Double 9 Weekend (9/9/06)

Late summer in the Sierras is spectacular. So, we packed up the car and headed to the hills to fill our lungs with the first breezes of fall.



Our first stop was the Auburn Ski Club Summer Biathlon. Summer biathlon combines running with target shooting. The conditions of my probation prohibit me from handling firearms and shiny, shiny knives, so I didn't enter the race. Mike's record is (amazingly) still clean, so he signed up for the race and let his shooting skills shine. That's him shooting prone - he didn't miss one target:



He didn't let the altitude or the large number of Junior National Olympic Nordic ski team members slow him down either. He ran like a champ.



The rest of the weekend was spent honing our exploration skills. All of our efforts paid off when Sarah got to have her first dip in a mountain stream:



While driving, it seemed like enormous groves of wild blackberries followed us everywhere. This led to my favorite Sarah-ism of the weekend. Mike was excitedly pointing out all of the fruit, "Look at all of those blackberries!" Sarah glanced out the window, caught a glimpse of some unripe berries, and said, "Those aren't black berries. Those are red berries."



It's weekends like these that fill me with joy and make Monday mornings just a tad more bearable.