More info on Costa Rica.

We have had quite the response to telling our friends and family of our Costa Rica plans, I'll try to answer a few questions in this post, and more in a future post.

One of our friend from my old website, BikeForums.net owns a reforestation company. He buys small farms in his area of Costa Rica, then sells the first harvest of hardwood trees to investors. His company owns 800 or so acres of land with 43 different types of hardwood trees. (I may be slightly off on the numbers, 700 acres / 41 types?)

We went down to Costa Rica with the intent of spending a few days with him and seeing how he lives, and what its like to be an expat in Costa Rica. We quickly learned that he was going to go look at a 140 acre farm to buy for his business in the next week or so. One thing led to another and we ended up making a deal with him to buy a large portion of the trees on the land as well as our pick of 10 acres for our personal farm.

Right now there are cows on the land, and the rain forest was clear cut in the last few decades. By next spring, we will have picked out our 10 acres and our home site. At that point, we will have a small 800sq ft house built. We will live in this house while our real house is being built. Once our real house is complete, we are going to hire a local tico couple to live on our 10 acres with us. They will help us around the garden, help us shop, do dishes etc... full time help!

In 5 years from now, the tree's planted will be 20 - 30 feet tall.
In 8 years, some of the trees will be cut down, less then 10%.
In 25 years all the hardwood trees planted on the other 130 acres will be harvested.

As the trees grow, the underbrush will not be cut, and native trees will soon start to take over the land. After 25 years and the last harvest, the land will be put into a conservation easement, at that point our 10 acres will be surrounded by 130 acres of primary rain forest.

We are moving down there with the goal and intent to live 100% self sustainable. After a few years of living there we want to morph our land into more of an eco-resort by adding half a dozen small cabinas to our land and renting them out by the week or month. We also have in mind doing week long raw food and yoga retreats, but only once we are fully settled into the land and culture.

What a summer!

I'm glad this summer is coming to an end, its been quite a busy and hectic one for me. So many changes in my life have taken place in the last few months:
In April, I sold BikeForums.net.
In May, I stressed if selling BikeForums was the best idea. (It was!)
In June, Heather and I started a new company, VeloVisions, INC.
In July, We did a short mtn bike tour under the redwoods. (Click here for pictures)
In Aug, We started planning for our Wedding.
In Sept, We started planning fore our Honeymoon.
In Oct, We got married. (Click here for pictures)
In Nov, We got back from Costa Rica. (Click here for pictures)

I have no clue whats coming at us this Winter; but I hope its more snow and a lot of time in the Mountains. This year we are learning to Snowboard!

I'm loving life, I hope all my friends and family are as well,

- Joe

Mtn biking from Canada to Mexico!

We are still planing a 2 - 3 month epic adventure riding our mountain bikes from Canada to Mexico via the Continental Divide Trail.

I'll post about this one soon as well, just using this blog post to update our new joe-and-heather.com home page, check it out!

We are moving to Costa Rica!

We signed our paperwork over the weekend, and our money made it down to Costa Rica this week.

Joe has uploaded quite a few pictures of the finca we are buying on our smug mug account, here is the gallery link: http://joe-and-heather.smugmug.com/gallery/3899287#226157898

The finca (Farm, in Spanish) is 140 acres in size, it backs up to a national park that holds hundreds of rivers, both large and small, dozens of lakes including one really large one. There is also an extinct volcano in the park, the local lure is that nobody has ever been to the summit!

Of the 140 acres, we will pick 10 acres for our casa (House, in Spanish). Our goal is to live 100% self-sustainably, we will grow our own food, our power will come from a micro-hydro power plant with solar as a backup option.

We are very excited to make the move to Costa Rica, this simply is an opportunity that we could not pass up! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the gallery:

The road into the farm:


Our power source: (there are springs on the property for drinking water)

A wild mango tree: (There are also wild limes, oranges and papayas on the finca)


Another mango tree, with views of the Caribbean Plains, on a clear day you can see lake Nicaragua.

