Hello,

An update from this past year from Vermont. Wayne and I are doing fine. It has been busy to say the least.

Bringing in the “New Millennium”-what to do????? We decided to be pretty low key and stay home. Then the phone rang-some friends were going skin or snowshoe up Pico and be on top at Midnight. And maybe see the almost full moon-but it was way too cloudy for that! Sounded good-so out the door I went at 8pm with snowshoes under my arm. There is a hut on top of the mountain that we changed into some dry clothes, had a snack before heading the down. It certainly was different coming down the mountain at 1AM on snowshoes!

The rest of the winter brought us some snow-not enough to make the skiing really good but snowshoeing is not dependant on good snow, it can be icy or powder. With the crampons on the bottom you can go up and down anything. Managed to do one “Shelley” adventure only once last year with some good friends who I conned into trying out these new fangled snowshoes. We weren’t exactly lost but we were not on the trail I had planned either-but we came out at the car after bush whacking for about 2 hours. Of course we were on the backside of Killington so the snow was up to our butts. Mark did a face plant because of a tree well and couldn’t get up. He was at Lisa’s and my mercy to dig him out-which we did after taking a photo or two. (You ask where is Wayne on these adventures-home watching golf and hoping for an early spring.) We survived that adventure.

In March four of us set out for the Phillips Brooks Range in Northern NH. We were sort of winter camping but used a ‘yurt’ instead of a tent or snow cave. A ’yurt’ is a circular domed tent made out of plastic coated canvas that is supported by a wooden frame. The Mongolians and nomads use these structures. We had a wood stove that blew a lot of smoke but did keep us somewhat warm. A really nice propane cook stove to cook and melt water. We were on top of a mountain that faced Mt. Washington to our south. The views were incredible although somewhat disconcerting that International Paper had clear cut all the forests so the hillsides were bare of trees. But that didn’t stop us from having a blast! Two of us had to experiment with klister to go up hill. Well-klister is very gooey and it didn’t work the way it was supposed to on the snow-but man did it stick Nina’s skis to her hat! We had both skis and snowshoes this weekend. If we weren’t on the skis they were strapped to our backs with the tips brought together over our heads. So that is why poor Nina ended up with ‘klister head’. Then the last night-a weather front move in! I wasn’t sure if we were going to wash off the mountain from the rain or blow off the mountain because of the wind blowing and gusting at 50+mph! We awoke the next morning after not really sleeping much at all and basically skied right down to the car. But the roads had turned into quagmire from the logging operations and we had a full load with skis, snowshoes, camping gear, cooler and 4 warm bodies! But my Subaru did great till we had to cross this huge crevasse in the icy road (the road was in the shade)! Someone had left planks, logs and a few pieces of plywood for a makeshift bridge. Nina, Lisa and Siobhan all got out of the car, lined me up over the planks and logs as I negotiated this crevasse in the car-no problem-but don’t care to do that again!

However, in early April I had been invited to do a triathlon near Sugarbush Ski area. Scheduled events were a 5 mile run, a canoe or kayak in the river with ice chunks still floating, 8 mile bicycle time trial uphill to Sugarbush North were I was supposed to do the XC ski. Well, the 3rd snowstorm of the year moved in leaving us like 12” of snow that day-but with 800 people committed to this nutty event the ‘TT” was changed to a 8 mile uphill run. Well, we had one runner and our cyclist couldn’t run 8 miles, so we made the best of it. Our runner ran the first leg, then our TT person (Dave Rath) and myself paddled our canoe down this river that was not exactly calm. Picture us in the river-snowing hard-windy-and Dave asking me to ‘power now’ as we would come into these rapids. Now granted the rapids were not that BIG but the water was coming over the bow of the canoe into my lap. Of course Dave being ultra competitive had to pass all the other canoes/kayaks any where near us. That meant taking the shortest route sometimes through the rougher water that I would have preferred to miss. Also, being a ‘time trialist’ he doesn’t know what pain is-so after about 45 minutes of asking me for ‘power now’-I was about ready to puke. I was plenty warm enough but my hands were numb from gripping the paddle too hard. The one saving grace was not having a 2nd runner meant we were done which really didn’t hurt any of our feelings-it was just nasty out. But we had fun! Don’t ask but my hip flexors were so sore the next day I could hardly walk just from paddling a canoe!!!

