Last time I updated I was teaching my mom how to ride a bike and she had just started working towards a healthier more active lifestyle. Dawn decided to jump aboard and joined her on her Journey to complete a triathlon and at the same time, Dallon decided to train for his own. My mom had never ridden a bicycle so you can imagine what a challenge it was to get ready in time for a triathlon. Things went well and she fell a couple times but kept getting back up and conquered her fear. She finished the triathlon and even got a few metals! Dawn also completed and finished 16th overall. VERY impressive and I’m super proud of both of them. Dawn has stuck with the fitness lifestyle and we have been going on longer walks and she now attends a boot camp fitness class a couple days per week. Hopefully I’ll be in good enough condition to compete in their next one!

Jump ahead a bit and our friend Adam bought an awesome retro chinese scooter to get around town. I helped him pick it up and bring it back a couple times for some minor problems that needed to get fixed. I rode it for 5 minutes and was sold. I needed one and I thought it would be a great way to introduce Dawn into the 2 wheeled motorized vehicle world. I bought Dawn and I matching scooters (pretty much the top of the line for chinese scooters) with hers being white and mine being black. The scooters have tiny problems here and there but we got a 1 year warranty so it’s no big deal… (Plus I don’t mind getting my hands dirty). After putting about 150 miles on mine I fell in love with the drive and the whole “mantra” of the scooter world. I decided to trade in my giant 1900cc cruiser that I loved to get myself a top of the line more powerful scooter. The chinese one was ok but didn’t have quite the oomph I was looking for. The cruiser has been sitting around in my garage since I broke my leg and I figured I might as well trade it for something I’ll use daily. The new Vespa 300 Super is AMAZING and so far I LOVE it. The ride is amazing and it has enough power to get me anywhere I can think of. I ride it almost daily now and I look for excuses to ride it around. I think it was a good trade even though it was probably a technical step down from my motorcycle. Along the way I also purchased a broken down Piaggio that has been garaged for a year and a half. I have just started working on that one now and I hope to convince my mother in law to buy it once it works so she can ride with us too.

Several weekends ago I went on an off-road trip with our friend Mike and took my Jeep. It was the first time I had been out in awhile and box canyon is the perfect place to get your feet wet. It’s got enough trails that connect to challenge any skill level. The next day I went back to the same place but with Heather and Adam. I had gotten a taste of the place and really wanted to take it all in. This day we disconnected our sway bars for the first time and I am very glad I did. We hit some spots that would have been incredibly difficult if not impossible without them disconnected. It was a great trip and I plan on doing most my off-roading there from now on.

The biggest news is that Dawn finally graduated her Masters program from University of Phoenix!!! She scored awesome so she should get her Counselors license very soon! It’s amazing how long she has been in school and I’m sure it’ll take time getting used to being out. Hopefully this will give us more time together and she has already quit her crappy state job to work in her field and actually use her degree. I’m so proud of her, such an awesome accomplishment!

So that pretty much sums it up. We have done a couple vacations here and there but otherwise we are just doing the same stuff as usual. Maybe by the next post Dawn will be riding with me to the coffee shop and we can start doing some scooter adventures. That would be a fun chapter to add to our life book. I’ll try and document what’s going on and participate in our blog more often… but you know what they say. Time flys!

That really applies in so many ways to everything we do in life. Lots of people just focus on what they are doing that moment, they look for ways out, they try to hop off when things get scary, etc when you really need to just look forward and keep your eyes on the road. If you stare at the lights of the guy in front of you, you will never pass them. I always try to look at things not so much as a finish line but more as thousands of tiny obstacles. It’s easy to move forward 1 more inch, but it’s hard to imagine moving miles, right? When you are driving or riding something, you naturally move towards whatever you are looking at. If you are staring at the ground, you will probably fall. If you stare to the right, you will move to the right. If you focus on moving forward, you will move forward. You can’t always go the direction you want, but you will do better if you just keep looking forward.

When I broke my leg, I got in the funk of looking down. I stopped moving and I got discouraged. I knew I needed to keep looking forward and so I did. I could barely pick up a marble with my toes and struggled to do any motion with my leg at all. I couldn’t put weight on it, I couldn’t imagine it was possible for me to stand without being in extreme pain. I was supposed to go from no weight bearing to 100% weight bearing in 2 weeks… I read blogs of other people who took a very long time to recover from a similar injury and some couldn’t walk for months! I knew it would take pain to make gains but I wasn’t able to push myself to put my weight on it. It just hurt too much. My P.T. wanted me to try walking around with one crutch and I decided to look forward and just deal with the pain. I took a couple steps with the crutch and it hurt… Bad.. I decided to ignore the pain and I dropped the crutch.. I started walking! Everyone in my P.T. was blown away. I was blown away… I looked forward and decided to push myself as hard as I could. My brain was be telling me to stop and my muscles were fighting back in pain but I pushed anyways… I was moving forward. I realized that I was holding myself back. It wasn’t the pain, it was my fear. That moment was a breakthrough for me and I knew I needed to just keep looking forward. I started pushing myself to do more than I thought I could each visit and every visit I was making progress. I still haven’t hit my goal and it’s been over 1 year. I really expected to have hit my goal by 6 months and it could be another year for all I know but it’s not the finish line I’m focusing on. I just want to keep looking forward.

