got spring butt!

I thought about calling this "ben training", but two days of riding hardly qualifies. I could have called it "why is the seat so small, and my bike shorts so tight?" It could have been called " why did I have to ride the last mile standing up?" But(t) the bottom line (pun intended) is that after just over 20 miles yesterday with Sarah, and 28 miles this afternoon on my own, I have a grand case of Spring Butt. Oh the joys of pedaling ones bicycle in the spring. I guess it is a small ( well maybe not so small) price to pay for the great rides, challenges, and adventures that lay ahead this summer. Boy, it is hard to type standing up.

Speaking of challenges; much earlier this winter (in a display of machoism) I challenged a certain young lady to race against me in the sport class at the Greenbriar Challenge Mountain Bike Race that takes place in two weeks. I told her we could ride the course together and then sprint the last hundred yards to the finish for bragging rights. Loser buys pizza after the race. Christine........what do you want on your pizza????? If you want to race, I'm game. It won't be pretty. In fact I'm pretty sure it will be butt ugly.

MORE SPRING SHENANIGANS

It is hard to believe that just a week ago that we were playing in all that pow in Steamboat, but yesterday after going to Easter Services, I dusted off the windsurfing gear and got in a short session on the Severn River. It was gusty, puffy and shifty, but I got in a couple of good runs back and forth across the river. Water is still really cold and I worked hard not to fall in and keep my head dry.




Last weekend were playing in the frozen snow, this weekend we play in the un-frozen snow!

ben boarding

Last week Sarah and I wrapped up our snowboard season at Steamboat.
We checked into the Steamboat Grand Hotel and then took the shuttle back in to town to meet up with our friends Doug and Mary who had driven in from Ft. Collins. It started snowing on the way to dinner and pretty much didn't stop snowing until we left a week later.














Deep.




























Deeper!















17 more inches..... Holy Sh*#! Really Deep.














Sarah goes deep.















Sarah goes too deep! oops!!











The Grand.










Wednesday evening we soaked in the Strawberry Park Hot Springs. Clothing optional after dark. We left just before sunset!















It stopped snowing just long enough on Friday for us to spend the day riding fresh groomed on the telemark skis. There were a ton of really good tele skiers on the mountain. Unfortunately we were not among of them. It started snowing hard (again) and by the time the chairs stopped running there was several inches of new snow on the mountain. Shucks!














Sarah surf'n more fresh on our final day.














Big fun near the big white trees.














Bye Bye time to fly.

The week went by incredibly fast. We have never had that many powder days in a row.
I ate too much food at the the breakfast buffet, my quads are burning, my knees are killing me (and look like grapefruits), but mostly all the muscles in my face still hurt from all of the big smiles from the trip. Can't wait til the next time.













Powder Rules!

ben up to my ya ya's

ben snowboarding up to my ya ya's in powder. 17" last night. Might be up to my ta ta's today.
No blogs on a powder day.....got to go tram starts in 20 minutes.

closing day

Sarah and I went to Ski Roundtop for closing day. Considering all the warm weather recently the conditions were pretty good. We started the day out on the telemark skis, and ended up in a posse of about 8 locals that invited us to ski with them. Turns out that they are friends with some people Sarah and I know from Camelback , so that was pretty cool.
They quit for lunch and Sarah and I switched to our snowboards for the rest of the day. It was hard to stop knowing it was the last day, but finally around 4 hunger got the better of us and we came off the hill. Some of our new tele friends were tailgating in the parking lot and we hung out to chat for a few minutes. We met "Big Daddy"(the head groomer)and he offered to take me out in the snow cats next year. It is something I've always wanted to do, so I might just take him up on it.
It has been a great season locally, but is always sad to leave a ski area on closing day.


Thanks Roundtop, can't wait til next year!

ben surfing

It is kind of a long short story. Early last week I had to order a new surfboard for a customer. I got myself so excited thinking about surfing, that I booked a last minute trip to Florida to hang out with Tom (and family) and do some surfing.

Sarah and I snowboarded all day at Liberty on Sunday. On the drive home it started snowing hard.
When the alarm went off Monday at 4am for my 7:05 flight there was about 8 " on the ground. I checked the flight status and saw that my flight had been delayed a couple of hours. Rather than go back to bed and risk over sleeping, I threw my bag in the car and headed up to BWI. 4-Wheel drive and 35 mph on the interstate, but no real problem getting to the airport. Upon arriving at the airport, I found my flight had been pushed all the way back until 11. Bummer. I curled up under my down jacket and tried to sleep for a while with marginal success. We finally boarded the plane and then off to the de-icing area before taking off. Some of my fellow passengers were a bit frumpy waiting to be de-iced. Me......no problem. Please take as much time as you need. Do it again, I'm fine with that. Just don't miss a spot. Anyway, it was almost 2pm before arriving in Orlando. So much for a noon surf session.










Florida was cold. I pretty much lived in my jeans and sweatshirt the whole time.
Florida was also windy. I arrived in Melbourne to no waves and a lot of wind chop. No surfing for Mark on Monday!
Tom got home from work and grilled up a nice piece of Salmon and threw together a great salad.
Once again "let's play then eat", except no play!

Tuesday after the kids left for school and Tom and Janet went to work, I drove around to check out the surf. It was still cold and windy, so I went down to Vero Beach and had lunch with some friends that had driven down from Annapolis a few days earlier. Later that afternoon I climbed into the wetsuit and paddled out in the wind chop and slop. The current was strong, so about every 15 minutes it was back to the beach for a long walk back up wind. I got a couple of rides, but it was pretty lousy conditions. Still, I guess some is better than none.

Tom fixed up another dinner that couldn't be beat and we talked trash about the fun we had in college, before turning in for the night.

Tom arranged to go to work late on Wednesday, and we drove north looking for a place that might be sheltered from the wind. We paddled out at Lori Wilson Park, near Cocoa, and got a few rides before the wind picked up and turned the few waves there were back into a washing machine.

Tom and I enjoyed a quick lunch at Roberto's Cuban Restaurant before he headed off to work. I drove over to Calema Windsurfing/Kelly Park to see what was going on and possibly rent a windsurfer. Even though it was blowing hard ocean side, not much was happening on the river. Go figure. There were a lot of people there getting geared up for this weekends Formula Mid-winters. I got to meet and talk to the owner and designer for Exocet Windsurfing, so that was pretty cool. I headed south to Melbourne and hung out on the beach for a while, before going back to Tom's to drop off my board and grab my bags for the trip back to Orlando. I arrived at BWI just before midnight to 20 degree temperatures. All of a sudden 65 in Florida didn't seem so bad!

Keep playing in the the frozen snow. Keep playing in the un-frozen snow. Just keep playing!Aloha,

MB

ben sheared

Saturday 9am

Saturday 9 pm

ben cooking

Caribbean Surprise w/ Jerk Chicken

Been cooking. Been eating too. Not enough exercise. Not enough "play then eat". Just too much eat. Need to get on the bike. Afraid to get on the bike!! Afraid to get on the scale. Ready to go surfing. Not ready to quit snowboarding. Don't like wetsuits. Fleece and Gore-tex rules. Ready for warm weather. Want a blizzard. Silly time of the year.