Night ride trip report.

Burrr!

That is the only word I can think of after last nights ride. We took a rather quick spin around town, headed up 2nd south until 6th east, we then took 6th east to Liberty Park and found our way down to 3rd east... 3rd has a great bike lane and little traffic; we find ourselves riding down 3rd on just about every ride we take.

Once back into downtown we made our way to the Gallivan Center and enjoyed the millions of little lights strung up. The Center is an interesting little park / venue. In the summer months SLC hosts a free concert every Thursday night. We have seen some great bands there including Calexico, Camper Van Beethoven (aka Cracker) and half a dozen other concerts. They also have a free movie showing every Monday night.

Here is a short video I made on Heathers camera:



As you can see, Heather is dressed for the cold... ;)

For our after ride drink, I had a Nicaraguan beer and Heather had a glass of red wine. Not a bad night at all!

A new direction for the blog...

With the wedding and honeymoon now out of the way, we have decided to take this blog a new direction. I think the title says it all "Joe & Heathers Adventure Blog"!

Any time we go on an Adventure, be it a small hike in Mill Creek canyon, or a week out of the country, we will blog about it.

Tonight we are going on a midnight fixie ride around Salt Lake City. We expect to be dealing with low-20 temperatures and wind chills in the single digits. Full ride report coming Monday morning.

An Amazing Wedding!

We have so many to thank for the beauty and success we experienced on October 20, 2007. Here it is, almost a month later and I still find myself getting all excited and giddy thinking about the memories. There are several pictures that were taken of the event. You can find some here:

http://joe-and-heather.smugmug.com/gallery/3698211#211777464
http://joe-and-heather.smugmug.com/gallery/3698894#211838374

Thanks to Brian and Jan and whoever else has helped us in these photos!

And thanks to Tom, for all his effort and presence. He also took some amazing photos and they are here:

http://tomsbodypix.smugmug.com/gallery/3704307#218478656

Thanks to so many others as well! Steve, for your beautiful poetry and for making me laugh and relax while getting dolled up! Jan and Amy for being beautiful, wonderful friends and for always believing in me and for screaming with me upstairs in the cabin. I love you two!

Thank you, Laura for your magnificent talents! You envisioned exactly what I wanted to feel and look like and you made me feel like a princess by the end of it! Thank you Mo, for filming and for your sweet, kind words. You and your lovely wife mean so much to us!

Thank you Tory for being my oldest, bestest friend. You deserve all the happiness in the world and I love you to pieces! Thank you Mom for all of your hard work and for giving birth to me and to my wonderful family. Thank you Dad for dancing with me and for not stepping on my toes! Your support has helped me so much over the years. Thank you Ryan for bringing the band together! It was perfect! Thank you Lori for your unselfish efforts in helping our wedding to be so absolutely beautiful! I'm so glad you're married to my goofy brother!

Thanks Collin for making some of the coolest dance moves with me. We so rock! Thanks Brynna and Clayton for all your help and for your sweet and loving nature! Thanks Sheri for the dip and the Costa Rica book! Thank you Jeanie for your well wishes and for all of your love you have given to me my whole life.

Thanks to all of our friends and family who came to share the day with us. We have not yet received all of the video footage, but we do have a video that Joe and I put together from my Mom's video camera. Feel free to download it and watch it here:

http://www.joe-gardner.com/movies/broadband-high-wedding.mov

There are so many people that we wished could be there, but because of the location it was physically impossible. It was very difficult making the guest list decisions and we wished everyone could have been invited. Please know that we love you all and we're grateful for your love and support.

A few other things: Our wonderful friend Brian, lost his glasses in the cabin. If anyone has seen them or picked them up, please let us know! They are very rare and hold a lot of sentimental value. Someone also left a brown scarf up at the cabin. If this is your's, please let us know.