So I had a little birthday this weekend. Not that I’m trying to draw attention to it or anything. Just a teensy little insignificant birthday. But the thing is, Bri caught wind of this fact and decided to plan out quite the weekend escapade. It required two things on my part: 1) Take a monday off from work, and 2) the ability to drink large quantities of wine while riding a bicycle.

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Not really sure who the ‘hard case’ is in the title of this blog post, but since I tried a really poor Sean Connery impression on more than one occasion on our trip to Alcatraz, I guess it’s what’s stuck in my head.

Anyway, we were on a %#@ boat!!! (NSFW lyrics)



All pictures out on Flickr

As part of my birthday weekend, my amazing wife picked up tickets to the Internationally Acclaimed Oregon Craft Breweries beer tasting at the Artisan Wine Depot . This was an awesome event. Not only did we get to try some beers from my favorite brewers, but the event was small enough that we could talk with the store owner, Christine, about all kinds of beers and wines.

72 degrees and sunny? I could get used to this.

Well I’m happy to report that we made it safe and sound to our new home in Mountain View after a very long 3000 mile drive across the country. In some ways it was a fast trip. There was so much countryside we passed at 60 mph that it made the distance seem that much greater. I’m sure we could have extended the trip a week, or two weeks and still felt rushed. On the other hand, the 14 hour days were pretty long and we just wanted to get there.

Laramie greeted us this morning with some light rain and a cool breeze. We pushed off pretty early, eager to make our appointment in Park City to pick up my pre-ordered motorcycle at a dealer there. The morning drive through the high plains and desert of western Wyoming was a pleasant surprise. The country was beautiful, just huge expanses of sky, plateaus and the ribbon of I-80 disappearing off in the distance. About the only station on the radio we could pick up was NPR, and they had some sort of special where they read off the complete Declaration of Independence. It was pretty cool to hear the words that started this country while driving a road that connects the two coasts.