Microwaves, Water Bottles and Forest Fires

And not because they go together, but they are the things I'm thinking about right now. Random, I know.

First off, microwaves. A modern invention that still isn't perfect, but is certainly a necessity in the kitchen. Or is it? I was surprised over Christmas when my lovely cousin, Morgan, commented that she has pretty much lived the last year without a microwave and she wouldn't have one in her flat in Paris, where she currently resides for the semester (oh to be in college again. I graduated 10 years ago. Wow!).

Homemade post-bike ride pizza!

Pizza and beer after a 600 calorie ride

It got me thinking about how much I use or don't use the microwave. I guess I primarily use it to reheat things. I'm a stovetop and oven cooking kind of gal. But as I just reheated my leftover homemade pizza from last night, it made me recall this conversation. The microwave gets used to heat up lunches for me, primarily at work, or today, at home, as I worked from home, but other than that, I don't really use the microwave that much. How much do you use your microwave in cooking?

Water bottles. I am a huge water consumer. I typically drink (exercise not included) 4 nalgene containers of water a day. That is 128 oz of water. And if I'm exercising, add on one or two more bottles worth. This is one of my 4 bottles. The sticker is for Guerrilla Gravity, a new gravity bike company. Matt is the enginerd behind the first downhill bike: GGDH. I call the GGDH his mistress, as he spends two or three nights, at least, a week designing "her".

Part of my "obsession" if we will call it that, of drinking so much water is that it is dry in Colorado. Very dry. Today's relative humidity is less than 10%. We have 2 humidifiers in our house. Also, I find that drinking that much water means I pee a lot, which gets me out of my chair on a fairly regular basis while I'm working. I also gave up artificially sweetened drinks and pop close to a year ago. It was rough. I was a diet coke every afternoon, maybe 2, kind of girl. Again, it was rough. But, since I kicked the habit, I drink a lot more water and my default drink is now iced tea and LaCroix sodas (naturally flavored bubbly water). Do you drink a lot of water each day? Do you drink enough water? What is your favorite water bottle?

So, on that dry front, there is a nasty bugger of a forest fire burning southwest of Denver right now. Thankfully, my family who live up in the foothills, are all safe. I've been really impressed on the utilization of social media by the Jefferson County Sheriff's office. Twitter, blogger, google maps.

Despite the fire, Matt and I decided to ride yesterday after work. Matt joined his friend Evan and they took Dakota Ridge. I did Matthew Winters and met up with them. There was an advisory for the sensitive population to stay indoors, but I pretended I wasn't asthmatic and disregarded the warning. I did take my inhaler. I did not use my inhaler. I was fine. I do have a little bit of a cough today, but nothing bad. The sky was hazy, but the smoke plume went off to the east south of where we were. I did see the fire planes overhead while riding. While waiting for the guys at the top of the Morrison Slide trail, I snapped a few pictures. These are looking south towards Red Rocks. I'm really hoping that we get some rain soon, as a summer drought and more fires is never good.

The hazy clouds are from the wildfire. When we arrived there was a thick plume going upwards. Red Rocks amphitheater is  right behind the red slabs sticking up out of the ground

Matt (black shirt, green pack) and Evan (red shirt, black pack) heading up the red rocks trail. The climb from this point gets brutal, which is why I met them at the top! :)