Hiking Old Rag
A little while ago, I achieved one of my goals for 2009 which was to hike Old Rag mountain in the Shenandoah National Park with Jason. Three years ago, we had hiked up Old Rag and set a personal speed record for reaching the summit. This year the circumstances were a little different as both Jason and I would be hiking after three nights and two day of intense swing dancing as part of Charm City Swing’s Lindy500 weekend. We would be hiking with tired and possibly sore legs. This was a good thing as it allowed us to have a more relaxing hike. The trip was made more special as we would be hiking with Jason’s parents, two of his sisters (Heather and Tracie), Bill, Heather’s friend and Jason and I. We all assembled at Jason’s place at 7:30 AM and were headed south a little after 8:00 AM. At around 11:30 AM, we started the hike from the upper parking lot and hiked for about an hour before stopping for lunch. The terrain is a gradual climb. Over the course of the hike, we would climb 2,286 feet and hike just under nine miles. For this trip, I decided to pack along some new technology which I am still experimenting with, a Garmin Forerunner 305. Every couple of seconds the watch would record a GPS reference point. The next two pictures are the route we took courtesy of the GPS watch.
By early afternoon we would all reach the summit and it was time to rest our legs. As the hints of a sunset started to appear we took some pictures and started our descent. But before doing so Jason and I had to have a picture taken close to where we were photographed a couple of years back. It was good to record this moment. The descent was a little slower than the ascent as we were hiking with tired legs. By early evening we were back at the van. Bill, Heather, Jason’s mom and I headed down to the stream to dip our feet into the cold water. It felt refreshing. I’ll close this point with two pictures courtesy of the GPS.
Sea to Summit — Bowl and Mug
When I go out camping and hiking I like to keep the amount of gear I have to carry to a minimum. I recently discovered an new innovation, the Sea to Summit
mug and
bowl. When you are not using them the mug fits inside the bowl and the result is a disc four inches in diameter by 1/4″ thick. To use either of them you push out the centre of the disc and you are ready to go. Before putting the mug to a test in the wilderness I decided to test it out in my kitchen. I added my favourite hot brew to the mug and discovered that it is best to the grip the cup by the black rim and to use two hands when drinking say a cup of hot coffee or tea. I was impressed by how well they worked. The next test will be to see how they operate in the arctic cold of Adirondack winter camping or a local trek in the Ottawa environs.
http://www.rei.com/product/767560
Sea to Summit bowl
http://www.rei.com/product/787278
Sea to Summit X-Mug
Awesome weekend in Baltimore
pspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”I spent last weekend having an incredible great time in Baltimore. I arrived span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_0″on Friday afternoon/span and Jason met me at the airport. We headed over to Whole Foods for a late lunch as I was famished. After lunch we headed back to a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com”Jason/a’s place to chip away at a layer ofa href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247961858028694850″ cement in his bathroom/a as earlier in the week the span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_1″bathroom tiles/span didn’t set properly. Having two hammers and chisels beaver away at the floor allowed us to nearly get the floor free of cement debris a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247961887688044562″1/a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247961900507305986″2/a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962202913047938″ /a. In the evening we headed south to Glen Echo, which is south-west of Washington for some swing dancing. Jam Cellar and Sac au Lait were hosting an outdoor dance in the old bummer car pavilion. It was a great venue and the music was good./span/span/p pspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_2″On Saturday/span, we headed back to Jason’s house and spent much of the morning a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962202913047938″scouring the bathroom floor/a of cement so that a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247961917531645746″Em could lay the tiles /ain the afternoon. In the afternoon a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247961937557762834″Jason grouting