So we move to spring-and we can say ‘what spring or summer’? Seems like we didn’t have much of either one this year. Although I will admit I didn’t miss the really hot and humid days where I can’t drink enough water to stay hydrated working.

Wayne and I planted the last batch of Christmas trees in April. It takes about 10 years to rotate them out so that will be it for planting. It’s wicked labor intensive and both of us would rather play-me ride my bike, Wayne-play golf.

My racing season went really well. I decided head to Linton, Indiana for Master Nationals this year. The races are set up in 5 year age brackets starting at age 30. There are A LOT of very fit 45 year old women! I was 12th in the crit and 9th in the road race. The road race we finished in a torrential downpour that left about 8-10” of water on the road for the final sprint. All you could see in front of you was the rear wheel you were following-we were sprinting at about 35-40mph. Needless to say that was very interesting-but no one fell. Several of us from my cycling club were out in Linton-about 2 hours south of Indianapolis. It was a lot of fun and the locals really enjoyed seeing all the guys running around with their shaved legs.

Just before I left for Master Nationals I had moved into the ‘sprinter’s jersey’ in the Agilent Technology Women’s Series. Last year I won the ‘leader’s jersey’ this year I won the ‘sprinter’s jersey’ along with a really cool set of Spinergy wheels. I couldn’t have won this jersey or wheels with out the help of my teammates though. I race with a really cool bunch of gals!

Wayne’s golf game is improving every weekend-most of the time. He didn’t like the cool damp summer but I noticed his scores were better because it was not nearly as hot in July as usual. He’s shooting in the low 90’s on good days. Seems as though he has one or two holes where he just can’t get that little white ball to drop in.

Now we’re into September-two days removed from my last race of the season-I was riding to work on my cyclocross bike. Knapsack on my back with uniform and lunch for the day when I hit some wash board on our dirt road. This caused my frame pump to fall off-(which is normally no big deal) but mine made it’s way into my front wheel. Needless to say I went right over the front of my bike-landed on my head. I had a helmet on that did it’s job. Tried to use my cell phone to call Wayne but I was in a dip and had no reception. So I walked to the neighbors house hoping Tom wouldn’t’ faint from the sight of blood. Tom gave me a wet wash cloth and we called Wayne told him I was on way home but had to go to the ER. Thank god for really nice neighbors! After a bunch of X-rays I had a broken right collarbone and some good lacerations on my face but no broken facial bones or teeth! The plastic surgeon was already in the hospital doing surgery. He stitched me up doing an excellent job on my forehead. I consider myself pretty lucky with the force that I went down and landing on the front right side of my helmet. Had to sleep in a chair for the first week because I couldn’t get up from a prone position. But with a broken right collarbone-no driving a standard shift car-so Karin and I traded cars for weeks! Which was really GREAT! Couldn’t tie my own shoes, pull my hair back into a pony tail-Wayne was a trooper making sure I was all set for the day before he left for work. It was 11 weeks before I went back to work!

The accident kept Wayne and I from going to California in September. We had planned a cool trip to the Russian River Valley wine country. Wayne was going play some golf and taste wine-I was going to ride my bike. Well, needless to say with a broken collarbone I wasn’t going anywhere. So we had to cancel our trip.

Between the Olympics and teaching myself (with the help of a couple of good friends) Power Point, Front Page and then designing some training programs kept me entertained!!!! Learning Front Page I now have a web site-URL:

www.vermontel.net/~sylutz. Check this out for photos from the last couple of years-let me know any ideas that would be good to post.

We have two new toys-a diesel generator that will power the whole house and neighbors too! Also, purchased a bucket loader for our tractor-really makes picking rocks much simpler!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!