn around at Winfield, so 9 total stops for me to be ready at.  The aid stations themselves are barns or garages somewhere on the course where the race volunteers are also set up with food and replenishments.  But, racers are particular so that's where a crew having exactly what you need comes in.  The crew can be about a 1/4 of mile from the aid station in either direction helping the runner.  We decided to crew at the same point at each station so he could easily find me and not waste time in the dark.  I also was in charge of tweets for #313 during the race so everyone could follow our progress on twitter. 

Brandon had organized all the gear into easily distinguishable bags and we used a wagon to haul the stuff from the Hummer to the aid station.  We got to MayQueen, the first stop, and I was a bit nervous.  I kept going thru the bags, triple checking, asking JP questions and he goes "Calm down.  We have 2 hours until he gets here."  Oh right.  Its 13.5 miles on foot for him!  I spent the waiting minutes staring at the most beautiful star filled night sky I have ever seen in my life.  I wish I knew how to bottle that up and carry it with me.  It was amazing.

B made quick work of the exchange at MQ (6 am) and headed to Fish Hatchery (8 am).  Not much to report from the Fish Hatchery aid station.  Easy in and out.  I crewed him while he waited in line at the port-o-jon.  This is where a lot of  the men's shirts came off, just FYI.

Next was Treeline (9 am).  It was up in the mountains on what appeared to be a runway for motorized paragliding.  There were a few guys flying around up in the sky getting a look at the action.  I stood atop the Hummer and flagged to JP once I saw B coming up the side.  We were about 100 yds away, so I ran down to get in on the action to find him side by side with JT enjoying the day.

Twin Lakes (11:15 am) was the final crew point before the turnaround at mile 50.  This place is a one road, 4 shop town out of a postcard. Cars and people lined this road on race day.

A look at Twin Lakes itself.

Final stop of the first 1/2 of the race was Winfield (about 3 pm). This place was ridiculous. It looked like a tailgate lot at football game.

It was packed and I felt really bad for the runners getting to this point. They have to run up a 2 mile dirt road that is also being used by vehicles. The dirt clouds were awful so we just tried to go slow and be as courteous as possible. B came in about 30 minutes off pace, but he looked good, so we suited him up with fresh gear and my sidekick JP took off with him for the last 50 miles of the race.

Now with JP on the course, I had 2 people to crew for. It didn't add much pressure since JP had all his food and gear in bags as well, so I just kept making sure I brought everything to each stop in case of emergency. Before hitting Twin Lakes , part of my crew chief duty was to have beer on hand at the finish.  I drove over to Buena Vista to check that item off my list.

The Twin Lakes (7:30 pm) return trip was probably the most organized. The boys would need a shoe change here since crossing a river on the way, so I neatly set up 2 chairs with shoes and gear all prepared. And I waited. And waited. And waited. And got nervous. There is no radio between Winfield and Twin to see where your runner is.  He could have been mauled by a bear, JP may have taken him out for whining, you just had to sit and wait.  B was about an hour late getting to this station but he was alive.  He bonked and had to rest awhile.  Phew.  I wished them well, dried a few of my tears and headed out to meet them at Treeline again.

Treeline was pitch black this time.  I put on my headlamp and prepped the back of the truck for their arrival.  They arrived around 11:30 pm freezing their asses off.  I suited them up in all of the warmest gear we could find from the truck and headed over to Fish Hatchery.  They said they didn't need me there, but too bad.  I'm going to show up anyway because that's what Crew Chiefs do!  Turns out they didn't need me, but I felt good just being there to say good job and wish them well to May Queen.  The last stop before the end.

I arrived at MayQueen around 2 am and settled in expecting them around 3:45 am.  More waiting without knowledge of what's going on.  I started getting nervous as the cut off time for the race is 30 hours.  B had allotted 3h:45m to get from May Queen to the finish but using my pacing chart that he gave me, our Team Shart was now, not on track to make 30 hours.  Fuck.  Fortunately, at 4:50am, B and JP came through May Queen.  Unfortunately, JP's feet were shot.  And Brandon had developed a massive deep blister on each pad of his feet.  JP couldn't go on and said Brandon would be fine by himself.  "HELL NO" I thought!  I know Brandon could have found the strength to carry on without a pacer, but there was no way I was letting my brother finish this race alone.  Without a second thought, I went to the wagon, started putting on the warmest gear we had left, including the fleece Jeff Gordon blanket I'd been wrapped up in for the past 3 hours.  I grabbed JP's water pack, told him where the car was and to text me the intersection when he dropped it off in town.  We needed to go!  I came out here to be with Brandon during this race however he needed me to, so let's get this thing done!

