October 1, 2006

We woke up this morning early because Kirk was participating in a mountain bike race. The sunrise was absolutely breathtaking! The sun’s rays illuminated the aspen grove across the road and made it look as if it were on fire. I quickly grabbed my camera to shoot some photos before that amazing light disappeared. We made a nice breakfast of pancakes so that Kirk would have good fuel for his race. Then we packed up and drove to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs where the race was to start. The race was about 7 miles straight up Mt. Princeton. Kirk loves to ride uphill so he was excited about this race. He has participated in a couple other mountain bike races this past summer and has come very close to placing, but always left without a prize. He didn’t even win anything in the raffles they have during the awards ceremony. So he was determined to try and win this one. I dropped him off so I could run some errands in town. After the race he rode his bike over to his parent’s house to meet me since they live so close to the Hot Springs. He rolled in and told me he thought he did well in the race. We drove back to the Hot Springs to attend the awards ceremony. About 50 people participated in the race. The first place winner went to a kid in his early twenties who finished in just under and hour. We’re not sure how Kirk placed overall, but he was 2nd in his division (men age 30-39 expert) coming in at 1 hour and 14 minutes! He was awarded a painted tile that has the race name and 2nd place on it as well as a $15 check. We were both so happy! They were doing raffles of great prizes and I kept praying Kirk would win something. Well he ended up winning the very last prize they gave out in the raffle which was 2 baseball hats, a t-shirt, a bike stem, and a $100 gift certificate. Woohoo! Finally! Kirk decided he is going to try to get sponsorship since he has been riding over the finish line with sponsored riders in every race. He has a really nice Airborne titanium disc brake mountain bike that he purchased on a pro deal while at Pole. He loves the bike and wrote the company to see about getting a sponsorship from them. We’ll see what happens!

We drove home later that afternoon and were so sad to see that the wind had stripped the aspens of their leaves. Good thing I took a picture that morning!