another bathroom/a and I was cool to act as a support person doing chores for Jason and Em. In the evening we headed over to span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_3″a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962402529089538″Camden Yard/as/span to take in an Orioles game. It game started late as the “O’s” were playing a double-header. We had great seats and we watched a good game despite the fact that “O’s” lost. /span/span/p pspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”We started off Sunday with a large breakfast (home-made waffles) at Jason’s parents place. Jason gave me some tips on how to get a target=”_blank” href=”http://my.yahoo.com/”span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_4″my Yahoo/span/a Mail on my iPhone/iPod Touch which was really good. Afterwards, we headed to REI as I had an order that needed to be picked up. I was able to buy two BPA free Nalgene bottles which was sweet. We next headed in a North-Western direction to the Catochin Mountains close to span style=”border-bottom: medium none; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_5″Thurmont, MD/span. Much of the day was spent hiking and doing some light climbing. I was happy to watch Jason scale some steep rock faces. (Note to self – I should have brought my span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_6″climbing shoes/span and harness.) (a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962447391337314″Wolf Rock/a n39 38.042 w077 26.258) There was a little exciting when we were at Wolf Rock. I found a crevasse in the some rocks which allowed me toa href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962484508068962″ lay back a/and to take and get in some Ramp;R. Once Jason had climbed Wolf Rock he set his eyes on a more a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#5247962462154446386″ambitious goal of seeing his could climb through a rock face underneath me/a. He got very close to the surface only to find he couldn’t get his chest through a small crevasse. What to do? The only solution was to head back down the way he came. It was a hot day and the rocks were slippery. As he was heading down Jason lost his grips and fell 15 feet bouncing from one rock to another. It was a WOW moment. A little later we headed south back to Em’s place for an awesome lasagna dinner with family friends.br //span/span/ppbr /span lang=”en-us”/span/ppspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Baltimore_Sept_2008#/abr //span/span/p pspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_7″On Monday/span, Scott, Jason and I headed over to span style=”border-bottom: medium none; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_8″Home Depot/span to get some Hardi-backer flooring boards. I had estimated that we would need 14 boards by measuring the area and adding in an error factor (15%). After lunch we laid down the cement, Hardi-backer boards, and screwed in 850 screws. Having three people working on the task meant that we always had a ready-supply of cement, some putting in the screws while someone else was measuring the next board. In the evening we headed to the Austin Grill for some swing dancing. I head a great time dancing while many folks that I had danced with before. We close out the evening doing something quite memorable and that is playing wordabble on our span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_9″ipod/span Touch/iPhone./span/span/p pspan lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_10″On Tuesday/span, we had a leisurely morning which was great. We exchanged gifts and I’m pleased with my JetBoil. For lunch we headed to Rosina’s which is a sort of tradition. In the early afternoon I headed back to Ottawa by way of span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1222021563_11″Philadelphia/span./span/span/p
Animals in the Hinterland
Today I was geocaching in the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenbelt_%28Ottawa%29″Greenbelt/a of Ottawa and trying to locate some caches in deer yards. As I was walking to my next cache I heard a branch crack and stopped dead in my tracks. This could have been a good or bad decision. If a tree or branch was falling I was going to get whacked. I was lucky as whatever made the noise stopped too. Through the cedar underbrush I could see that I was five feet away from a deer. We stared at each other for a while and then it flicked it tail and was off on its way. A little later on I spotted another one heading away in the distance. My current find tally is 875 and so my goal of 900+ finds by the end of the year is quickly coming within sight.
