Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April 1st...

Well I could start this off by saying it snowed last night...APRIL FOOL'S!!!! but then I would be disappointing in more than one way. Sadly, it did snow last night and is still currently putting down such as I write! I'd say there is an easy 6 to 8 inches on the ground right now, and it's increasing! So much for a good April Fool's day trick. Perhaps I'm getting too old...hmm...NEVER! Since I already broke the ice for the April Fool's thing, I feel it is too late to start with a new one so let's just move on.

For those of you that read this and had a chance to be in town this past weekend, then you probably might have gotten to see me. For those of you that live in Indiana but did not get to see me, I apologize. Even my family - Mom, Dad, Steph and Rob only got to see me for a good solid evening of dinner. You probably think I flew home right? Wrong; I had the grand idea to drive home...haha. The real reason was so I could switch out mom and dad's vehicle that I had used to haul out the uhaul, in favor of my small 4 door Mazda Protege. So I left here in Gunnison last Wednesday morning (the 25th) and traveled to Lincoln Nebraska to stay with Lory Baker, my cousin. After a delicious dinner, good conversation, and a few card games I went to sleep in order to wake up early to drive to Erica and Ev's in Champaign, IL. I was delighted to reach their house by about 3 pm local time. Getting there early allowed me time to visit and play with that beautifully cute niece of mine, Elana Kay. Not forgetting the important part either, I got to visit with Erica and Ev as well! Early Friday morn found me on the road again for good ol' Indiana, PA!

I arrived by about 3 pm in the afternoon eastern standard time, dr0pped my car off to be looked at before it's trip back West, and then had a wonderful evening with friends uptown. I did not get to see all the friends I would have liked to, but the most important ones I did get to see and that was fine with me. Can't please everyone. Saturday, I was invited to play in a wiffleball tournament at the Rose Inn with my good friend Adam, as well as some other friends from Indiana that I know. After which, I hung out with Rotten Robbie (oh how he hates that name, haha) and then eventually had dinner that evening with the fam at Steph and Rob's pad. Sunday morn found me up early packing and anticipating a delicious breakfast with mom and dad at home. I was sad to have spent so little time with mom and dad...next time you two!

I repeated the same route on the way back out except for one small detail. I first traveled to Erica and Ev's; slept the night, and then headed West on the same route as I had come East except that instead of staying with Lory I went straight for her sister Renee's house in Loveland, Colorado. Needless to say, after 15+ hours of driving, I made it! I wasn't exhausted as you might think; I think at that point you are beyond tired and just wired for survival! haha. That was Monday, and of course Tuesday morning found me driving from Loveland (which is just North of Denver aka the Front Range) to Gunny.

So I'm back into the swing of things. All in all I traveled ohhh easily 3,500 miles by car in 7 days!!!!! Wow, that seems a lot, and it's not terribly bad by yourself I think b/c at least you have no one to argue with when you get cranky...

So today is Wednesday and tomorrow obviously Thursday...well, where I'm going with this is that I'm actually headed back out the door tomorrow at noon time; this time though with Scott and our friend Tim Par. We first will be driving to Denver International Airport from which we will be flying to Sacramento International!! A little bit about Tim Par, 23 or so years of age, lean and muscular, exceptional distance runner. He is the reason for this trip further West. He is running, on Saturday, in the American River 50 mile race (http://www.run100s.com/AR50/)...check out the link to learn more! Lucky for us though, Shawn and Katie Claycomb are graciously offering their house and hospitality for the duration of our stay; which goes till Sunday afternoon. Scott and I are fairly confident Tim will do quite well and maybe/probably win the race, if his head is straight. He has been training hard for this race and Scott is pretty much his coach. I joke with Scott and say that if he's the coach then I'm the road manager...planning the trip, lodging, etc. And, lucky for us, since I am an employee of Hertz, we are renting a car using my employee discount for a mere 14 bucks a day! Lucky/fortunate us!

So, that is the news from the past week and the news yet to come for this week/weekend. Wow, the snow continues to come down...jolly good (hope you caught the sarcasm). Take care and would love to talk to any and all of you soon. Haven't heard from some people in a while. Oh well, Happy April!

Oh and P.S., as always, Pictures have been posted to my Picasa website...click the link that follows to view (http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3)


Alan

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