I’m really proud of everything my mom is doing right now with her fitness and overcoming her fears. I’m sure she will have times where other people, her body, her mind, etc are all telling her to quit… Just look where you want to go, ignore all of them and don’t look at the other guy.

Look where you want to go, push yourself past your fears and you’ll get there, one inch at a time.

Random floor planking!

Yea, not really super crazy but that’s what really happens…

The prior weekend was my birthday party at a local resort and casino and then later in the week was a small birthday BBQ at my house. Somewhere in that time-frame we decided that the following weekend would be perfect to go to Vegas! We booked a room at Encore and when Friday showed up, we headed out after everyone was off work. This was the first Bartleman/Willis vacation but I’m sure there will be many more to come.

This was the first time in my life where I ever was “lucky”. I can always win something where dedication, performance, etc is involved but I never win something out of pure luck… Until now! We had the craziest 24 hour streak ever! I’m glad I didn’t spend too much or I could have lost it all but this was an awesome vacation. One of my favorites in a very very long time. I think I’m ready for another small cruise so that’s next on the list!

We left after work on our journey and made sure to grab the necessities like water, beef jerky, sleeping bags and energy drinks in case we broke down in the middle of nowhere. I always try to be over prepared for some things so I brought flash lights, my knife, a small gun, tow straps and all the other knickknacks I have hidden in the Jeep. Now that we had the necessities it was time to hit the road. I pulled up a few directions to get there with only a few minutes difference either direction so we chose the prettier route. The drive in the Jeep can be tricky because of the giant tires and lift all slowing us down but it performed much better than our last Jeep on the freeway (glad we opted for the new lower gear ratio and even better suspension!). We passed through some awesome valleys, huge bridges and tight mountain curves. This is such a pretty state, I don’t know how anyone could be disappointed with it… Each time the elevation climbed the temperature would drop and on the other side back down it would go back up. There aren’t many places I have been that have as many varying terrains, vegetation, temperatures, climates, cultures, etc in such a short distance which is one of the reasons I love driving and living here so much.

After a few hours of driving we thought it would be a good idea to pull over for some food. The signs said there was a Taco Bell in the next city so we waited patiently as we slowly passed by several other fast food places on the side of the road. Before you know it we were leaving the town and never saw a Taco Bell anywhere!? I thought maybe we just hadn’t got there yet so we just kept going down the road. We ended up driving to the next town over and stopped to get gas. Dawn asked the store clerk where fast food was and they replied “there aint no fast food in this town…”. That wouldn’t stop US from eating! Dawn found some pizza bites in one of the store fridges and I grabbed some corn nuts. She nuked the whole box at once and we jumped back into our refueled Jeep to hit the road. We only had about an hour or so left to drive but I was ready to relax and see my family.

We are headed down a tiny road and haven’t seen a car pass by in quite some time. It’s very dark and even with the brights on you can’t see too much through the scattered trees on the side of the road. I wanted to get there as fast as possible so we had the Jeep almost maxed out around 75mph. We were cruising along and making great timing. So far we were already almost 40 minutes ahead of schedule according to Google Maps and my phone suddenly crashes. I tried to fix it real quick while heading down the road but it was having a major melt down. Dawn pulls it up on her phone and luckily we have just enough reception for it to get us the rest of the way there. Now it’s smooth sailing… Until a deer runs out in the road right in front of us and I SLAM on the brakes! The roads are icy up here and our giant mud tires weren’t gripping the road. We started sliding towards the dear as he stood there staring at us almost pissed off that we were charging him! With only a few feet before we collide he finally prances off the road and I let go of the brakes. We were still going 50 as we passed the deer… I can only imagine what would have happened to both of us if he hadn’t jumped out the way. Now I was stressing out a bit and REALLY ready to get to our destination. Time to slow down. Great timing is awesome but I think we made up enough to be more cautious the rest of the drive.

Skip the next boring hour and we are finally following them for the last 15 minutes of driving to their remote property. I love being in nature and offroading. I was already starting to smile when they said it’s 15 minutes to the house and our tires are already getting covered in mud! Most of the roads to the property in the area are tight dirt trails and it’s perfect terrain for our Jeep! We make a couple turns here and there and pass by a wolf sanctuary. I knew they lived real close to the sanctuary so I was getting excited to finally get out and see them. We reach a small peak and pull over. I can see some lights ahead of us and a bunch of dogs start running over to greet us. I see Jude (Dallons dog) run up real excited and we are finally here! It’s been a great drive but I am ready for a nice cold beer and our tour of this little paradise they built for themselves.