Adirondacks June-July 2008
Wright Peak/Algonquin/Iroquois/Phelps/Coldenbr /br /Friday June 27br /One of my goals is to eventually climb all of the 46 peaks in the Adirondacks whose elevation is above 4,000 feet. This past weekend I added one more to the tally, Iroquois. On Friday morning, Chris Mc and I headed down to Lake Placid and stopped in at the Price Chopper to get lunches and groceries for the long weekend. Once at camp we setup a tarp and bug net over the picnic table as suspected we would meet the bugs and/or rain over the weekend. Na, Paul and Ben would arrive at the campsite a little while later. After supper we started a fire and contemplated when Wendy and Erin would arrive. We took bets on when they might arrive and I won. They wouldn’t arrive until mid-afternoon on Saturday.br /br /Saturday June 28br /The five of us were up early (0630) and eating breakfast by 7:00 AM. Our goal for the day was to hike the mountains near Algonquin Peak much of this would be dependant on our stamina and the weather. At 8:21 AM we headed out from the ADK Loj trailhead and made our way south-west. After 30 minutes the trail splits, one direction leading to Marcy Dam and the other to Algonquin. We took the right path and headed south. The trail very gradually climbs and is a Mecca for boulders. Along the way we took in the sight of a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195600451739874″waterfall/a. After climbing for about an hour we reached another trailhead. Half of the group climbed Wright Peak while the others continued on the trail to Algonquin. The view from a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195649465892946″Wright /awas good but we could see a storm approaching in the distance. As continued our ascent up to Algonquin it started to lightly rain and in rolled the mist. It was hard to spot the next cairn. We stopped for lunch at the summit. The mountain steward was standing on watch. The group split again and most of the people headed down a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195666526403058″Algonquin/a. The remainder continued east to Boundary and Iroquois. The intensity of the rain increased and the fog grew thicker. It was at this point that the GPS proved its value. At breakfast time I punched in the coordinates for all the peaks we would be climbing. A father, his son and a large poodle mistook Boundary for Algonquin. I shouted that the GPS said we had another 300 yards to hike. They were not happy by this remark. The final 300 yards involved hiking through shoulder height trees and boggy mud flats. My knee high gators kept the spruce trees from scratching my legs as well as keeping the mud away from my boots. Once we reached the summit we retreated back to the valley between the mountains. We had a choice to head back by Avalanche Lake or return the way we had come. Three groups were making the same decision and all opted for coming back the way they had come. It would be better to head back on familiar terrain that to take a longer route with an uncertain terrain. The constant rain made this choice obvious. As we headed across Algonquin the rain became more intense and my heart went out to the steward huddled next to a large rock. It would be another three hours before he could head down. Once below the tree line the rain let up and we could take off our rain jacket. The forest was steamy hot. A little while later the sun came out. As we were heading by the falls I saw some naïve hikers making there way to Wright Peak. They were wearing button-down white and blue shirts. I wonder how long they would stay clean and dry as another storm was an hour away. Once back at the camp I had a piping hot cup of tea to celebrate my ascents. Wendy and Erin had arrived by this point and prepared a marvelous pasta dish for supper. Paul and I trimmed up a standing conifer tree and as a standing dead tree is a dry tree. A blazing warm fire was a welcome site to the group.br /br /Sunday June 29br /Most of the group was awake at sunrise and we started down the trailhead early in the morning. Our goal was to climb a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195702365853618″Phelps/a. At the first trail junction we headed east towards Marcy Dam and took in the sights before heading further east. There was much relief as we were climbing the Phelps trail as it had fewer rocks than the trail leading to Wright. We ate lunch at the Phelps summit. The knats and black flies were swarming on the summit so we headed down shortly after lunch. We were at our campsite by mid-afternoon. After a Chinese stir-fry meal we headed into Bamp;J for ice cream. There were black clouds hanging over Lake Placid. As we were heading back to camp it started to pelt. There would be no fire tonight. It would rain for most of the night.br /br /Monday June 30br /On Monday morning, Na, Paul and Ben packed up and headed back to Ottawa. Chris Mc, Erin and I set out early to climb a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195833553157698″Mt. Colden/a. We headed over to Marcy Dam before hiking in a southerly direction towards Avalanche Lake. By lunch hour, we were climbing over the ladders that take you along the shores of Avalanche Lake. The edge