Biking the Strip

I know, I know. I'm way behind in blogging. I've got a few videos to share and some fun pictures, but that takes time for editing and processing. In the meantime, here's a quick update.

I have now run in ND, MT, WA, OR, and CA.

I have driven through some pretty spectacular scenery.

I have been in Las Vegas now since last Wed morning. Wed-Sat afternoon I spent reuniting with a few college roomies.

Since Sat afternoon, I've been chilling with my husband.

My favorite hotel/casino has got to be NY, NY! It made me really nostalgic of my time living there and *almost* made me want to move back.

It's the one hotel I wanted Jeff to be sure to see.

So, we strapped on our bike helmets and headed to the Strip. We're staying in a hotel off the strip about 3 miles. Jeff had already biked it a few times, so he was familiar with the route.

The route was mostly *quiet* side streets, but it would take us onto the Strip for over a mile.

I'll admit it. I was a little apprehensive about biking on the strip. I mean, it is a busy, car-packed, pedestrian-filled street.

Scary.

No, not really.

In fact, it's probably one of the easiest, high congestion roads I've ever biked on. I'd guess it was a little past 7pm when we were biking the strip. There were no horns honking, no evil stares, no cruel gestures.

I never felt in danger.

In fact, it was wonderful and very fun!
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Book Review: Never Smile at Strangers

Never Smile at Strangers by Jennifer Minar-Jaynes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It pulled me in right from the very beginning, and I read it start to finish in just three sittings. I didn't want to put it down.

I liked how the author only used the pronoun when describing the killer and yet was able to fully develop the character throughout the story. I found him to be very creepy and felt sorry for him as I learned more and more about his childhood as I moved throughout the story.

Taking place during the summer in a small Louisiana town, I could feel the heat seeping from these pages. It wasn't at all difficult to picture this little town and the difficulties the main character, Haley, was encountering. I enjoyed watching her progression and how she choose to deal with everything going on.

There was definitely some predictability in this story, but I still enjoyed taking the journey the author was describing. There was quite a bit of misdirection, and it was fun getting to the end to see which way the author was going to go.

I might have ended the book a little differently - had I been the author. I'm not sure I really like who ended up being the killer. There were still some questions left at the end of the book, but I think that's a good thing. I feel it was nicely tied up at the end, with just enough left unanswered.

There does tend to be a bit of bad language from some of the characters and there is a little sexual activity, so if that bothers you, you may not want to add this to your shelf. If that doesn't bother you, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick suspense/thriller to read. It flowed well, the characters were well developed, and there weren't very many typos.
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Crossing the Time Zone

In my last post, I shared a video of my run in ND, but I didn't do any write-up about it. I think it deserves a little more than that, so here it is again.

When looking at the map to decide where to stop in North Dakota for my run, I found that the Central/Mountain Time Zone Line would cross our path. What a great story that would make!!

Well, I knew we'd need to get off the freeway in order for me to run, and the map seemed to indicate that it would be an easy little detour. Easy-peasy.

Except it had gotten very dark by the time we got there. The road was tiny at least it was paved and we drove and drove without seeing any sign about crossing time zones. I guess the locals just know.

Finally, we decided to just pull over. I strapped on my running shoes, headlamp, and reflective vest, leashed up my girl, and ...

10-minutes later called it a run.

Running Ragnar last summer really helped prepare me for this run. I ran this mile+ like it was nothing!

Ok, it was a little scary.

Much less so with Jeff driving Liberty right behind me.

Sallie and I ran right down the middle of the lane. It was chilly, but when I got back in the van, I was surprisingly very sweaty!! It was an exhilarating run.

Kind of a fun story, right? And a great memory for me.

Turns out, we stopped for the night before leaving ND. When we awoke in the morning, I discovered there was a very nice bike trail right at the parking lot. It would have been a perfect place for a morning run before hitting the road again.

However, we were anxious to get moving - as we knew we'd have a full day of driving ahead of us.
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3 Things Thursday

1. Apparently, I'm incapable of getting dressed if I don't have work, school, or if I don't go for a run. It's 4:30pm now. Should I don those running clothes after all?

2. I finally posted my North Dakota (state #1) run to Facebook.

3. My Sallie girl is incredibly cute. She's discovered the bin of dog toys. Randomly throughout the day, she'll pounce on one of them. It makes me laugh. Every. single. time.

But she has been a very bad girl here in WA. If she isn't chasing one of the cats, she's running off all over town. She is no longer allowed outside without her leash, because if we take our eyes off her for 1/2 a second, she. is. gone. Being an inside dog all her life, she doesn't really understand the dangers of cars, so we worry.

Happy National Running Day!

If you haven't yet, I hope you're able to get out there today and go for a little run.

My runs lately have been in the 1 to 3 mile range, so today I thought I'd run a little further. I've been wanting to run out to the Chief Joseph Dam since we arrived in Bridgeport, so I figured this would be a great day to do it. I knew I'd want to take some pictures, so I put a waterproof I thought it might rain camera in my Camelback and headed out.

I ran from the city of Bridgeport across a long bridge and over to the Bridgeport State Park.

At the entrance to the dam, there was a very cool little maze with a unique legend about salmon and mourning doves.

I ran along some beautiful trails with some gorgeous viewpoints of Chief Joseph Dam.

I got a little camera-happy while running and while my run time was less than 60 min 59:31, to be exact, I was gone for over 1 1/2 hours.

In addition to these photos and more, I also shot some video and edited together. You can also view this on my Facebook page.

My Home

Last week was a busy one, and I didn't have a chance to play along with Stasha for Monday Listicles. I really loved last week's easy topic, so I'm going to that one today.

10 Words to Describe My Home

1. Liberating
2. White
3. Cozy
4. Natural light
5. Organized
6. Unorthodox
7. Loud
8. Surprisingly comfortable
9. Gas guzzling
10. Perfect!

Yep, I officially live in our van, Liberty, now! It's been 4 wonderful days.

As we're driving around, we're stopping at least once in every state for me to run for at least 10min. So far, I've run in North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. Posts and videos describing my runs coming soon...

We're in Washington now, staying with some family, but it's been rainy all day. I'm not sure I'll make it out there today, but no worries, we'll be here for a few days at least.