Blessed in California

Coming home from my recent trip to Arizona had me feeling passionate about where I live. Once we reached California during the flight and I started seeing snow covered mountains, evergreen trees, lakes, rivers, fields of food being grown, I felt home.

More than once on our trip I mentioned to my husband how incredibly lucky we are to live where we do. I also wondered if people who come visit the Redwoods up north ever say things like, "Meh, you've seen one Redwood tree, you've seen them all." Or - "If I never see another Redwood tree it will be too soon." This was how I felt about cactus for sure. But I know there are people who think the desert is beautiful. People who feel the desert speaks to them the way the Pacific coast and the ocean speak to me.

I have so much access to so many things just two hours from our front door depending on which direction we go:

Wine Country

Redwoods

Pacific Ocean

San Francisco

Lake Tahoe

Snow skiing

Surfing

Boating & fishing

All of this and not to mention all the agriculture. Strawberries grown around the corner from my house. I purchase 10 pound bags of oranges grown 20 miles away. Eggs from our neighbors. Plums across the street from our house. All the orchards of almonds and walnuts and thousands of acres of olive trees giving us incredibly delicious locally grown olive oil.

We are blessed. It's not that I've never realized this. I've biked from Northern California to Southern California twice now. On day 2 of ALC, when we reach the beginning of acres of strawberry fields, riders will stop and jump off their bikes and go running over to them. They want their picture taken. They want to pluck fruit and eat it right there. I'm sad to admit I chuckled both years when I saw this. Silly me - it never occurred to me some of them might not have ever seen food being grown on the ground.

Or the day when we come upon giant fields of gorgeous wildflower fields with orange, yellow, pink, and purple flowers. I heard other riders gasp  - bikes all strewn along the side of the road while riders jumped into the field to marvel at it. Me? Just kept on going...the community garden across the street from my house looks like that quite often.

So much that some of us in California probably take for granted. Lessons learned. Reasons I need to get back to a regular riding schedule. 

Texas

My very best friend of 30 years moved to Texas about two years ago. I went out there for the second time last week. We had a ball.

I ate brisket and pulled pork and enjoyed all the excellent friendly customer service everywhere complete with ma'am and y'all.

We visited the JFK Museum in Dallas. It was fascinating. And eerie. I highly recommend going if you're ever in the area. I stood on the Grassy Knoll. It was weird. And it's all so much smaller in real life. 

We walked farther into Downtown Dallas for lunch in the pouring rain accompanied with thunder and lighting. It was about 80 degrees.

I tried on cowboy hats every time I saw one and bought a kickass pair of cowboy boots. Yes, those exact ones. 

I wore my boots to a Friday night T-Ball game. I fit right in.

We went to see The Great Gatsby at 9:30pm at an iPic theater. Ever heard of one of those theaters? It's pretty awesome. I may have dozed off a time or two during the movie. And not because it was late. The movie was pretty to look at but overall I found it disappointing. 

Then after 4 days I came home. And spent a day resting and relaxing by the pool with a frosty beverage. First day in the pool this year. Now it's back to the real world.

Wanted: My Cycling Mojo

Somewhere in the last 5 months, I lost my cycling mojo. It hasn't really been speaking to me. This month is national May is Bike Month. I pledged 500 miles. I've biked 32. I've wussed out on biking to work on the really windy days.

This past Saturday was the Wine Country Century. I had signed up to ride 100 miles with Kristen.  But when Kristen wasn't going to be able to ride, I sold my registration. I just didn't feel like riding by myself. We went to Treasure Island in San Francisco and took pictures and chatted and I had just as much fun. 

I'm not sure where my cycling mojo has gone. Not having the big challenge of ALC looming over me forcing me to get out and train every weekend has definitely had an affect on me. Suddenly having time on the weekends to do whatever I want after two years has been something I've fully taken advantage of. But I definitely want it back and I want it back soon. I'm still determined to hit the 500 mile goal for May is Bike Month. Commuting to work is 32 miles round distance, so it shouldn't be too hard to get the miles in. 

On my ride in to work yesterday I hit every red light, fought with traffic a few times, and had to take a detour because part of a bike path was closed. I still loved every minute of it. It was still worth it. I just need to remember this in the early hours of the morning when I look out the window and tell myself I don't want to fight the elements. It will still be worth it. 

However, I'm now off to Texas for 4 days. 

Link Love: Real Beauty, Leo, Shake My Hand Properly

If we follow each other on various social media - I've updated my avi/profile pic around the web. I used the free iOS app called iMadeFace. Warning, if you download this, it's addictive. Thank you @thebookvixen for the app info.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches - Men. *cries*



Go Bo Jackson. I would love to do this ride.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Character Timeline. Love this. I think I've seen every one of these except that depressing one with him and Kate Winslet. And I'll see The Great Gatsby on Friday while I'm in Texas at one of those movie theaters where they serve you dinner.

How To Shake Hands With a Woman. One of my major pet peeves - someone who tries to give me a weak handshake. Shake it like you mean it people!

And lastly, if you have a Yahoo email account, please update your password on a more regular basis. And by regular I don't mean once every 5 years. Yahoo accounts are suffering from a terrible bout of spammers over the last 6 months. I probably receive an email a day from a friend's yahoo account that has been hacked somehow.

Happy weekend! I'm off to San Francisco for some photography. Wait...wasn't I supposed to ride 100 miles in the Wine Country Century today? More on that later.

Best of: April 2013