Season Ender

We had our church's 25th anniversary friday night on one of those paddle boats on the St.Croix out of Stillwater.Alot of people showed up that I wasn't expecting.People I haven't seen in years.My family has been going to the Miracle Centre in South St.Paul for about 23-24 of those years.Jefferson Christian School which me and Sam attended K-12 was connected with the church.We only lived about half a mile away when I lived in So.St.Paul.My mom worked at the school doing janitorial work and when we were in grade school me and Sam helped out every friday spending our evenings up there.I was the last to graduate from the school as it closed a year latter.It was a very small school as is the Church so I got to know everyone pretty good.Anyway,a classmate of ours moved to Oklahoma years back and he showed up at the celebration.We kind of knew what he was up to as his family would come up to visit once in awhile.But hearing first hand his war stories from Iraq was amazing.He got to see alot of things other Marines didn't.He was right in the thick of things and even got to do some special ops taking out some terrorists.Thank God He was watching over him because he was close to being killed many times.He did get injured bad in a road side bombing.He said a 250lb bomb went off 20ft from his Hummer and blasted the door in on him.His kevlar helmet broke in half and his left side got banged up.He suffered minor brain damage and gets headaches once in a while now.Some of his stories though were insane.Close quarter firefights are not for the faint of heart.Thanks to all our troops who served and are serving, your all heros.



The next morning we headed up to St.Cloud for the season ender of the mtb season.what a muddy mess is all I have to say.I liked the course and it was fun to slide through the mud but when your done the cleanup sucks.And I have to replace the drivetrain.I started out going into the singletrack after a prologue behind Sam The entire race the positions stayed the same.It was a replay of Laddies Loppet.Me pulling Tom Miller around for 3 laps with Dave Oachs chasing not far behind.Then lap 4 it started raining again and the trail went from bad to worse and I started to get chain suck.Tom wasn't having any problems so he took off and I couln't see Dave behind.I ended up catching Mr.Fisher near the end who was not looking good.I rolled in a muddy 8th and Sam hammered to a 4th place finnish behind Brendan.I'm not kidding when I say my bike had about 10lbs of mud on it.When I went to lift it up through a rock garden, holy crap I could hardly lift the thing.Chris said by the time he set his bike back down his arm started to cramp up.(Chris is no weakling mind you,he sets granite tops for a living).I still had a good time ripping through the mud and felt fine untill the end,it was a good season ender.Now I look forward to some throttle-twisting,hunting,and fishing at the cabin for the fall.