More San Fransisco 2007

Picture by Kate...me in the grape field.

Here are some more shots of my trip. We were lucky to get to spend the night on the Korbel estate. Alex has a lot of pull in the restaurant/wine industry due to his position at a nice restaurant in Marin. Alex, Kate and I got up early to get some good shots. Kate took the shot of me just up from the cottage we were staying in....great photos from such a little camera....I like the one w/the fountain. Behind this fountain were some beautiful flowers...we found a hummingbird feeding there and Alex got some great shots (he has a professional camera). Maybe if he sends me some shots I will post them!

I have always have a love for trees. On this trip, I finally got to see Red Woods. They were soooo beautiful. Thank goodness it is now illegal to cut them down. This shot doesn't do the tree justice (again, I have a small camera).

Here are Alex, Barbara and Kate down at the Farmer's Market (held on Saturdays) at the Fairy Building. Amazing food and goods sold here!

Inside the Korbel tour. Of course we were tasting....that was what our entire trip was about....food and wine...and some beer (for my husband's sake...who wasn't present...I could only tell him what was nice)

Ahhhh, Alex was telling us to get ready for the view. We came around a curve on Interstate 1, and this is what we found. The third time I have ever had tears in my eyes due to a spectacular view (others....Grand Canyon and the Galibei).

More on the trip later. I need to talk about food....the most important part of the trip.

Also, tomorrow is the famous 12 hours of Haw Ridge mountain bike race. I will be also posting pics of this wonderful day when I get a chance.

Peace Out!

San Fransisco, CA 2007

So here I am looking out from one of the tallest buildings in SF. What a trip! I will have to do several posts to the blog to get to all the cool stuff we did. I went over this past Friday with my mother-in-law (Barbara) to visit Alex (her youngest son) and Kate (Alex's wife). We were busy pretty much the whole time we were there doing all kinds of different things....mainly eating and drinking wine!

Here I am in Marin. Alex and I rode over the Golden Gate Bridge from their apartment and we caught some great views. I did miss my own personal road bike on this ride.... I am watching some surfers here. I think this was my first real experience of watching surfers. Pretty cool...pretty awesome location.

Here is some of the mountain bike/hiking trail we rode up to get to one of the highest points of the Marin Grasslands. It was pretty dang spectacular. Alex took some sweet shots, so when he sends them to me, I will load them up here.

Here we are (Alex and me) at the top of the first climb we did. The second half of this ride was a blast coming down the single track overlooking the water (kind of behind us, but on another side). It was soooo much fun and amazing. The views are incredible. This would have been been a perfect single speed trail to ride, but I didn't complain. I at least had a really nice mtn.bike to ride (Intense Spider)...Thanks Kate and Alex!!!!

Fall weekend of 10-14-07

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a Brewer's Jam! Smap and I rode our "greenway" bikes down to the World's Fair site to taste some very tasty beers from all over the country (mainly the eastern side....a few from out west). We caught up with several friends during the day. The site was PACKED with pretty cool people. I did have a run-in with a blonde bimbo who thought just because she had on makeup an inch thick and bleached blonde hair and huge boobs, that she could just cut in front of each line to get her glass refilled. I did give her a piece of my mind....it was pretty funny because once I spoke up the other guys in the line did as well.

Other than that, it was a great time! Here are some photos to get an idea of the craziness!

This is a fellow I have known for 27 of my 32 years of existense...Chris King!!! Smap and I have a lot in common with this guy because we are always seeing him EVERYWHERE...

We had a great time catching up yesterday at the Brewer's Jam! I'm sure we will see more of Chris at the different shows downtown...

This is Gibson...one of Smap's friends from High School. I was sitting with a friend (who was serving beer) and up walks Gibson. I first just asked the guy if I could take his picture, but then I looked at him closer and I actually knew him!!!! He said to take a second shot of him so he could send Smap a message. What a nice guy! No really, he is pretty funny. It was good catching up with him...it has been a few years since we have seen him.

My husband. I am a lucky girl....dang he looks good for his 41 years! (he is concentrating on beer right now, that is why he looks so serious)

Saturday Morning

I just want to play around a little here today. Smap and I have a full day of fun activities ahead, so I have little time here. He and I are going to ride our bikes from our house (@20 miles by bike) to the Brewer's Jam downtown. It should be a good time. I plan on taking some good photos while tasting the plentiful array of cold frosty beverages.

August-2007
Smap is happy his race is over. The Black Bear Rampage was the event to participate in this year. We had a drought all summer and of course it rained on us, but we all still had a blast.

It was a 42 mile race in the rain. One of the most fun times I have ever had racing except for the mud flying in my eyes.

Ms. Jimi Flynt rocked the race! One of my wonderful teammates for the 12 hour HOT this year!!! I can't wait! (she is the gal who introduced Smap and me...Thanks Jimi!!!!)

All Knoxville Friends...there must have been 50 folks from Knoxville. Monte Jones is on the ground...imagine that!

Here is Karen, another 12 hour teammate of ours! She raced hard in the race. I wonder if the mud came out of that jersey???? And, last but not least KIMBERLY!!! I credit Kimberly for taking the fear of riding down sketchy SH*T for me. She is a great coach and a great athlete!!! All my teammates are for that matter!!!! We are going to have a great time.

GO MENSTRUAL CYCLES!!!!! Here I am finishing w/my dear sweet single speed.........

Peace Out!!!!

TGIF October 12th!

