November 2009

It looks like my last post got us through October so now its on to November. And what happened in November? Well, not too much. Kelly did complete the Swank 65 http://www.blueridgeadventures.net/swank/2009SwankResults.htm for the first time. You'll see that he did very well (as a SS) and came in at #31 overall. The Swank includes the infamous Farlow Gap, which I've been told is pretty nasty.

After the race it was time for Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Not much exciting there and then before we knew it, it was 2010. And as January came to an end....and my 30th birthday approached, we got a nasty snow storm. When we left the Angus Barn on Friday the 29th, there were big flakes falling. By the time we all woke up Saturday morning, there was almost 10 inches on the ground!

It took over an hour and a half of what is usually a 25 minute drive, but on Sunday we managed to get Mom back to the airport for her flight back home. She comes to North Carolina in January to escape the cold, snow-filled January days of Michigan, not to have it follow her here!

February was a very cold month. So cold and snowy that The Most Horrible Thing Ever, now called the Pigah 36 (which is lame.....The Most Horrible Thing Ever is a MUCH better name for the race. And, its still what everyone calls it), was cancelled due to the conditions. Kelly and Jeff were planning on giving the race a try. You guessed it, 36 hours in the Pisgah National Forest. In February. The idea of the race is pretty neat--you take a camera with you and as you come to each check point, you take a picture. When the race is over, you show all of your pic's to the race director and that's about it. Depending on how you string the check points together, one can expect to cover at least 70 miles per day. Well, it was cancelled and the rescheduled weekend just happened to fall on the 6 Hours at Warrior Creek race in Wilkesboro, which none of us were going to miss. And just like every other adventure, there is a story that goes along with the race in Wilkesboro......I'll get to that another day.

--V