Nuclear Bike Race

I had my first bicycling road race today. The course took us 26 miles around the old Satsop cooling towers (they never had active reactors) and through farmland near Elma, WA. Sarah (holding up the wheels in the picture) won our women's race of 48 riders. All the Valley team women stayed on the front of the peloton the entire race until the long exhausting uphill finish. I just don't have the fitness for hills yet this year, so I lost position, almost dropping my chain, for a 31st place finish. The cool thing about road racing is that when a team mate comes in first, everyone on the team feels like a winner because the team works together throughout the race. It was a blast, but I'm still a cyclocrosser!

All in a days job

I've been travelling to eastern Washington a bit this spring to continue my work in Potholes Reservoir/Moses Lake and in the Yakima River.

I know this looks like leisure, but it's hard work. I've been putting in hours operating the boats on my field excursions so I can become an official boat operator for our program.

This old-timer cracked me up. He was walking along the dock while his lab swam in the water, but on the leash. You meet a lot of interesting folks when your out about the state.

What We've been up to

We've been really busy this past month. Both Eric and I have been putting in some long days at our jobs. We've done a lot of house and yard work. We've removed several large shrubs and have planted a lot of new things in the yard. We decided to hire a local contractor to finish our bathroom. We should have a nice newly remodled bathroom by the end of April! We are getting tired of this cold spring and are really looking forward to warmer days ahead.

Here is Carmen thinking: "Why are we still getting snow?"

Eric is standing on the south-facing side of the house where we removed two old-growth shrubs and some spikey yuca plants. We planted kiwi vines and strawberry plants here and hopefully we'll have some fruit this summer.


This shrub in our front yard was being taken to the neighbor's chipper. Yes, our neighbor Patricia is pregnant, as you can see.

Up close picture of the 20 ft Camelia tree in our yard.

Up close and personal with some of the wildlife in our yard.

Old neighbors and new neighbors...Andrea (our previous house mate) joined us with our new neighbors for a crepe breakfast party. We love Aunt Betsy's crepe recipe!