Drive-By Truckers, Bacon Cupcakes and another Half Marathon

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I figure I am going to take advantage of our long weekend, and get caught up on some blogging.

In May, Gabe and I took a trip together to follow one of favorite bands, The Drive-By Truckers. I registered us to run a Half Marathon on the day we were leaving, because...

HEY, there was one, so why not?? :)

Patterson Hood did an in-store appearance at The Heavy Metal shop right before the Salt Lake show. It was so awesome to see him up close and that personal, it was pretty kick-ass.

One of the songs he played was 'Heathens' which is ONE of my favorite songs he wrote.

The show in Salt Lake was dang awesome. They did stop twice to throw a few idiots out that were getting a little too rough...how would that be? To get thrown out of a show because your a jerk, and the guys you came to see are the ones who eighty-sixed you? Nice!

The next morning Gabe and I hopped on a plane and headed to Colorado to see them for the next two shows. Next stop......Boulder.

In the endless research I do before going out of town, I discovered a little bakery that has....are you ready for this? MAPLE BACON CUPCAKES!!! Are you drooling yet? Can you imagine? I have had bacon chocolate, delish, and I made Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip cookies for Christmas, delish......so I was more than intrigued to get to have my favorite salty treat top off my all time favorite confection, the beautiful perfect cupcake. My only regret is that I was not wearing my t-shirt that says, 'You had me at Bacon'

Look at that! It was perfect! The thick, rich ganoche with scattered bits of saltiness was more than I could take, it was that good. The cupcake part was good too, but to be honest, I could have eaten the frosting with bacon on it all. day. long.

My first experience with having a latte with a cute design...mostly because I get my coffee black, and to-go. It was actually Gabe's coffee, but I pretended it was made just for me.

Look at that!! Are you kidding me!!

No one believed I would actually eat the cupcake, as I have banned all sugary treats from my body for nearly a year....with the exception of half a bacon cookie at Christmas, but I proved them wrong! Here is the proof! I only ate 1/4 of the delightful treat, but I wanted to devour a dozen...it is called restraint, I had to practice it big time.

After we left the shop, we walked around the corner to where the concert was that night and BAM!! TOUR BUS!! Sweet!

The Boulder show was by far my favorite of the three we saw them at. The venue was so awesome, the band was into the whole night like you wouldn't believe, and the crowd was fantastic. For the final encore, they called their opening band on stage with them, and they played, 'Rocking in the Free World' by Neil Young. It was simply amazing.

Next stop....Fort Collins. There was not too much for me to say about this city, we only showed up for the show, then headed back to Boulder. I loved Boulder, what a great town. It was the last night of seeing them, so it was sad it had come to an end, but they were worth every minute of the stress and planning we went through to make this trip happen.

On Saturday we drove into Denver where we stayed for our final night before flying home on Sunday afternoon. Well, we had one last thing to do before we went back home.

A Half Marathon....

Here is the view of the park at the starting line. It was a chilly morning, but absolutely beautiful. I was not sure how I was even going to do. I wanted to go faster than the Salt Lake Half that I did in April, but I was really sick the night before, and was severely dehydrated. I was not optimistic at all. I had a really rough start, in fact, I started downing Gatorade during the race because I was very dizzy and seeing fuzzy. Not good. At mile 6, I came around and started feeling good. How odd is that, it took me 6 miles to feel better about my race. I think my body recovered from being depleted of nutrition from the night before. Well, we made it. Gabe by my side as always, encouraging me to do the best I can. He is simply the best.

Here is a picture of the post-race lunch they fed us. Out of the above items, I only ate the tomatoes. I am still weird about eating any food that I don't make. I know, what a freak.

Ahhhh.....we love each other

I believe we finished in 2:29....so I beat my last time by just a few minutes,

but I will take it....all things considered.

One of my favorite things about finishing a race, is the 'trick or treating' that takes place after. They filled us up with lots of goodies to take home and try.

Four days later, four hours after the race, we were on a plane headed back home.

The time flew by, as it always does when we finally get to have some time alone,

but we made the most out of every minute we had together.