~ holiday recounts ~
Even though I had a lovely holiday, I am actually happy to be back at the office on this morning. One thing that I have learned from my holiday is that I ought to take holidays more often. Another thing that I learned is that I ought to carry my camera with me at all times, as I engaged in many photo-worthy activities without a camera. So, let's see if I can remember what I did on my holiday...
On Saturday, Josh and I pretended to be tourists. We visited the tourist information center and got some ideas of touristy activities to do. We wandered down to the park and rented the peddle-powered paddleboats and terrorized ducks and fish. Then we went to the Discovery Center and learned about science. We had lunch of some calzones at a pizza place neither of us had before been to. In the afternoon, we went on a hike at Dry Creek. That evening, we attended a dinner soiree at a house in the East End and made BLTs with the fresh garden tomatoes available. That was a lovely experience - - I enjoyed being social and sampling the different varieties of tomato. After dinner, everyone made their way to the Balcony for some dancing, and I got really trashed.
I was hungover in a lethargic way, and not a nauseous way, all day Sunday. At the moment, I can't recall what I did that day. I remember feeling extremely tired. And wow, I have no memory of Sunday...weird.
On Monday, I went on a huge hike with Elizabeth on the new Eastside Trail at Bogus Basin. I feel terrible about my failure to participate in any of the trail building events to get this trail up and ready for use, but I was delighted at the end product of the trail. I had wanted to hike it before biking it, as I have seen numerous photos of the trail online and it looked pretty technical. Elizabeth and I were only anticipating going on an hour's hike, but we had the foresight to over-prepare with plenty of water and snacks. The Eastside Trail was much awesomer than I was expecting and we were having a great time hiking it. I thought that it was a loop, which is why we just kept hiking, regardless of the time. At some point, we came upon an unmarked fork in the trail and we weren't sure which way to go. We hiked up a way to get above the tree line in order to ascertain our location. I normally have a bad sense of direction, and because of all of the switchbacks along the trail, it was nearly impossible to understand where we were in relation to where we had started. Once we had a good view, I noticed some radio towers which were not native to the area near to where we had commenced our hike, and I deduced that we were not where we wanted to be. Luckily, because of that radio tower, we were able to get cellphone reception, and we called 411 to connect with Josh at the bike shop, and he was able to consult a map and advised us to turn around. The trail does kind of form a loop, but a much larger and more complex loop than I realized. I have since purchased a map of the area, and am very excited about the new and improved trail opportunities in that area.
That evening, I hung out at the bike shop after hours being a bike mechanic. Since my last crash, my bike has needed a good tune up. My knee has sufficiently healed and my ego has sufficiently calmed that I felt comfortable taking Elizabeth on her very first mountain bike ride on Tuesday. Before that ride, however, I wanted to get my bike all tuned. And me, I have not had the proper mechanical skills to tune a bike. And Josh is a wonderful personal bicycle assistant, but I have been wanting to develop a level of self-sufficiency with regards to basic bike maintenance. So, there we were, in the mechanics' area of the bike shop on Monday night, and I got a big tutorial on and successfully adjusted the shifting on my bike. So now, if anyone needs some assistance with their derailleurs, I'm your man! While we were there, Josh took the opportunity to "adjust" my front brake. You may or may not recall how Josh shaved down the front brake pad a bit to make it less grabby, and how much that has helped. The brake still has been pretty strong for me. And even though I have strongly asserted to Josh that my last crash was all rider error, I think that he was a bit traumatized by the experience of taking his crying girlfriend to the Emergency Room, that he went a bit bananas working on my front brake on Monday night. He was filing the pads down to make them a lot weaker and was exclaiming all about how my front brake was going to be really "crappy" in a good way. My next blog post is going to be all about a huge epiphany I had about my brakes on a ride last night, because wow!, I have had a major realization about brakes.
With my bike all tuned up, I took Elizabeth on her very first mountain bike ride on Tuesday morning. For those who are not in the know, Elizabeth is riding my old mountain bike. When I decided to go full suspension, I was worried about what would happen to my old hardtail, and I wanted to make sure that it went to a loving home. As Elizabeth was going to be moving back here and didn't have a bike, it seemed the perfect solution. On Tuesday, we toodled around the Lower Hulls Gulch area and then rode up Your Mom and to the end of Freeway and back. I was extremely proud of how well Elizabeth did. She successfully rode up the whole way on Your Mom, which is a pretty challenging hill, and rode Freeway with no problem. She also seemed to be having a lot of fun on the downhill. Unfortunately, her handlebars are too low for her and she developed some severe neck and back pain. I'm going to take it as my personal mission to ensure that we get the bike perfectly set up for her, because even though there is general discomfort in mountain biking, there should not be pain involved.
That evening, Josh and I went over to Elizabeth's house for a bbq, which was simply lovely. Except for the part when a bird shat on my head, it was a great time.
Wednesday, I had most of the day to myself. In the afternoon, I met up with Elizabeth and we went on a big walk around downtown. We walked to the university where I purchased my school books, and then we walked over to the bike shop to procure some bicycle-related items. That evening, I went on a mountain bike ride with Josh, had a total and complete blast! and experienced my divine epiphany regarding brakes.