Happy Long Weekend - eh!!!

Tired

80K. Speeds of 32-38 kph for at least 2/3 of the ride trying to make up for lost time on someone's bad flat early in the ride (it sent them home, in fact - tire was shot). Calf still hurting (even with pre-ride Advil). Now hands are hurting (where the hell are my new handlebars????). Sweaty and gross. Now showered at least. Meal post-ride: 2 scoops of soy protein powder in water (perhaps I should invite friends over next time I have that feast). Time for bed. Thinking about phoning the place someone recommended for ART tomorrow. Sigh. It's come to that. I'm going to put my already sore body through more pain. What am I thinking?

An evening in the life...

OK. So, tonight I went out for our almost regular weekly gats ride with Ruth. I brought my camera, as clunky as it is. I wanted to get some shots of the park - it's so nice. And I wanted to get some shots of just regular cycling stuff. I only ended up doing half the ride because my calf was seizing up on me a few climbs after Pink and I had to leave Ruth to do the rest on her own. :( After I turned around I came right up on a black bear crossing the road!!! I've heard others talk of sightings, but this was my first. WOW! Unfortunately there was no time to take a shot - even with my camera sitting in my shirt pocket. With my sore, seizing calf muscle I took it easy on the way back and took the opportunity to snap lots of photos (partly to not feel down that I wasn't finishing the ride). So here they are...


Ruth after she filled up her water bottles at the Gamelin parking lot.

Pink Lake Lookout.
The sign at the top of Pink's hill - steep decent ahead (which I'd already climbed earlier).

Cycling back - some riders ahead of me.

Hey look! It's me! ;)

The mandatory ride banana.

Poor thing got a little ugly since I didn't eat it on the ride.

Walked past the car window and saw a photo-op. My stuff piled into the car.
Don't you just love my cute polka-dot water bottle?
I know faster riders do - they've told me so when cycling past me. :)

The banana's ride home.

Rideau Lakes Tour

I did it! My first Rideau Lakes Tour. It was pretty amazing. I'm sore - I started the tour with a stiff right calf. I know, I know - I should have either done yoga or gotten a massage when I felt it all week last week, but I had no time. I had to travel for work, as usual. So, whatever, I got through it. Took some Robaxacet last night and stretched as much as I could. Luckily, being surrounded by >2000 other cyclists, nobody found it odd that I stretched my calves every single place I found myself idling for a more than a couple of minutes. Saturday was hot, but not as humid as I heard it was at home (thank the forces of the universe for that!!). With people starting at different times and from different locations and 4 different routes, we ended up having a lot of road to ourselves. Picked up a couple of people for parts of our ride. Our core group was 10 and we were thankful for that on the last 40K or so into Kingston when we had a pretty blustery headwind. Luckily with so many to rotate through, I didn't have to pull for long.

This wannabe morning chick got up at an ungodly 5:40 AM this morning and 3 of us snuck in the back door of the university dining hall for breakfast (the lines were completely insane and I brought my own oatmeal, pb and ryvita anyway - I just needed 2 bananas and some muffins). Today started out cooler, having had some rain up in cottage country overnight, but the humidity was up. Still tired from my early morning rise and the previous day's ride, my right calf muscle seizing up on me in certain positions, with a little asthma kicking in to make it all the more interesting, I had a bit of a rough start and wondered if I could do another leg today. After the first hill just outside of Kingston I didn't think I'd make it (it's all rolling hills with a few steep ones in there for good measure from Kingston to Perth). Brian gave me a pep talk and told me the first one is always the hardest. After about an hour of riding I was feeling better and we dropped a guy who had joined our group and had us up to 32kph (too fast for us to keep up for the whole tour and particularly in the hills). We got a more normal pace for our group and the hills started feeling good for me because I could get my breath a little easier - also the humidity started to subside a little. I felt so good that I stood up on a climb and passed everyone in my group except for our strongest (Diane - who was way up ahead of everyone and said she was pleasantly surprised to see me coming over the hill first). They all cheered me on as I passed them. :) That was so nice. They are an awesome group to ride with. Which was proven when we arrived at our destination and every single one of the various people who popped in and out of our pack during the ride on Saturday sought the group out to thank everyone for allowing them to tag along for a bit and for being so nice. On a long ride I don't tend to talk the whole way... I mean, come on, even I don't have that much to talk about. Something I like about long group rides is having the ability to just zone out - it's a form of meditation I think. Today I thought about things I've never been grateful for - things I take for granted. They may sound silly, but things like having blue eyes, and being good at math. It's good to remember the gifts you are given as just that - they are gifts. So, that was my cycling meditation of the weekend. Combined with the accomplishment of completing my first large-scale, long-distance, organized tour. I should also mention that I'm grateful for such great friends to cycle with. I wouldn't continue to grow in the sport without them.

PS > I've completely given up on trying to control my tan lines. I'm no fashionista anyway. If I don't look cute in things that show off the lines I'll get over it.