At 4:55 am, Brandon and I headed out to the last 13.5 miles back to the finish.  I tried to keep his spirits up and motiviate him without pissing him off.  At this point, I was trying to get ahold of Kim who was expecting us at the finish around 7am.  Even though we are at 10,000 feet, cell reception sucks in certain spots.  We finally made connection and Kim was to meet us 1/2 way at the Tabor boat ramp to get some photos and encourage us on.  As we got there, I didn't see her.  So I ran up a ways to the next parking log to see if she was sitting there.  Nope.  Damn.  It was daylight at this point and I need to drop the blanket, jackets, gloves, headlamps, etc. because I didn't want to carry that 7 more miles.  At this time, my stomach reminded me who was boss.  Being up for almost 30 hours with 1 meal and no sleep, didn't sit well with my gut.  I found a nice spot in the trees, tested the flat rock theory, and got back out on the trail.  Brandon was coming at me without his coat?!  He had found Kim in the car at the lot, so I ran back and said I would catch back up with him and to keep moving!!!  I dropped my stuff, and hit the dirt running to find him about 1/2 mile up the course. 

I'd been doing some rounding-math about our finishing time since May Queen.  I was calculating 20 minute miles but wanted us to stay at 15 to make sure we had plenty of time to hit the finish line.  His mind wasn't the clearest, so I wouldn't let him think about the numbers, just focus on keeping my pace and push through the pain.  He said as long as he finished under 30 hours, he'd be fine.  I didn't believe him.  30 was not acceptable in my book.  Not on my watch.  Sub 29 was the goal. 

The last 4 miles are easy to recognize and count down.  We had a great view of all the work B just did.

Basically, we were over in that mountain range in front of him the day before.

Kim was able to catch us a few more times for motiviation and photos.

I kept counting down "96% done"... "97% done"... Tried cracking jokes about how he had to be seen with me wearing my monkey stocking cap.  You can tell I wasn't quite in appropriate race gear, but duty called.

I tried to get video of the finish, but I wasn't focused and hadn't hit record on the Flip. Dammit. Feel really bad about that still. Would have been so awesome. A look back to the finish line and the last hill (just under the banner) of the Leadville Trail 100.

I'm happy to report Brandon finished in 28 hours and 53 minutes. A job well done!!! Over half of the field does not finish this race. To finish at all is impressive. To know the training and preparation my brother put into this race is phenominal. He didn't shed a tear, but I did. And still do just thinking about it.  I'm so proud of him and so happy that he included me in this event.  Even though my job went from Crew Chief to surprise Pacer, I would do it all over again in an instant, and more!

I really feel like a part of the Leadville community.  I've raced, paced, and crewed in this town.  And as my brother promised, there is plenty more to come for both of us!

On a side note, meeting all the ultra competitors was fun, but we also had a true Hollywood celebrity sighting of Jake Gyllenhaal.  Rumor has it, there will be a movie about this race, so we are unclear if he is investing, producing, or starring.  Only time will tell, but this little community event is going national and growing every year.

So, that's it. We hit the awards ceremony where B got his coveted belt buckle (yes that's the prize) and said good bye to everyone.  We headed back to Longmont and I performed my last Crew Chief duty... the 3 hour drive home. After a Smashchicken and vanilla shake, we set off and were immediately slowed to slower than our finishing pace. Traffic jam. I would have been fine if we were at normal speeds, but the slow pace was making me drift. I downed a Red Bull and waited for it to kick in. After an hour, it didn't. I employed tactic #2 of calling anyone that would answer and talk to me about paint drying, giving a dog a bath, I didn't care. Just entertain me. We made if safely back to Longmont. I unloaded our weeks weekend worth of crap and we all hit the sack about 9 pm.

