Pictures from Sonoma Vacation

Doug-

Above is a slideshow from our vacation trip to Sonoma, Tahoe and Great Basin National Park. We took the trip roughly the last week of July, first week of August and the main reason for taking the trip was to allow me to try and do an Ironman-distance triathlon in Sonoma County, the "Vineman" (http://www.vineman.com/triathlon.htm). We drove from Durango to Oakland, CA over the course of two days (with an overnight in beautiful Kingman, AZ) and spent two nights there with my old law school friends Matt and Ruth-Ann and their 19 month old son Jonah (http://jonahbaer.blogspot.com/). We had a good time talking about Jonah and the twinkies with Matt and Ruth-Ann and then we drove up to Guerneville, CA where we rented a townhome for a week. Sandy's brother Scott, his wife Molly and their 18 month old daughter Audrey joined us a day later and we had a great week hanging out with them, going to the beach, visiting vineyards and taking naps. The day of the triathlon dawned sunny and clear, which was great for the swim, but not so great when it shot up to 97 degrees by the end of the bike (the beginning of the run). I made it through a little more than half of the run (15 miles) before eventually succumbing to the heat and I ended up spending about 5 hours in the medical tent afterwards trying to re-hydrate, eventually taking an IV (no small thing considering my fear of needles). It was a bummer.

Anyway, two days after the triathlon we drove to Lake Tahoe (with a stop in Sacramento for Sandy to visit IKEA and for me to get Chipotle) and spent two nights at Emerald Bay camping, hiking, biking and napping (well, Sandy did most of the napping). Then we spent a day driving around the lake and across U.S. Hwy. 50 in Nevada (a fascinating drive, to say the least) to Great Basin National Park, the least visited National Park in the U.S. system in Baker, NV (pop. 65, http://www.greatbasinheritage.org/baker.htm). We spent two nights in a 1950's era Baker, NV motel room (http://www.greatbasinpark.com/whisperingelms.htm), visited the Park and toured the great cave system they have at GBNP. We had dinner at this really cool little cafe and coffee shop (http://www.silverjackinn.com/index.html) and then bought ice at the general store (http://www.greatbasinpark.com/td.htm), thus supporting all three businesses in Baker. Baker was a riot, and then we made the drive back to Durango to see the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics.

Anyway, if you want to see larger versions of the photos, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/gilpinsk.