Iceman, Here I Cometh

This Saturday, I'll be racing at the Iceman Cometh, a 27-mile point-to-point mountain bike race in northern Michigan. Something like 3,000 mountain bikers line up for this race and I've been guaranteed a great after party. The atmosphere is carnival-like and all I need to do is survive the weather (which is rain and a high of 42-sounds like a cross race!) My wonderful, wonderful title sponsor, Kenda, will be there and my teammates Andy Schultz and Danielle Musto will also be racing.

But today, I'm faced with finishing three graduate papers and packing my bags and bike. Sometimes I really wish I didn't live in the middle of nowhere, sending me off to the airport at 5 am, but then again, when I'm skiing thigh-deep powder this winter, I bet I won't mind so much :)

Okay the important stuff: OBAMA takes it!!! And, here in Teton County, ID Kathy Rinaldi and Bob Benedict defeated the old republican guard, giving me great hope for our little valley, where development has been completely out of control over the past decade. So the theme of today, for me, is hope. Hope that things can, and will change, for the better, that we can start healing the USA's reputation around the world, and hope that I will survive my 2nd mountain bike ride in a month and a half on Saturday.

There were fireworks and gunshots going off in my neighborhood for most of last night. So, I put the books down for a few moments to watch Obama's acceptance speech. If ONLY I could have been in Chicago....anyway, by the end I was a bucket of tears. Like I said before, I am a political junkie, but I have never cried over politics out of joy (yes, I did cry when bush was elected). I was doing okay until I saw the cameras pan over Jesse Jackson in tears. That's when I lost it-but I'm okay with that.

Due to the overload of homework, I'm taking the laptop with me on my travels this weekend, so I hope to post an update while I'm out there.