Dueces Wild! (caution - long post ahead!)

Do you know how the town of Show Low got it's name? Well, it is an interesting story about a card game. Two men decided Arizona wasn't big enough for the two of them and they decided to play a card game called Seven Up. The low card takes the hand. If you "show low" you win. The site of the card game became the town of Show Low - Now you know!

The point of my little geography/history lesson is to give you the setting of our family camping trip/Jeff's race this last weekend. Jeff decided to compete in an Olympic length triathlon in Show Low and we decided to take the whole family to cheer him on. We packed the newly fixed motor home and off we went. The kids loved the winding, bumpy roads - (I got a little car sick) - and I loved watching the brown desert turn green. At one point Megan turned to me and said, "mom, this looks like California. Are we going to grandma's house?" It was beautiful, all green and lush, with hills and mountains to please the eye! It started to rain as soon as we got there, thank goodness for generators and DVDs! When we finally found a campsite and settled in the rain stopped and Jeff attempted to teach the children how to fish, but the wind caused problems with the fishing line and we decided to start a campfire with wet wood instead. The kids loved roasting marshmallows and feeding the fire. We have never camped like this before and this was truly an adventure for them. It was so peacefully quiet tucked away on a mountain side. I could have stayed there forever! (minus the bugs!)The next morning, the day of the race, the sun came up and it was beautiful. The kids loved watching Jeff race and I tried to position ourselves at the places where he would transition so they could see the most of him. Due to the length of the race, the in between times got to be a little long and the children had to entertain themselves with finding bugs and sticks to kill the bugs! I am so okay with that! We cheered daddy into the finish line - where they were handing out Popsicles - yummy! - then headed back to the motor home for lunch. After lunch we tried our hand at fishing again, but mother nature had a different idea. The wind came up, and the rain came down! It rained for about 3 hours - I should say down poured! It smelled so good! Again, I was extremely glad to have the motor home! After the rain, we played on the playgrounds scattered around the campsite, had some $12 spaghetti, and headed home. We had a great time and we are already looking forward to doing it again next year.

Oh! Jeff's race! He did a great job! I thought he looked fantastic! I have always been his biggest fan and I love watching him race. This one totally took me back to the "pre-children" days when he raced all the time. I am amazed what strength and endurance he has to do these races and I am always so proud of him!
Here he is coming out of the water.The bike to run transition. And finally the finish line. He is wearing his new running shirt the girls chose for him! Doesn't he look good?!