A's MN musings

Our whirl-wind trip to MN and back ended Sunday evening. We went from late Spring here in Boulder to still-mostly-Spring (i.e., 35 and steady drizzle for Memorial Day, but luckily only during the BBQ and not during either of our crit races) to Summer in Minneapolis, back to Spring in Duluth, and finally, to full-blown, warm nights, no-coat-wearing-to-work-in-the-morning Boulder this week.

Either way, the loons beat us back to MN and we got to hear them calling each morning as they flew between Hay and Chub lake. Hearing the loons in the morning is one of my favorite Farm memories, and it was awesome to hear again. Three loons flew over us the morning we left as we were retrieving the lanterns from the hay barn where the DJ had set up for the dance the night before. They looked so close! From there, they drop down a pretty big hill to the lake, so they were flying pretty low.

We have a solid month of training in front of us (just got all of our workouts for June), but it looks like a good block of fun (challenging, lots of uphill bikes, classic Colorado, beautiful) sessions, too. There is a bunch of house and yard things waiting for us here, too, to fill in the gaps. Trips home to see family always make me want to clean my house and purge it of unneeded items, for some reason. That, and we need somewhere to put all of the new things we got at Ikea.

The trip home was good. Most of my dad's family is still located back there, as are Eric's dad, mom, and sister and brother-in-law. We got to see my grandparents (first time back since my Grandpa's 10-foot fall off the ladder last summer) over the Memorial Day weekend, and many other cousins and aunt and uncles at the wedding. I got my first wood tick and was bitten by countless mosquitoes. By helping with the boat lift installation, I got in "the lake" for 2008, even if only up to my armpits. We helped warm up Sean and Teresa's deck for the summer with a yummy mid-week BBQ. We sampled fresh-from-the-garden rhubarb (some of which I turned into a soupy pie). I swam in a MN pool for the first time since 1994 or 1995 (on a gloomy day that eventually just made me grumpy). Eric helped his mom with some projects, namely the Living Room and we helped her learn how to cross country ski on her wii.

It was a busy week, and a reminder of how far away Colorado really is from Minnesota. Both Eric and I love living in Boulder. We like our house. We like the athletic opportunities that abound here. We like our jobs. We like our daily routines, and the prospect of adventure that the nearby mountains offer for weekend day trips. We like the available fresh produce and restaurant options.

But.... Minnesota is a big part of both of our pasts. There are many memories there. And even more family members, who we can't just pop over to see for a birthday or holiday gathering. Many of our cousins are having kids now, and many of them only know us as strangers.

Getting back to Boulder was good, and it was a huge relief to get out of the car, but our homecoming was bittersweet, too. At least this morning's swim was outside where we could watch the sunrise. Wolfgang didn't even bring out the squirt gun....Kerrie, are you sure that isn't something he uses just for you?

-Amber