I slept about 12 hours that night.  Got up Monday feeling refreshed and actually went out for a 3-5 mile run.  I felt so good out there in the fresh air with beautiful views of the resevoir and mountains I decided to go for the 10 mile loop.  I had noticed a storm cloud over the range on my way out, but figured I had time to get around and back home.  At about mile 5, the rain sprinkled.  Then at mile 6, the rain came.  Still managable, but I wasn't quite sure where I was going, so I flagged down a pick-up truck to make sure Rt. 5 was where I needed it.  As we were standing there, the Red Sea unparted and it poured.  The nice farmer insisted on giving me a ride back.  It was thundering and lightening at this point, so I took it.  20 minutes later, the sun was back out.  Stupid weather.

Tuesday I returned to the flatlands of Indiana, sad but with great memories and stories to share.  Til we meet again Colorado... 

Yes, it's go time.  Not "go" in the sense of inappropriate bathroom behavior.  We'll save that for Saturday/Sunday.  It's go time.  For Brandon.  It's time for me to get my crew ON!

Now that I work downtown, it seems I tend to hang out down here more often too.  On Saturday, I headed over to my new favorite IMAX hangout for another 3D adventure.  To our surprise, they were also showing a feature on climbing Mt. Everest.  Just what I needed to keep my thoughts focused for this coming weekend. 

Hubble 3D was pretty cool during the footage of the astronauts fixing the telescope.  At times, they floated right over your head.  But then it got fairly involved in the actual photos its been able to catch.  It was a bit over my head thinking about millions of bazillion stars and gases and galaxies that are millions of bazillion light years away.  Boring.  The wildest dream was full of magnificent landscape shots of Everest.  It was the story of finding Mr. Mallory's body on Everest and attempting to recreate the climb using the equipment and navigation methods of the last time he tried to summit the mountatin about 75 years ago.  Which is still unverified if he ever made it.  The movie certainly tells you it's perspective.

Sunday brought the first pre-season Colts game.  My group had some lunch and headed to the festivities. 

Unfortunately, the Colts lost and Painter got boo'd.  I'm going to get real tired of this booing real fast.  He's not first string and neither is the field is playing with, so the fans need to get that in their narrow minded heads ASAP.  Yes, he could be better and smarter, but his percentages are not always his own fault.  (Yes, that's my Boilermaker pride coming through.) 

I made a new friend while at the game but he wasn't very talkative.  If some other things fall into place, I think we can work through that small issue. 

Just like E'twuan's biggest fan says, I tried to put it in the hole and came up short.

Now that my big race of the year is over, I have a little over a week to prepare for the next big race that I'm participating in, but not running in.... cuz that's just crazy.

Crewing the Leadville Trail 100

My favorite race of the year took place this weekend, the Urban Adventure Race.  The past 2 years I've competed in the co-ed division, but both of my male teammates had a conflict this year.  I was lucky to find 2 girls, Karen and Mackenzie, that were willing to sign up and do this crazy thing with me.  And Mackenzie came up with a great team name, Girls on Top. We met up a week prior to give them a heads up as to what to expect.  I also warned them of my competitive nature and said that I will understand if they do not want to be my friends after this race.

I'm going to give a pretty detailed account so if anyone out there is thinking about trying this, you'll know just what your getting into.  The race started and ended at the Rathskellar this year.  Check in was at 6:30 am.  We all arrived promptly at 7 am.  Women.  When you check in, you get your first look at the course for the day.  Usually, you have a few maps to show you the course but this year there was just one.  Which worked well since we had 3 map cases, so we used one for it, one for the instruction sheet and one for the passport.  Here's the map. The triangle right of center is where we start and finish.

You can see the circles with CP.  Those are all the checkpoints we had to go to for the race.  At each checkpoint, you do something and get your passport stamped or punched for a point.  Most points wins.  The passport is your ticket to showing you were at each checkpoint (CP). It's crucial to finishing the race.  No passport at the end = DQ. It was Mackenzie's job to babysit the passport. Our almost completed passport.  More on that later.

The instruction sheet gives you a clue as to what you will be doing at each CP. This was Karen's job for the day. I was the navigator, so I was in charge of the map.  We each had our duties and got busy plotting our course.

We had our pre race briefing at 7:50 am to get some final instructions.

Pre-race photo op

So here's what we did...

CP1-5 On Foot

For this section we could get to the CPs in any order.  We chose to do the hardest one first, a 25 floor stair climb.  Figured it was best to get it out of the way and done with fresh legs.  There was no elevator down, so make the 50 flights.  The next 4 CPs consisted of getting to a building and finding some number on a plaque, brick or engraving to prove you were there.  We visited the Capitol building, USS Indianpolis Memorial, Scottish Rite Cathedral and Benjamin Harrison school.  Our instructions told us to head back to the Rathskellar to get our bikes and head out to the next section.  I didn't get much bathroom time before the race, so I was very happy to make it back to some restrooms or I would have become a full fledged member of Team Shart.

