Our good friend Ned Suesse raced the Dakar this year (moto) in South America, and we decided to tag along to take a vacation. Sharing some photos from the trip! For the entire collection of photos, click here!

Streets of Adrogué

Train station

Touring Puerto Madero with Chris and Ned

Touring neighborhoods

Epic rat tail going on behind Chris

Breakfast at Theresita’s Bed and Breakfast

Ad for the Dakar

Chris with the bike

Barfy burgers

Ocean in Mar del Plata

Pre race Ned and Mike

Palace of french fries

Buquebus terminal at Buenos Aires

Pantsuits much?

Renting bikes in Montevideo

Bike along the ocean in Montevideo

Old posters

Air conditioners

Cloud

Bottled water everywhere

Across the street from Hotel Splendido in Montevideo

Sunset in Montevideo

Sunset in Montevideo

Night in Montevideo

I got to meet my cousin from Buenos Aires! Laura, Sergio, me and Mike.

A good record, I think we are on 6-7 months since the last post! Some stuff to share:

Double rainbow at the ice cream shop in May

Riding the S mountain trails in Salida this past June

Arkansas River in June

Electric toenails in the Arkansas

Cows stalking our campsite in June near Salida

Bighorn sheep hanging in the parking lot at the beginning of the secret hike, June

Ruins on the secret hike

Ruins on the secret hike

Textures on the secret hike

One of my bigger spinach harvests in June

Deer hanging out in front of the house, this is pretty rare here because of the expressway and creek

A toad likes my yard!

Neat hurricane lamps from an estate sale

If you haven’t been to King’s Chef in Colorado Springs, you should go. Huevos Rancheros, gigundo.

Heading to Gunnison again for bike riding and camping

Me riding a scary rock.

Neat-o seat fabric in Buena Vista

I did the incline trail a lot this summer. Google it, it is massive.

Also made a LOT of peach pies. This one is peach lavendar

Bought a Moka pot after our electric espresso maker exploded on me. Good espresso!

We rode Elk Park this fall as well, a trail that goes off of Pikes Peak.

Magic pumpkins growing out of my compost pile, in Sept.

Fall offroading

Rode the Monarch Crest trail at the last possible moment before snow

Deathstorm on the way home from Monarch Crest

Visited Chicago

As you can see, I have also gotten lazy about resizing my images, sorry about the crazy sizes!

I have like 10 pages of flickr photos to catch you up on. Why is it so hard to find time to blog anymore? I blame twitter and facebook. Oh well! Lucky for you, they are all boring bike pictures/scanned retro pictures and I will only pick out a select few.

Went through some shoe boxes and found some old photos. NYE probably 2004ish? Mike, Manuel and I.

Me with my old dog.

Craig and Brian at Palos Hills.

Mike doing trials as a teen.

Is that Cyndi Lauper? No, its me on Halloween!

Mike at Palmer Park a month or so ago:

Bighorn sheep on a secret hike:

Patrolled by no one.

Shed or house or something built into the hill. Old!

Just finished a baby gift for a friend! Basically a basket weave stitch in a square, with a hood on the corner. The edging is 3 rows of simple crochet, double crochet, and then simple crochet again. White Lion brand cotton-ease.

It makes for a nice baby burrito!

Working and riding and running. Not much else going on around these parts! I did redesign my portfolio site, take a look at the link on the right!

Pueblo again:

Seven Bridges

City from Rampart Range Road

Awesomepizza: Roasted garlic, pepperoncini, tomato and finocionni sausage.

Chutes trail with ice slick

Beams of light bouncing off the peaks

Cows blocking the way out

Captain Jack goodness

AKA it was 73 on Friday.

‘

Downloaded a bunch of iphone photos, and thought I would share:

Sunset near Mike’s work:

Opposite spectrum, ice-fog morning in Nebraska:

On our drive home, we passed the place we married, on our exact date of our 6th anniversary. We decided to stop and take a few quick pictures:

Upon our arrival to Colorado we immediately went for a long run in GOG:

And spent some time at the range:

So you know, it came out lovely! I think next time a saltwater soak instead of vinegar, should mellow it out a bit!

We decided to stretch our legs and take a hike on New Years. Headed over to Mt Cutler and did a short hike and got some nice photos. Here is some snow falling off a pine tree!

View of the city.

Sun coming through.

The valley.

Valley.

When we were in chicago I had a chance to eat at Lou Malnati’s and got a side of giardinera. Since we’ve been home I have been craving it like no one’s business and decided to make a homemade version!

I basically mashed up a bunch of info around the internet and am crossing my fingers hoping for a good outcome.

I chopped up some cauliflower, carrots, celery, garlic and jalepenos and mixed them in a bowl, filled with white vinegar.

After sitting overnight, I sterilized some jars and filled them with the drained mixture. Topped off with half and half canola oil / white vinegar, sprinkles of celery seed powder, hot flakes, oregano and black pepper.

Hope these turn out good. I am kicking myself for forgetting to add in the olives! Doh!!

The mixture is supposed to sit for 48 hours, then will be brined enough to enjoy. The jars should last for about 3 weeks.

Went to visit family and some friends over the holiday. I didn’t take many pictures, but here are a few:

Features from the Chicago Christkindlmarket:

Big faces

Beautiful lights, I really wanted one

Ketchup

Shrooms

Champagne

Seahorses

Nice colors

Handpainted Polish ornament

Ambiance

Coffee at Wishbone

Best helmet at Jonny Sprockets

Serious Chicago bag

Xmas at mom’s