I get out of the Jeep and grab my jacket. There’s snow on the ground and with my broken leg, it’s going to be a challenge in some of these areas. Kevin comes up and gives me a great big hug. Kevin is our step-dad and we haven’t seen him too much since we were kids but each time I give him a hug I feel like he’s been there the whole time. When we were kids he had the military style haircut with his clothes very tidy and always looked very very neat. Now he has long hair, a big beard and looks way more relaxed. He looks happy! Next Jeremiah runs up to give us a hug. He is a bubbly fun guy that can make any moment feel like a party. Dallon and I give each other a huge hug. Dallon has a big smile on his face and looks great. He’s looked bummed the last couple times I’ve seen him but tonight he looks like he’s on cloud 9. The scenery, the air, the wild life and this incredible home they have built must be great for your health. Mentally and Physically. We head down a small path to a wooden fence with the gate wide open inviting anyone in. There’s a bit of ice on the floor so I have to take my time but it let me really take in the scenery. When I pictured this place in my head I thought it was going to be like camping in a tent around small fire getting chilled to the bone each night. Compared to that, they have built a wilderness paradise! You can smell the wood fire burning as we walk into their cozy home. Everything is built by hand and you can tell every last item hanging from the walls is used regularly. There are vivid paintings on the walls and the place is lit up by frosty white holiday lights. The character that the home has is wonderful. It’s hard to describe the place. It feels like a cozy home/club house/mountain cottage/cabin/etc. It’s very comfy and after the long drive and cold air outside it feels great to be sitting in a place that has my brain stimulated with excitement and intrigue.

Damn… I didn’t finish this when I wanted to and now everything isn’t vivid enough for me to keep going. From now on, I’m going to try and write things along with the photos or take way more photos along the way to keep my memories fresh. I hate to end it here but I will let you know that I had an incredible adventure for the few days we were in that majestic place. I hope to come back very soon. As soon as my leg is healing I want to come and enjoy all the experiences I missed out on. It was hard to participate in all the fun sometimes with my injury but I wont let that hold me back on our next trip.

The first night everyone wasn’t their yet so Dawn, Jake and I had a drink and then went to Duanes. It’s the only 4 diamond steakhouse in California apparently. We enjoyed a delicious meal with some superb filet mignon and finished off with some Hennesy XO. This was the first really nice restaurant Jake had ever been to as well as his first filet experience. Since it was his birthday weekend, it deserved to be something special. Just after dinner Josh showed up so we decided to make a couple more drinks, tour the hotel and then check out the bar. After a couple hours, Dawn and I were tired so we left to the room early while Jake and Josh partied.

The next morning we woke up and had brunch at a nice little sandwich place. Some lady accused Jake of being a creep because the stores 14 year old daughter dressed like she was a 25 year old prostitute. It’s not his fault for thinking she was an adult. Everyone agreed that she did not look 14 (plus it’s just a picture so no foul). After breakfast we met up with Jon and Nicole and headed out to Laguna Beach for a quick lunch and spent about 15 minutes on the beach. I had pizza from Oceanside Brewing (I think that’s what they are called) and it was delicious. We spent most of our time driving and didn’t get to spend nearly enough time at any destination but that’s what happens when you plan a packed weekend.

About an hour before sunset we headed towards Stone Brewing in Escondido. This is one of our all time favorite places to visit. We got there just in time to wait 2 hours for a table and 2 1/4 hours for the brewery tour… I know that sounds really bad but it’s totally worth it. Next time though, I’m calling ahead! We had a few delicious beers and the men all went on a tour of the brewery (except Jon). The girls stayed behind and ate a ton of appetizers while waiting on our hour long tour. We sampled some beers and then ate dinner. The food there is unique and I’ve had food I didn’t like. This time everything I tried I really enjoyed. I’m not really there for the food anyways. The atmosphere and beer are all I need to love the place.

We left stone pretty late and drove all the way back to the hotel. It’s quite a bit of driving (over an hour each way). We got the the hotel and didn’t want to go to bed yet so we went to the bar and got a few drinks. Hung out for awhile and then Jon, Nicole, Dawn and I decided it was time to hit the sack. Jake and Josh stayed back at the bar to try and pick up on some chicks. It was Jakes birthday so he wanted to go all out in a big celebration… Probably too much for Josh since he ended up back at the hotel a few hours before Jake stumbled in. At least everyone made it back to the hotel safe.

We woke up the next morning and headed back. Another long weekend that went by in a flash… I didn’t get very many pictures but I have plenty of memories. Hopefully the few I got are enough to remind me of all the fun things we did.

Thanks California!