CP6-10 On Bike

CP6 was at a park for a special challenge.  You had to spin around with a bat on your chin 12 times then put a tennis ball in a tube about 10 yards away.  I figured out it was best to side hop my way to the tube to avoid face planting in the grass. 

We made quick work of it and headed to CP7 where we had to indentify the color of a slide in another park.  CP8 involved some javelin throwing.  2 of us had to make it into a hoop before proceeding on.  CP9 had us biking to a restaurant to find a sign on the door and write some words on our passport.  CP10 was a check in to drop off our bikes and head back out on foot. 

CP11-14 On Foot

The map showed the next checkpoints along the river to the north so some teams stayed on the dirt path and followed it around.  Not us.  Straight line is faster.  We ran through the apartments and Wishard's campus to hit the next CPs in any order we wanted.  The punches were on orange flags hanging from a tree or a bridge.  Someone was kind enough to leave this one on the bridge.  After I punched in, I threw it back over so the next team would have to take time to pull it back up.  Hey, it's a race!

During this section, we also hooked on a rope line through the woods using a carabiner and runner.  Nothing too technical, just annoying getting smacked in the face with sticks and branches.

CP15-16 In Canoe

We made our way back to our bike drop off and grabbed a canoe, paddles and PFDs (life vests) and hit the water.  We all got in and promptly tipped over.  And let me tell you, waterproof map cases work great when they are shut.  Karen was the only wise one with hers closed.   The passport wasn't too bad but the map was ruined and barely legible.  Good thing was we only had a few more CPs to go and they were at locations mentioned on the instruction sheet so it wasn't that necessary anymore.  CP15 had us repelling off the Washington Street bridge into the White River.  Some generous friends had loaned me their climbing gear so we didn't have to wait in line like other teams and borrow gear from the event organizers.  This was key to getting this CP done quick.  We only had 1 ATC and carabiner, so I went first then ran them back over to Mackenzie to go next.  Once Mackenzie was done, repeat the process and run it over to Karen.

Mackenzie's in the middle coming down.

Karen's on the ropes on the right.

I was a bit worn out and didn't realize I had put my helmet on backwards.  Thanks for the heads up Mackenzie.

We ran back to our canoes and paddled our way to a CP for a punch, then we were back to biking around for our final CPs of section 1.

CP17-21 On Bike

CP17 was an engraved phrase on the Riverwalk Promenade.  CP18 was back where the repelling happened but not at all repelling related.  If you watch Minute to Win it, you'll know this task as Face the Cookie.  You put a Oreo on your forehead and have to get it into your mouth without using your hands.  Try it!  We all had to try but only 2 of us had to be successful.  After 4 tries, I got it!

Karen got it too!

CP19 brought us to the Medal of Honor memorial where we had to find 12 different names among hundreds and write down their middle initials.  The initials were a decipher that lead us to our real checkpoint at Victory Field.  The punch was on a tree, behind the stadium, behind the dumpster.  Nice.

CP20 was at Jillian's where we headed to the 2nd floor to play a game of skee ball before leaving to our last checkpoint.

CP21 took place at Indy's newest beer maker, Sun King Brewery.  Since an ID was not on the mandatory gear list, I didn't have one.  Neither did Mackenzie.  And Karen wasn't interested so we pounded some shots of water instead and headed back to the Rathskellar to finish section 1.

At this point, teams could continue on to section 2 of the course if they wanted.  But this is where the strategy weighs in.  For every minute you are past the cut off time of 2 pm, you lose a point.  You can see where it's not worth going for a point if you are going to be 10 minutes late because of it.

We had 90 mintues left before cut off, so we decided to push on and see if we could get some more CPs.  We grabbed our next map and instructions that covered CP22-30.

CP22 On Bike

CP22 was at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  I kept an eye on how long it took us to get there because we wanted to be sure to have a cushion and not be pushing it right to 2 pm.  Using the canal tow path, it took us 35 minutes to bike to the IMA!  Good lord!  Subtract 45 minutes to get back, and we were left with 10 minutes to run around the IMA and get some points.  Once we arrived, we received another map showing where the CPs were.  Luckily I was just at the 100 acre park and knew the terrain. 

