Fat Tire Festival

If I knew how to spell the name of the national park where the bike race was held, I'd write it, but seeing the race is also known as the fat tire festival because it is a mountain bike race, I'll leave the title as is.

We spent the weekend in northern Wisconsin with Dahlen's, Dave Langley, and Dave D's sister. We rented a cabin and had a beautiful weekend. Seeing we didn't have daycare on Friday, we left at lunch time so we could enjoy some of the day at the cabin. Adam took a ride, Dave went to get his race packet and I ran off some energy with the boys. We played football, looked for fish from the dock and found the playground. Emmit doesn't like the steps and prefers to walk up the slide which he mastered easily. He did seem to find the climbing rope steps fun too. Gerrit loves the monkey bars and does a great job going across them - he has more upper body strength than his dad! We had dinner the lodge with Dahlen's before calling it a night.

Saturday was the big race. Anne dropped Dave off at his start (he did the long race) and I dropped Paul off at his start (he did the short - he's not old enough to do the long). We have it down to a science and everyone knows where to go and where to meet up and when. Adam took advantage of the trails and did a ride by himself and I picked him up in time to catch the finish. We met up with the rest of the group on the hill of a ski resort where the finish line is located. Paul did great and took 6th in his age group while Dave made his goal of under 3 hours. Emmit enjoyed his ride in the back pack as well as playing with Paul's bike to pass the time. Emmit had so much excitement that he actually fell asleep in Adam's arms. Gerrit did a great job riding his bike up and down the big hill. Last year he just went and didn't break whereas this year he did a much better job of keeping under control. Emmit and Anne took a tour of the medicopter just before he was called to leave. It was quite the site to watch it leave seeing we were so close to it. No one in our group was injured which was a relief as we saw one guy crash and turned his ankle a way no one would want to turn it (it was grose!).

We made it back to the cabin to catch a little football and bloody mary's. We had pizza in Cable for dinner and enjoyed the crisp fall air. It was a busy day and we were all in bed by 9:30! Sunday was rainy so we had breakfast and headed for home.  Even though its a bit of a drive, it is a beautiful area and a great escape from the hustle and bustle of home. We always say we'd like to come back and stay longer...maybe this year???