of the lake ends in a steep cliff so they have wooden ladders and platforms hanging from the edge of the cliffs. Our trek along Colden Lake was muddy. Midway down the lake we started our steep ascent of Mt. Colden and reached the summit after much exertion and heavy breathing. It was a bright and sunny day on the summit. We ate our lunch while admiring the views, of Marcy Dam, Avalanche Lake, and the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195812198272450″three other peaks /awe had climbed two days earlier. The hike down to Lake Arnold was a pleasant one as the switchbacks allowed us to gradually drop elevation. We pumped water at a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/photo#5218195875977432370″Lake Arnold /adespite the black fly infestation. Within an hour we were back at the Marcy Dam trailhead. We all headed into town for steak dinner at thea href=”http://www.blogger.com/www.lakeplacidcp.com/dining.html” Lake Placid Boat Club /awhich sits on the edge of Mirror Lake. Erin and Wendy headed north to Ottawa after dinner. Chris Mc and I headed back to camp for the final camp fire.br /br /Tuesday July 1 – Canada Independence Daybr /We were both up at 5:00 AM. I spent a little while packing my thermarests and sleeping bag before leaving the tent. Meanwhile, Chris Mc got the Coleman stove alight. We had all our gear packed and heading north by 8:00 AM.br /br /a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/2008_Adirondacks_July/a
East Dix – South Dix – June 2008
I spent the past weekend hiking in the Adirondacks and visited two peaks I had climbed last fall (a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Dix”East Dix/a and a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dix”South Dix/a). A recent microburst and the unmarked and unmaintained herd trails made the trek more challenging. On Friday afternoon four cars headed south from Ottawa and rendezvous in Keene Valley at the a href=”http://www.rockandriver.com/”Rock and River lodge/a. On the way down we stopped at Price Chopper to buy lunches for the Saturday and Sunday hikes. I replenished my stock of fig newtons. Our group stayed in one of the largest chalets which was a converted a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix/photo#5212589644689001090″barn /aand had a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix/photo#5212589550144767682″climbing wall/a on the back side of the fireplace.br /br /On Saturday morning after a hearty breakfast we headed 20 km south to the East Dix trailhead. I fired up the GPS and punched in the coordinates for the East Dix summit. At the critical point on the trail we forded the Bouquet River learning from our mistake from last year. As we meandered along the river the GPS “distance to final” fell very slowly. At times we were slowed down due to downed trees but soldiered on. Our OHOC group (12) broke up into three smaller groups and the distance between them grew. Every half-hour we would regroup. Brian and I were the first to reach the East Dix slide after a three hour hike. There is a well defined path to the west side of the slide which takes you about halfway up at which point you have to cross to the east side. One had to be aware of your colors. A black or brown colored rock is slippery while a gray will give a firm purchase. With the GPS running I could watch the feet to the summit ever so slowly decrease. It was slow going up the slide. Our goal was to climb toward a cliff that looked like a hammerhead. There is a path along the edge of the cliff that leads to the summit. It was a big relief when we reached the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix/photo#5212589963796294354″summit/a. We took a couple of pictures and started our one mile trek to the summit of South Dix. We made the hike with a certain amount of urgency as there were looming dark clouds overhead. Once again the GPS allowed us to keep our bearing. As we were taking pictures on the cliffs of South Dix it started to rain. I fished out my rain jacket and Brian and I headed back over to East Dix. Midway along the trail the rain stopped but we continued to wear our jackets as the forest was wet. Once back on East Dix the sun came out and quickly dried off the rock face. It was mid-afternoon by this point and I ate my sub quietly and pushed back some fig newtons and diet coke. We would spend the next 40 minutes climbing very slowly down East Dix and in some cases walking on all fours. With a little luck I found the trail that runs down the east side of the slide and eventually leads to the campsite. Once off the slide I sighed with relief as we were out of harms way. The journey back along the trail was more brisk than I would have liked. By this point I had consumed three liters of water and only had one more to spare. The forest was warm and muggy. We bumped into the other group midway along the trail which was a relief for me as we as there was no longer a need to travel at a breakneck speed. We learned that the other groups had made it halfway up the slide but missed the cairn that tells you to cross over to the other face. They turned back as it was raining and thundering overhead. Once back at the car I headed down to the Bouquet