CP23-26 On Foot

CP23 was up near the Lily house and we had to count the trees around the fountain.  CP24 was in the rock structure and we had to indicate which corner of the wall had an alcove.  Those 2 CPs ate up our 10 minutes so we headed back to our bikes to make the long trek back to downtown and the finish line. 

We took a different route back at 10th street and biked into the finish with 9 minutes to spare. Phew!  In total, we covered 24 CPs over 34.5 miles in 5 hours and 51 minutes.  I quickly guzzled 5 glasses of water as I dried out my camelback at CP 19 and didn't feel like stopping to fill up!  Teams were flying in from all directions at this point. It was chaos, so I took all my gear to the car, changed and was headed back for the awards and to see how my team did. When I got back, Karen nonchantly says "We won the all female division but since you both weren't here they said to come up and get our award and picture at the end." I finally won something and I didn't even get the joy of hearing it myself! Urgggg! But still awesome!

Everyone got a $10 meal voucher, so we fueled up and hung out in the sun for a bit. I enjoyed the sodas more than the food.

Thanks to Jay and Monty and all the volunteers for putting on a great race!  Sorry I only see you once a year now that we don't work together!

Thanks to Karen and Mackenzie for joining in on the fun!  I don't think I was too out of control or pushy since they are already planning our next event in October!  I think I got these girls hooked and we'll be back to defend our title next year!  GIRLS ON TOP!

A look at where we went all day long...

Got some homework to do in the next few weeks.  Thanks bro!

Like daughter, like mother.  Or... something.

Last week amidst a rainstorm, I headed towards Greensburg Indiana to play with Tigers.  Not joking.  A friend told me about a ranch that was raising 2 tiger cubs for a few weeks and their visitors were able to interact with them.  Giddy up!  After a minor rain delay, I was off to live out a dream of mine!

Stapp's Circle Ranch is a non-profit organization dedicated to education on wildlife.  I'm not sure why they were raising Jasmine and Rocky this summer.  I didn't get a chance to ask.  I was so awe struck by the little guys I could have pee'd my pants with excitement!

Scott, our trained animal handler, was allowed to put the tigers on you but you could rough house with them all you wanted. We were able to bottle feed them a bit of water when you could hold their attention. They were real active then all of a sudden just pass out for a few minutes, then start the cycle over again. It was very cute.

After the tigers were all worn out, Scott asked us if we wanted to feed the bears... Holy shit, Yes!  Yogi and Boo-Boo were very happy to get their favorite cheesy poofs treats.  Boo-Boo, however, was in heat so we didn't get to feed her directly.  Yogi came over and patiently waited for some treats.

Adults were allowed to feed the bear through the big door and pet Yogi on the nose.

Then, as the last adult, Scott told me to trust him.  He told me to put a cheesy poof in my mouth and let Yogi get it.  Only an hour before the 2 bears looked like this, but when in Rome!  I'll try to get the video posted this weekend.

They had a ton of other animals to observe too.

There were plenty more I didn't show you here.  I recommend going if you can get there while the tigers are still around.  Once in a lifetime experience for a mere $13.  After we saw all the animals we could see, I wanted to head over to Greensburg for the final event of the day. A tree growing out of a building.

There is a long history of a tree growing here.  Over the years several have come and gone, so it was pretty cool to see this rare phenomenon.  Great memories!

I am not a big soccer fan, but I am a fan of any event that can bring smokin' hot ripped and tanned foreign guys to my city!  You won't have to deal with the vuvuzela as our city's musical instrument is the guy on the corner under the Arts Garden that plays the sax.  Vote for Indy to host the FIFA World Cup!

Thanks to blaming my high school track coach I've been dependent on orthodics in my running shoes since I was 16.  I'm a little skeptical of the barefoot running trend that's getting big right now but I recently began working out at home and have been going barefoot there without any hip problems.  I had a minor knee issue about a week ago after a run but not sure what that's related to.  Got adjusted last week and tried a 4 mile run this weekend, so hopefully I was just outta whack.  But I'm willing to see if this barefoot thing can work for me in some way.  My compromised strategy is to wear my Nikes for running days and these babies for non-running workouts. 

