Shauna, Paul and Joaquin Mayer: Summer...

It has been a busy and hot summer and I would not have it any other way and it is not quite done. Our summer started the day school ended when we loaded up the car and drove off to Lake Tahoe for the 49th Annual DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay where we did the the fourth year running and hung out with good friends.

I will break our travels and adventures down into several posts so as to not confuse and overwhelm my self being that there are several thousand photos that need to be posted and titled. So, here goes.

Lake Tahoe

We left Utah the day school ended and made the -what should have been the 8-hour drive from SLC to Tahoe- but turned into a 10+ hour affair, because of all the starts and stops inherent in traveling with kids. After our arrival we rested up and headed out Saturday morning to run legs 4 and 6 for our relay team. My brother and his wife along with our friends kindly watched our kids as we spent all day at the race. Our teammates hailed from various parts including Utah, Nevada, and California.

This year was toasty as the temperature at race time exceeded 80 degrees and caused some problems for our team and others. Our friend Jerry from Reno ran leg 5 (10.5 miles) at around 2 pm and ended up with some heat exhaustion and lost her lunch at the end of her leg. S had the longest leg of 12.4 miles (along the north shore) and ran it in good time and was stoked she made it without much trouble. I had leg 6 which has a climb of 600 feet for the last 1.5 miles. I was worried after seeing several other runners have to stop because of the heat. I felt good for the first relatively flat part of my run and passed several people. At the bottom of the hill I felt pretty good which continued all the way to the top at Bliss State Park. However, I was not satisfied with my time that came out to 8-minute miles. I was training for sub 7:30's --but it was not to be this year.

After the race we hung out at the beach and the cabin playing games and fishing in the stream nearby. On Sunday while we were at the cabin playing card games I looked out the window and saw a big bear wandering by not more than 20 feet away. We all ran for the windows and the kids when up on the deck and watched as it walked up and out of the meadow. I was trying to power up my phone to get a picture, but the start up took so long all I got was a picture of the bear from about 60 yards. (See pics below) Some of us ran out on the back deck to take pictures while the bear was only about 30 yards away and it turned and looked at us and then just kept on moving. It was pretty amazing to be that close to such a large and dangerous animal. It was cool for all of us.

We later went to Donner Lake and Lake Tahoe to fish, swim, take in some history, and lay on the beach. Pretty fun for all involved. We are recruiting runners for next year - big 50th - so start getting in shape now.