Bryce 100

So, remember my brother-in-law, Matt Gunn?  He likes to run hundreds of miles.  He set up a 100 mile race around Zion National Park.

He has done it yet again, this time around Bryce Canyon National Park.

As I didn't get around to taking any pictures of the actual course, here's a lovely picture of the national park that I swiped off of google.

 We left for the Gunn family's Panguitch cabin after Mark's work on Thursday, arriving around 2 a.m. Utah time.  I hustled the kids up to bed, Mac whispering the entire time, "Mom, I cannot believe it!  This is Panguitch, Mom!  We are in Panguitch!"  Mark went back downstairs to sleep on the couch for as long as possible before the rest of his family woke him up to head out to the starting line.

That ended up being twenty minutes.

So the Gunn family crew headed out to get those 100 mile racers started, while me and the kids slept in and enjoyed a day full of four wheeling, cookie baking, baseball (in a real backyard), and candy land.

Most notable was how incredibly happy Mac was.  Give a boy some space to roam free and he is a golden child.  Even when he would whisk past Belle and clothesline her (a terrible habit I'm doing my darndest to break), he would stop, turn around and say, "Oh sorry, Sweet Pea," pat her sobbing head, and run to leap off the bunk beds.

Mark woke me up when he returned home, exhausted, scruffy, covered in dirt, and smelling like campfire.  He was delicious.  And he told me he missed me.

The family was up and at 'em early again the next morning, leaving around five a.m.

But this time, they left me a car.

So later that morning, I finally convinced Mac to leave Panguitch for a few hours to go see Daddy and the racers.  We made it to the finish line and were able to help till about six ... when Belle proclaimed she had had enough.

The lovely Aunt Ashlee tried to woo Belle ... but she only had eyes for Ashlee's pancakes.

Packing up aide stations as they came in.

Adam had a shadow the entire day.  "Wook, Mom, it's Uncle Adam!"
And Sam, the beautiful, talented, kind, wonderful Sam.  I love her Adam, don't let her leave me!

Eco Commode ... the earth-friendly port-o-potty; Matt's latest small business.

It was so fun to see the kinds of people who got it into their heads to run 100 miles.  They were 20, 86, and everything in between.  Male, female, thin, stocky, portly; hippies and doctors alike.  The one thing I could tell all these racers had in common?
Their poor, swollen feet! 

Pizzas cooked in a portable brick oven ... heavenly.

The finish line.  If I can do anything for the race next year, it will be to spice that chalk line up.  SIGNIFICANTLY.   If I were to run 100 miles, I would want to know it when I finished it.

Matt proved yet again that he is unstoppable, especially with the aide of his lovely wife and the rest of the Gunn clan.

And we had an excellent weekend out in the wild.  It kinda put Big Bear Lake to shame.

We really miss the outdoors.