I was finally able to find a store ( Rusted Moon ) here that sold VFFs.  I opted for the KSO model.  They'll get their maiden voyage tomorrow night at Body Pump.  I'm sure I'll get some strange looks at the gym in these. 

Plan A fell through last night, so I had to come up with a quick idea to keep the K monster happy.  In June, the Indianapolis Museum of Art opened a 100 acre outdoor art museum of sorts.  The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park is one of the largest museum art parks in the country. I've been wanting to go for some time, so even with the heat, we decide to try it out.  Right now there are 8 topical structures in the park to see.  Hopefully with 100 acres, many more will come!  Here's the rundown...

Park of Laments - The rock wall you see isn't a solid rock structure.  It's actually a bunch of rocks inside metal basket weave boxes.  The tunnel leads to a set of stairs that opens up into a huge landscaped area surrounded by 20 ft high walls of the same stone boxes.

Funky Bones - These are about thigh high structures that you can sit, stand, run, jump on in the shape of a skeleton.

Stratum Pier & Indianapolis Island - 2 people are living on this thing for the summer.  From what I've read, they have to produce their own electricity.  There is a row boat on the side that I think you are allowed to use to go visit them, but it was way too damn hot to work.  I didn't get a good shot of the pier we were on, but it was crazy levels of large grated green sections.

Team Building - This looked like something out of sci-fi but it was connected by 3 telephone poles somewhat hidden in the trees.  There are 3 stuffed spheres that you try to throw up and over the structures.  I only got the bottom rung.  Need to work on the guns.

Free Basket - The most colorful of the art work, was this one.  It's truly a basketball court but only the ends are usable.  There were kids playing on it as we walked up.

The last 2 pieces of art was a rusty old ship with a lifeguard tower playing a conversation like a real command area and about 15 yellow bench structures placed throughout the park.

Glad to see Indy getting something really cool like this going.  You don't have to enter the museum to get to this, so it's a free adventure if you are looking for something to do!

It's not September?!  But it was a working Lake weekend for a few of us.  I brought up a reinforcement to help with the latest Lake project: Firepit area.

My grandma was quite fond of lava rock back in the day.  She would bring trunk fulls up and dump them in the landscaped area near the sea wall.  Eventually, it was all there was in there.  If you have ever dealt with this type of rock, there is nothing good about it.  You can't walk on it.  You can sit anything flat on it.  It's a bitch to move.  We use this space for winter storage of the jet ski racks and pier sections.  But in the summer, it's really unusable and in the way of direct access to the lake.  This year, it was finally time to change it because Mom bought a nice fire pit and was ready to use it!

Before:

After:

We removed 9 wheelbarrows full of this rock!  My team raked and shoveled while may parents worked on the edges.  After it was all gone, we unearthed the railroad tie and moved it over to make a larger usable area and make the flag pole/light pole area smaller.  Next came the sand shoveling and leveling.  Once that was completed, we realigned the stepping stones to the water, shifted some rocks in the small area and voila!  We'll work on the small area later with plants and grasses.  We were done for the day and took a rest watching the 2010 Wawasee boat floatilla.  It was marginal at best.  I'm putting party planner to the stars Kristin in charge of our boat next year.

On a sad note, as we were closing up shop for the weekend, we had to have a funeral.  A bird might have miscalculated and died flying into one of the windows at the house.  I made him a headstone.

But the best kid of animal to have is one of these hand-made Herbie specials!

They don't need walked, fed, exercised, or any attention.  Just my kind of pet!  Place your duck orders now!  Free shipping in the Indianapolis or Fort Wayne area.

After perusing the IndyMoms magazine that started showing up in my mail, I spied a team building event for me and some co-workers.  Ice cream at the Circle!  The Indiana Dairy Council hosted the event.  You purchased a bowl of vanilla ice cream then got to make your own sundae for just $3!  The lines were a bit long but only because the ice cream was so frozen, they were having trouble getting it out.  No worries for my group as there were plenty of things to occupy us with...

And another one!

I couldn't convince anyone to take a picture with this year's Dairy Princess. Maybe next year when I'm princess they will.

Spent the long holiday weekend with my family at the Lake.  My brother and his family arrived early early Friday morning from Colorado to crash at my place before heading to the lake.  2 of the 3 girls moved their seats into my car and we were off!