River and stood in the cold river for 15 minutes to cool myself down. It felt awesome. As we were driving back to the lodge the skies opened and it pelted with rain.br /br /Once back at the lodge I had a blistering hot shower and washed the caked mud from my legs. We had a group pasta dinner. After supper I bedded down really early as I bushed.br /br /On Sunday morning I awoke really early and headed over to the lodge for a hearty breakfast with the rest of the crew. The goal for the day was a short four hour hike up Pitchoff Mountain. It was a good day hike as long as you kept moving. Our turnaround point was “the ridge” which had a great view of Cascade Mountain. At is at this point that we experienced our first bugs of the trip. The black flies were out but they were not in a bitten mood and were more of an irritation.br /br /a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/June2008_Adirondacks_EDix_SDix/a
Off to the Adirondacks soon…
In just over a week, I’ll be heading down to the Lake Placid area for my second hiking trip of the year. The plan is to climb a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Dix”East Dix /a(4012 feet) anda href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dix” South Dix /a(4060 feet). Last year, Chris Mc, Kevin and I camped at the base of what we thought was East Dix and later confirmed once we were at the summit. This year we are taking a different approach and staying at a hostel overnight in a href=”http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=enamp;q=Keene+Valley,+NY,+USAamp;um=1amp;ie=UTF-8amp;sa=Xamp;oi=geocode_resultamp;resnum=1amp;ct=title”Keene Valley /aand to summit both Dixs peaks as part of a long day hike. Now that we have the GPS coordinates we can start at the car and just follow the GPS arrow as it counts down the kilometers/miles to go. Chris Mc and I are leading a group of a href=”http://ohoc.ncf.ca/”OHOC /ahikers this time round. There is still one unsolved mystery and that is, will there be bugs and how fierce/intense they might be as this is the earliest in the spring that I have been hiking in the Adirondacks.
Hazards of snowshoeing
This weekend I learned first hand about one of the perils of snowshoeing in the Spring, weak ice. We had an impromptu gathering of the people that went on the recent Adirondack trip. We headed up to a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatineau_Park”span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1207532558_0″Gatineau Park/span /aon the north side of the span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1207532558_1″Ottawa River/span. The snow is melting quickly but there is still a thick base of granular snow. Our goal was to have lunch at Pink Lake. We initially started out by bushwacking in a northwesterly direction. After scrambling through a couple of thorn patches we decided to try and find the main trail. It was at this time that we ran into a wet problem. We had to trek between two lakes divided by a land bridge. The hump of the land bridge was quite steep. My first attempt at getting up span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1207532558_2″the hill/span was unsuccessful. One of my legs slid down onto the weak ice breaking through the surface of span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1207532558_3″the lake/span giving me a soaker. One foot was icy cold while the other was toasty warm for the recent exertion. As more and more people went up the slope it became more slippery. A couple of soakers later we decided to take an inland route rather than trying to scout along the edge of the lake. We made it to Pink Lake and took a more direct route back to the car.br /br /br /Sent from my span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1207532558_4″iPod/span
Squishy bowl
While shopping at a href=”http://www.rei.com/”REI /alast week, I found a new cool and fun gizmo, the a href=”http://www.guyotdesigns.com/site/htm/home.html”Guyot Squishy bowl /aand cup. They are made out of food grade silicon and are incredibly flexible and light. As well they are fun to play with as you can squeeze and squish them and they quickly returns to it normal shape. The cup fits inside the bowl so the storage footprint is minimal. I’ll try them out of my next outdoor trip and see how they operate under winter conditions.
2008 Goals
2008 Goalsbr /br /* Run a 1:30 half-marathon timebr /* Go on more OHOC outdoor adventuresbr /* Do more hiking tripsbr /* Climb more of the 46ers (46 highest peaks in the Adirondacks , NY)br /* Loose 10 lbs by May 30 (race date –National Capital half-marathon)br /* Hike the West Coast Trail/Shenandoah National Park/strikeOld Smoky National Park/strikebr /* Run a faster Baltimore half-marathon ( 1:34 ) in October 2008br /* Visit Brent ( Algonquin Park ) by canoeing and portaging and bring along a digital camerabr /* Reach 500,000 Babble point (now 350,000) www.playbabble.combr /* Do more cycling (road and mountain biking)br /* Geocaching goal 900-1000 finds by Dec 31 2008br /* Become more mobilebr /* Complete an Olympic Distance triathlon (1500m swum/40km cycle/10km run)br /* Swing dancing – Learn the Lindy Hopbr /* span style=”font-style: italic;”Take the train to Baltimore/span