This is a photo that was taken this summer, but I told someone I would post it. Smap and I volunteer at this Sprint Tri every year (actually he does...last year I raced it, and this year I just pumped up tires...I guess that was helping?).

So, also pictured in this photo is my famous evil twin sister Larkin. She is the one in the previous photo on the funny photo blog. I wasn't kidding that I actually have a twin. She really isn't evil either. My dear sweet pup is standing with his favorite aunt (because she looks and sounds like me, but he can acutally tell the difference between the two of us) and an old friend from high school and college, Nick. Nick came to us for a week from a small base on a beautiful island (I can only suspect) off the mainland of Japan (Okinawa). Smap actually took it upon himself in the summer of 06' to help Nick get a new Trek road bike sent over there from our bike shop. It took Smap and myself about a month to figure out the paperwork involved to get it sent. It then took another 3-4 weeks for poor ole' Nick to get it! We were so relieved when he got it. He started doing triathlons on th road bike instead of an old mountain bike (I think that was the story?). Anyway, I had a great time riding that week with Nick (we loaned him a bike from CBC while he was here to train and race on). It is awfully weird how much Smap and Nick resemble each other in this photo huh????

We hope to see you again soon Nick if you are out there!!!!

Here is my Dad! This photo was taken of him working with other medical missionaries in the Amazon. He has been out of the practice of medicine for some time, so this trip was a blast for him. He LOVES medicine. Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to go with him to help. He was the only doctor on this trip. Pretty cool huh?

Smap and I don't have much planned for the weekend except for a lot of riding our mountain bikes. I can't tell you the last time I rode my road bike more than 5 miles in a day (I ride my road bike to commute to school three days a week usually). Riding the road has become boring for me lately. I think it is because I am just in love with my single speed. Cleaning stuff for the first time and descending down steep technical rooty stuff is just so much more of a rush than just pedaling on concrete/asphalt. I am hoping this weekend we will get down to the Ocoee Whitewater Center. Those trails are fast and F-U-N!!!

What a cute husband!

Fun with the Apple Books!

Kate and Alex. Two crazy kids.


Alex (Smap's youngest brother) and his little girl Luna.



This is not me. It is my evil twin!!!!
Beetle Juiced!

Myself and Monte Jones (this is our trailer trash look).

2nd Post...

This is Ippon (pronounced Epon) in Dad's pond on the farm. He LOVES to swim.

Epon with his Koi at Dad's...he loves the KOI!!!


Smap on the upper part of the Ocoee...called Callahan's. He is a GREAT BOATER!




I am hoping to get the hang of logging in and posting to the blog. If you have any comments, feel free to comment. Please tell me who you are when commenting too.

Also, the WW shot is not Smap. Smap did not have these shots labeled, so I blindly choose one to add to the blog. Unfortunately the one I added is of some random guy coming down one of the trickier places at the ww center. I will add more when I get time. That was a REALLY COOL place.

Our first blog

****Rachel's personal disclaimer: Just because I am a 6th grade reading teacher does not mean I can spell. It runs on my mom's side of the family that spelling correctly is just not in the genes (my mom and I think this at least). Also, Smap (my husband of 2 years and best friend of over 6) says that I exhagerate (sp?) quite a bit. I don't think I exagerate (sp?)...I just get really excited. I also use the "...." when I am thinking. One more thing... I will mention quite a bit about road and mountain biking. Probably more mountain biking because that is more of our passion (as opposed to riding a road bike).****

The time has come to start an Apking/Montgomery family blog. Both Smap (Stephen) and I have very interesting and active families. This will be a fun tool to include the family in on all of our fun instead of emailing etc...

So, this past weekend Smap and I worked hard at CBC's first major TREK/GARY FISHER bike demo out at Haw Ridge. We had Jacob (our area TREK rep) present with some of the newest 08' models of mtn.bikes. Some of us were a little dissappointed that the Fisher Superfly was not present at the demo. Jacob says "he hopes to "see" one in November". We shall see. Until then, I will put off my newest bike purchase until I get to ride one.

For those of you who do not know, Smap and I are huge fans of 29" wheels. we both currently own two apiece. Smap has a Moots single speed w/all Chris King stuff, and I have a Fisher Rig w/lots of custom pink stuff (including the "pretty and strong" Chris King pink stuff).

Alright, so Sunday (October 7th) was a day spent out at Haw Ridge. I promise to post photos as soon as Smap finds the photo chord to download. He says he "has" two of them, but unfortunately he has not located either as of yet.

Upcoming events:

Fall break for Rach which includes 5-6 days in San Fran with Barbara (the best mother-in-law a gal could ask for). We are going to visit Alex (Smap's youngest brother) and his wife Kate (who is from Czech, and one of the greatest gals I have ever met. I have never had so much fun hanging with another girl in my life).

Well, I think I am done for tonight on the whole blogging. I am really good at rambling (sp?), so I should quit before I get ahead.

I am going to try to post some older shots (some from this summer if Smap has them on this old lap top of his).

Cheers

Photos: The Charlotte WW center...pretty cool place, but there is not any shade for a car housing a cute yellow lab. Also, they did not have any recycling. BUMMER. They did have some mountain bike trails that we did not get to hit due to us taking turns hanging with the yellow dog in what shade we could fine.

The mountain bike shot is of Smap at Bent Creek. REALLY COOL TRAILS TO RIDE just outside of Asheville. We have been two times now and plan to go back many more. A very nice campground right there, and an easy/quick drive into the city for good eats and drinks!