I bought some Silly Bands to keep them occupied. Instead of actually putting them on as bracelets, they just wanted to lay them out to look at the shapes. Whatever keeps them entertained!

On Saturday, we had almost the entire Fuller side from my grandma's offspring at the Lake for a mini reunion. Only 3 of the grandkids and 1 adult was unable to come, so in total there were 26 of us including Mimi! I got to spend the day listening to everyone comment on "Kayla is the last grandchild for a while..." A while, as I look around for who might solve that problem? Whatever, they'll figure it out one day like I have.

I spent the day jumping off the end of the pier with Sydney and even got Reagan to go a few times too! I think their favorite activity of the weekend was tubing.

Papa probably took them 4 times for several laps around the bay. They didn't fall off once!  I think when we said "Hold on!", they didn't connect the dots that they can let go if needed.  Reagan was bouncing around like a ragdoll AND maintaining a conversation the entire time with whoever she was riding with.  Papa was being a lot nicer to them than he was to Bruce the other weekend, but everytime they got done they'd comment that his driving was just crazy! 

Since Kayla was too small for the tube, she settled for some play time in a bucket.

The weather was perfect! I didn't get this many nice days all summer last year so we are getting very fortunate. I packed up Monday and headed home as they headed to Fort Wayne to see the remaining grandparents and families. I was ready to return to my peaceful, quiet, organized life. But, 2 months off and I'll be recharged for some more time with the girls at their place!

I was asked to join my work's volleyball league.  The level of play was extremely recreational but I decided to try it out so I could get to know some of my coworkers better.  I had to adjust my expectations a bit because about any hit in this league is legal.  Basically if you don't literally throw the ball over the net, you are good.  Our team fairly easily won all of our matches, going 7-0 for the season and 19 of 21 games won.

This week was tourney time and unfortunately due to some strange park scheduling, it coincided with 2 of our players being out of town.  Since our team likes to follow the rules, we were set to play with the remaining 4 names on our roster.  For our first game, the other team claims our captain, who happened to be absent, said it was ok for them to play with people not on their roster.  I really really do no believe this because our team exchanged several opinions on the topic for ourselves because we knew what situation we were in with only 4. Whatever, play with your 5, we'll still beat you and we did.  The first game was easy, but the we lost the second so had to win the third. Phew.

Our second match was against the #2 team in the league.  I thought they'd put up more of a fight but we won in 2 games to claim our Championship Title and prize...

I'm too damn competitive and would have been upset if we lost.  We had the most talent out there.  I did my usual analysis after the game which comes across like I am pissed even though we won.  Need to work on that for next season. 

Here's to being at the top twice in the same week!  Way to go UPCHUCK!!!

With a first place seed, the Sandy Gyners went to battle last night for the crown title in the Intermediate volleyball league.  We had a bye the first round, then a double header to see who would be victorious.  We won our first match fairly easily in 2 games.  The other team had just played, but I don't think that really had a part in their defeat.

Our second match of the night was against my long time rival and friend JimmyB, and an old teammate of ours from indoor.  I felt our skills outweighed theirs but we had a tough time during the match.  We were trading points the first game until we finally took a big lead around 10 then never looked back.  The second game, we were trading points again and ended up losing 26 to 24.  I was not happy.  We were missing serves, bad passes, unforced hitting errors, blah blah blah.  Third game is to 21 and we used every bit of that.  Again, we just weren't in sync.  It had been a month since we all played together because of weather or travel arrangements.  We battled our way through and in the end were victorious at 21-19.

I was crabby and my teammates knew it.  They wanted  me to smile because of the victory, but I was more focused on our game play.  We are joining the competitive league next session so we all need to bring our A games or we are going to get spanked every week.

We didn't get a championship belt or anything, so we posed for a team picture afterward.

A group of rogue adventure friends made a trek up north to Anderson and the White River paint ball field on Saturday with me.  We competed in the Mudathlon.  They advertised this as 3-4 miles with plenty of obstacles and mud.  There was plenty of mud.  There could have been a bit more challenging obstacles, but the cowboy theme topped it all off!  Before...

After...

They started us off in waves of about 50 people, so it was never packed on the course.  We all took off at our own speeds and got the race underway.  The first mile was some basic obstacles of tall hurdles, a muddy creek, getting over large wooden spools used to carry electrical lines, and a nice 15 foot cargo net climb and jump off.  At the end of the first section, we all met up and headed into the mud trough. Up until this point, you stayed very clean.  And my hat and earrings stayed on too! 

