Friday, December 21, 2012

Friday before the holiday break

Since its the Friday before the long holiday weekend many people around here have taken the day off. When I looked out the window I could see the snow sparkle in the sunlight and wanted to share it. Hopefully this turns out.



Sunday, December 16, 2012

Cirque Du Soleil

It's been a while since I've posted, so I'll start with a quick update. The caching streak is still alive and at 167 days. Thanksgiving was just Erin and I staying home this year, very relaxing. We've also been starting to run a bit more.

So we decided to head up to Grand Forks to see cirque du soleil. I don't think either one of us knew what to expect other then a good show. We got up early Saturday morning to meet Erik for a run. Erin was a bit nervous about shooting for 6 miles, and I was a little worried as well. I got sick on Thursday and was still feeling a bit off.  The run went well. A good conversation kept our minds busy until mile 4 or so. With the breeze at our back we were all dressed a bit too warm. A few walking breaks helped with that and we finished the day with about 5.5 miles.

After the run we showered, had breakfast and loaded up the Garmins with geocaches to find before filling up with gas and heading North. Our first stop was in Hillsboro to try for a couple of caches we missed earlier in the year. The first was at the golf course which was deserted today. The second was in a bush and was easy without all of the leaves blocking the view. From there we headed up to Buxton where we were unable to find one of the three caches we tried for. After caching in Buxton we headed to Reynolds where we had an odd sense of deja vu. We had passed through here on our bike trip a few years ago on our way to Grand Forks. Once we'd found the 2 caches in Reynolds we made the short trek into Grand Forks.

We picked up a quick cache before stopping for lunch at Five Guys. They had a touchscreen pop dispenser there that was kind of neat. I've heard about them before but never encountered one. Once we were done with lunch we did a little more caching before heading over to the Ralph Engelstad Arena. After picking up our tickets and finding our seats we waited for the show to start.

The show opened with an odd little scene where an audience member was abducted, but after improved after that. One of the first things we noticed was how they could use their set to not only raise and lower hanging props, but move whatever was in the rigging to a back stage area. It was a really neat setup that I am not doing justice with this description. Some of our favorite acts in the show were a guy with a very large hula hoop that could ride around in it, a lady hanging from some scarves, a group of people jump roping, three ladies with diablos and a crowd of acrobats throwing each other around. We were both impressed with everything and would go again.

After the show we headed to a bar in the riverwalk section of East Grand Forks.  The food was good, but the service was terrible. I was also feeling sick again and was ready to head for home, so we decided to head back home.