April was quite an eventful month chez Smorg. There was a lot of work to do, both the nerdy and the not so nerdy kinds. Then I caught a nasty flu that caught the flu vaccine totally off-guard and lost me 6 lbs and many work days.
Then, out of the blue I had family reunion, called on a very short notice. No worries, everybody's okay, and the meeting went well enough that I almost considered moving back to the Midwest again.... but most likely not. I mean, I like the Midwest and all, but the California coast has spoiled me a bit. Whenever I start to go crazy after spending way too many consecutive hours in a dark computer room (because the place hasn't got WiFi, so I'm cabled in, so to speak) I could hop on my big fat mountain bike and go off to enjoy views like this...
It takes a bit of riding to get to Sunny Jim Cave from where I am, but
La Jolla scenery is always worth a bit of sweat. The air is always cooler along the coast, and the lack of Midwestern weather makes most days here ideal for cycling (and other physically taxing outdoorsy activities like hotdog chasing, planning and laying ambush on the ice-cream carts, not sharing granola bars with pleading squirrels, or attempting ferocious karate moves on the marauding sea gulls that are trying to help you finish your fish tacos).
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| Okay, okay, so I do share granola bars with squirrels, but that's not the point!!! |
Riding around town on the mountain bike has helped me recover some rather disturbing personality traits that I thought I had successfully shed and buried a long time ago. For one, I can't seem to ride leisurely... Don't get me wrong, I'm a very careful cyclist. I even stop at stop signs and signal before I turn... but let me a bit of space on the pavement and sooner rather than later I'd get into a
time trial mode... on a mountain bike (and
that, my friends, is pathetic... mountain bikes don't go!). It's bad enough zooming my way down the many wonderful hills in town, but I even try to sprint uphill whenever I could.
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| Torrey Pines State Reserve Service Road... a pity it's too busy to zoom down this thing most of the time. |
Of course, there are a few hills around here that you just don't sprint up. Some are so uncivil you can hardly walk the bike up them!
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| Bandini St in Mission Hills |
It should surprise no one, then, that every now and then my legs would say enough is enough and perform a very good imitation of the
rigor mortis in protest. On days like that, all I can do is to coast down to the San Diego River to the friendlier company of the California sunflowers...
or into the delightfully flat downtown to catch some culture...
... before catching a ride home on a bus.
It's terrible! I have this mountain of books that I want to read, but haven't managed to yet because it is way too nice out to stay inside for long. Then when I come back from one of these rides I'm too spent to concentrate on a book.
Maybe I should move back to the Midwest after all. It'll soon be too hot and humid there to even walk a block to the frozen yogurt shop let alone out for a bike ride!
On the other hand, there is nothing quite like the independence of getting to places on your own power and at your own pace. By the way, did you know that May 14-18 is the
National Bike To Work Week? See that delicious cup of frozen yogurt I had down in Little Italy (yup, all that chocolate and cheesecake and red velvet chocolate cooler with assorted nuts and hot fudge topping)? It's a lot easier justifying such a treat when you bike to and back from the shop than getting there on gasoline!
