Geothermal Rising

What a great week this has been!  

Such a treat to spend time with my colleagues in person, meet new people, attend technical sessions to learn more about geothermal, and see my former neighbor and long lost friend Leann!

I stayed at the Peppermill resort and casino, which is also where the conference took place. I loved being here and the event came to an end all too soon.

Reno! But first, Truckeeee!

I haven't been to Reno for so many years. And I am soooo excited to be able to come to the Geothermal Rising Conference for a few days to see out the end of this monumental month.  So I landed on time and went outside into the warm evening air to reunite with my long lost friend and former manager Bill!  Such a happy reunion! We drove up to his house in Truckee and the party had already started. Whoop whoop! Just like the good ol' days. 

I had a brilliant weekend with Bill and Liz, and got to visit with Steve quite a bit too, and meet his awesome wife and child. So that was really fun.

On Saturday night, Auntie Pat came over and I met the neighbor across the road. Bill and Liz are fabulous hosts and it felt so good to spend time with them. 

Tomorrow morning my colleague Erika is going to collect me from Bill and Liz's house and drive down to Reno to set up our booth at the conference.

Onwards

We headed out this morning at a leisurely hour

We stopped in Vail to stretch our legs and find some food. That was a treat! We didn't know what to expect, so we were pleasantly surprised even though it was a bit Disneylandish.

Tryfs was looking a little seedy with his funny socks and sliders and McLovin t-shirt. Good thing we didn't see anyone we knew!

 

We ended the day with the arrival to the Super 8 in Dillon, where we met up with dearest long lost Flo! She rolled in on her rental motorcycle soaking wet from the torrential rainstorm we had been experiencing in the late afternoon. What a treat to see her!  We went for dinner at a place nearby and had a fun meal together, then met up for breakfast and waved her off!

We checked out and headed towards Denver but had to stop so that I could attend a conference call. We found this cool coffee shop on a tiny high street in the settlement of Silver Plume.

 

And that worked out pretty well! Our next stop was basically the airport, although we did a little bit of meandering before we got there.  My flight to Reno was a couple of hours before Rhods and Tryfan's flight back to London, but the whole thing worked out really well.  In fact, it has been a pretty amazing couple of weeks.

Serious mountain bike ride

Oh my gosh, I was so, so tired after our bike ride today.  Yeouch.

We rented bikes from Skylyr's pal in Aspen and headed over towards the airport to start our real ride at the Sky Mountain Park. We had spectacular weather - clear and hot, but not too hot actually.

There were a couple of scary moments in the ride, some unexpected steep downhill sections, but also some hard uphill pedaling. I was quite proud of myself for not needing to get off and walk at any section, and I also didn't fall off at any point. It was awesome that Skylyr could join us on his day off, and that he was able to help get us some bikes to rent at 'mates rates'. We were stoked.  

Afterwards we went for pizza and beverages at a place downtown Aspen, and then we hobbled to the car.  Here is Tryfan posing with some of his scrapes, dirt and bruises, while I found a house that is called "Chalet Lisl"!!

When we got back to the house, we had a quick turnaround to go back to the hot spring, this time with Merran and Skylyr, and then we all went out to dinner together.

Tomorrow we are heading off, but this has been a pretty incredible stretch of days.

Meanwhile, over at Prin...

Our girl Rhiannon seems to be doing really well!  Here she is as part of the House kick off events. She is in Flint House and looks like she has a few friends there already.

 

Lost Man Loop

Today we hiked the Lost Man Loop up by the continental divide. It was awesome! What a stunning day. We are so lucky.

We went a bit off piste again and climbed up a little ridge to peer into the adjacent valley. A cute little stoat came to say hi to us! She is pretty camouflaged in this photo but she is so cute.

At the end of the loop, one of us had to hitch back to the trailhead to get the car. 

Nobody picked up Rhodri but in the end a nice lady who had been hiking behind us with a big fluffy dog gave him a lift.