The trough was about 100 yards of knee deep watery mud.  There were ribbons of flags set low across the mud, so some people were diving in and belly crawling thru it.  I didn't mind getting dirty, but I didn't want to get that dirty.  So I just reversed limbo'd under the flags til the end.  At this point, half our team needed to stop and get water splashed in their eyes because mud was flying everywhere.  The second part was into the woods where we had to manuever through different sized tires all set in mud, logs, balance beams and the most fun was the mud slide.  As I approached some girls where scared to go, so we offered to jump ahead.  I tucked my skirt, picked up my feet and FLEW down a 20 foot slide into the hay.  Wish I had that on video.

Next we splashed through a creek, up some hills, over large rolled up field hay bales, over taller hurdles and onto the trough again.  This is where we all caught up so we could finish together.  Mackenzie even did a cartwheel in the trough!  We finished 300 out of 919 according to the stats.  We finished the course in 47:33 as a team.  Not too shabby, as we were there to have fun over a fast time.  And yes, I kept the hat and earrings on the whole time.

They brought in some local fire trucks to rinse people off, but the lines were way too long and we wanted this crap off.  It was starting to cake on.      

We decided to find our way back to the creek we were in and get a good bath before our lunch.  A few people ended up following our idea too.  As were were wading around, people were still on the course and started to come down to wash off.  We advised against it as they still had a ways to go and more mud to fling.

With a change of clothes, we headed back to picnic area to get our complimentary lunch and beer.  And after the work we put out today, I did enjoy a cold one in my new Mudathlon mug.  BA had to get proof. 

This event was one of those where right after you don't want to do it again. But now just 2 days later, I would totally do it again. But, on a different course... this one was a bit boring. Hopefully they'll come back with new ideas next year and I'll come back with a bigger team too.  Thanks to Dhubble, Captain USA, BA and MackMix for the memories!

A few friends and I made an extra long weekend at the lake a few days ago.  I'm still getting caught up from being gone 5 days and getting over the depression of being back.  K and I headed up Thurdsday and went straight to the Frog to avoid cooking.  We spent the night starting a puzzle and playing some games.

Friday brought most of the rest of our guests including Bruce, Yas, Chad and kids.  Bruce and Yas got there in plenty of time to enjoy some time on the water.  We did our usual floating then decided it was time for a boat ride.  When I tried to start the boat, it was dead.  D-E-A-D.  It didn't budge.  Called Herbie for some tips.  We knew it was NOT truly a battery issue since he just bought a new one over Memorial Day.  A check of the switches and gauges, the court light button was activiated and must have drained the battery.  So, out came the charger, but quickly after, so did the rain!  Lots and lots of it.  You couldn't really even see the lake it was storming so bad.  And then, the power went out.  Keep in mind, I am not up here very frequently, and neither is anyone else, so trying to find candles or flashlights proved to be quite difficult.  Add in, we were in the middle of making a casserole dinner that requires a stove.  Move to plan B, we'll have tomorrows grill dinner tonight since that didn't require electricity.  During the middle of all of this, Chad and his offspring shows up.  We made a little party in the garage with sparklers and a citronella candle.  Once dinner was over... what to do, what to do.  Ah... let's go visit the witch's house!  This was a trick my parents and cousins played on me for years.  It's a creepy doorway in a forest like mud hill.  I couldn't get anyone to go in, but as we left, we heard a woman scream.  Perfect timing in the pitch black!  Once back at the house, we played games by bug-candlelite and a pen flashlight.  Finally the lights came on around 2 am when we were all ready for bed anyway!

Saturday was gorgeous and our final visitors for the weekend arrived, my parents.  We all took turns playing cornhole, bocce, tubbing, tanning, jet ski, turtle hunting, fishing, sky diving.  Ok, maybe not that last one, but we did it all!  Here's proof...

The weather was so cooperative with us this weekend and we had another day of sunshine on Sunday.  We loaded up the boat and headed to the sandbar to check out the scene.  We spent time standing in a small circle talking, then a larger circle when business needed to be taken care of because that's what you do at the sandbar.  Most of  the visitors left while K and I squeezed one more night and day on the water.

Monday brought a little rain but just enough for me to finish our puzzle then close up shop to head back to Indy.  Til next time Wawasee...