This was some lighter fare to kick off a weekend with my mother, who was in town for a bunch of Frank Lloyd Wright tours. We kicked back on a Thursday night and watched some Netflix, along with Gail. This was a Brit comedy starring Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson. You can’t really go wrong with that. It was funny and touching, with some action thrown in and with a few surprises. Not bad. Fit the bill well for the evening.
I really didn’t play any golf this summer. I’ve lost almost all interest in the game. I attempted to explain it here in May, when I played last, but why waste time justifying and explaining? I’m ready for golf to take a back seat to endurance endeavors until my mood changes.
So by the end of August 2014, I had planned and urban hike for a group and done a GORUCK Challenge. I immediately followed things up in early September with a new hike for just my wife and I because I was consumed by this idea of urban hiking and still high from the GORUCK. Here it is:
It was a gray Labor Day morning and Gail and I started off early with an eye to getting done well before noon. I wanted to revisit some of the places I was on the GORUCK and get some training in for our big Xtreme Hike in late September. It’s here that we really began formulating the idea of being more organized with urban hiking.
What were we thinking? Well, we were in the throws of raising money for our CFF Xtreme Hike, so we saw it as a way to potentially raise funds and awareness for CF. Also, we’re doing these hikes anyhow, and having a website could make it easier to publicize it so more friends and family join and such. And with our own website, we wouldn’t have to clog up people’s Facebook timelines (I’m very sensitive to that, for some reason). And finally, in general, I really enjoy this tech and website stuff, so it’s somewhat of a creative outlet.
It was this very evening, I think, when I went on line and grabbed this URL.
I still struggle to explain what this was and why I did it. It’s pretty singular in it’s nature and scope. It was GORUCK Challenge class 1146 and it lasted about 12.5 hours. It began on a humid summer Friday night at 9pm at the Bean and ended at the same place the following morning at 9:30am (my birthday). We traveled about 22 miles through/in/over Chicago beaches, lakes, streets, parks, and mud puddles. Cadre Mickey and Cadre Brian kicked our asses a few times over but we survived. WE!
It was exhilarating and exhausting. I came away with a lot of confidence in my fitness methodology (thanks XT), a new appreciation for urban hiking, some insights into the ethos of the OCR (obstacle course race) crowd, and great(er) respect for the American military. Oh yeah, GORUCK backpacks kick major ass. I’ll do another Challenge next summer, probably.
This is an all-female Led Zeppelin cover band that Gail and I saw at the North Halsted Market Days Street Fest. These women rocked it.
My mom read this book a few years ago and loved it so it’s been on my list of books to read. I grabbed it at a half price sale at Open Books in June while searching for summer reading. It’s a fictional love story rooted in certain facts about an affair Frank Lloyd Wright had late in his career. The story is about the woman, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, mostly.
I volunteer occasionally for cystic fibrosis and I was in charge of a few training hikes for their annual Xtreme Hike every September. This was my first mapped-out urban hike and it was very well received by a pack of about six people who were signed up for the Xtreme Hike. I loved it and I’m excited to do more of this in 2015!
I mapped it in RunKeeper then used Skitch to annotate it. It has all sorts of issues.
I need to improve a bunch of things. First, I completely mislabeled “North Avenue Beach,” which is a breach in proofreading that I can’t tolerate. Second, I need to highlight restrooms because you kind of need those. And finally, this just needs to be a little more robust and fun, with miles and calories and more notes on tourist sites.
That’s just a start. We’ll get there.
I figured Gail would like The Willcox, but she loved it, and it exceeded my expectations. We had a great room and great service. It comes with an awesome pool, killer lobby, and exceptional food – all at a very reasonable price. It’s a pretty special place in a very cool horse town.
Nothing says vacation for the Steffens like a visit to Frontera in the American terminal. We had the eggs and rajas sandwich and yogurt with honey and granola.
I’ll be doing a lot of in-vacation laundry as I travel with only 24 liters of capacity for two weeks in the American South.