MTL & RLT

Just back from a quick trip to MTL. It was a really good meeting and we had some fun too. We went to the Time Supper Club. Apparently one of the places to be seen in MTL. There were dancers/contortionists and a magician who entertained us. Pretty cool. I left before the 'public' was allowed in for the dance bar to get started - had to get some proper nights' sleeps in before the weekend. I'm off to do RLT tomorrow. And I'm really excited!!! I got a shorter stem this week, and I expect it will help a lot with my comfort doing the long distances, particularly back-to-back. So, not much time to post now - gotta run and get packed. This wannabe morning person has to get up at the crack of dawn. ;)

The Weekend...

Jello shooters (they were insanely strong!! And I think Stef had - ummm... I lost count!)

End of the night - the kid who served us said it was nice how we stopped yelling once we got food. This is my favourite shot of the night. I think she's saying: "I want pizza NOW!" Ha, ha!

No explanation for this one.

For those of you who read here, you get the nice shots. I have some others that might be used as blackmail material in the future. ;) That's what bachelorettes are all about, isn't it?

The Gats

I had to post about my ride tonight. I went out with Ruth to the gats. The two of us seem to be doing this one a lot together so far this season. It's great. Ruth is a lot stronger than me, but I go down the hills faster because I'm a lot bigger than her - yeah, she's tiny. So after I go down, she catches up on the uphill and passes me and then I catch up on the flat, or sometimes at the top if I'm feeling strong (or if she slows down - lol). She only has to wait for me at the hardest points - mainly at Fortune Lake, and typically at the top of Pink. Tonight proved how much stronger I'm getting though, because I was pretty close behind her on Pink - and I've been having a lot of asthma issues the past week. I got my fastest speed up Pink tonight - about 2 kph faster than I typically do it!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!! And I passed other people when I was going up! Wow! Ok, well, I have passed other people on like mountain bikes and stuff before, but these two people were on road bikes and by the looks of their calves they are in good shape. He, he! God - the things that go through your head on the bike eh? Anyway, lots of success tonight. And I'm pushing through... I had 2 asthma attacks last Friday trying to tackle the park in the smog. Not good. I couldn't do the loop. Tonight the weather was way better for me - nice and cool. But, as was pointed out to me, there was a lot of pollen - actual green dust collected on our bikes. As a result I got home and coughed a lot of crap out of my lungs. No asthma attacks during the ride though. Breathing was challenging at times, but I prevailed. Progress. :) It helps to have someone so encouraging to ride with. Ruth always tells me how great I'm doing and if I tell her I'm tired or my legs are done she reminds me to just keep pedalling. I told her tonight that I LOVE the last hill coming back to the parking lot. You have a really nice decent and then you can stand up and climb this quick one. I love it because I look down every time to see I'm going 30 kph UPhill. And then every time on the last flat after that hill I think how amazing it is that I did the loop yet again. Especially after a night like tonight, when I quit on myself like 5 times during the ride. I still did it. I'm not that self-defeating every time. Mostly when I can't breathe. Sometimes when I'm tired. But then you remind yourself that you've done this many times before; you think about what's left ahead on the route (especially after Fortune - then you know all of the hard stuff is done); and you get to the end, and you did it... that's when you remember why it's so great.

Leftovers

I couldn't fall to sleep last night. I'm not sure why. Well, there was the fact that every muscle in my body was feeling tight and eventually I caved in, got up, and did a whole bunch of stretches. Only then did I fall asleep. So, I'm sitting here getting the last of my work done for the day thinking how the Green Door isn't open on Monday and it seems Monday is the day I most frequently don't want to make dinner. And then I remembered: MizB phoned me up last night and we headed out for Thai food and I have the leftovers in my fridge! Thank you to the leftover gods!! Yes!
I can't believe my good fortune... this week I have no evenings to work! I won't even say the 'c' word. I think you already know what I'll be doing! ;)

I'm a bonehead

I always put sunscreen on before cycling. Yesterday I forgot and was a bit rushed... it was overcast and during the ride I convinced myself it would be fine. I already had a base anyway. Duh - overcast is the worst kind of burn weather. Of course, it was my first time going sleeveless (thought I'd work on getting rid of the lines across my biceps - they look silly). Well, now I look even more silly because I'm burnt (and I had to protect my burnt shoulders today and wear sleeves and re-instate the bicep lines - doh!!!). I'm obsessing a little about tan lines since in three weeks I will be wearing a nice dress at my friends' wedding and you'll be able to see all of my upper back. Hmmm. Dilemma. I may have to go to a tanning bed and cover my arms and get my back tanned so I don't look weird. <I should have flexed my back for the picture to make Jess proud of the work she's done with me this year> ;) I can worry about the lines which are bound to be well-established in October when I have to look good for my sister's wedding at that time. Luckily I don't have to worry about the ones on my legs. He, he! I also bought some new-fangled sunscreen spray. They should have a warning label: do not spray in confined spaces. I think I inhaled more of it than got on my body this afternoon. Cough, cough. Geez! That can't be good. And I'd forgotten why, last year, I'd bought 'non-greasy'. Yuck! I think I may be making another trip to the store to find the one I'm accustomed to - if it still exists. Who knows with these products. They're always changing.

I'm still behind where I want to be in terms of kms on the bike. I've had to work evenings a lot in the last 4 weeks and it's been cramping my style. We had a really great ride yesterday, sunburn aside. Today though, I needed more rest and didn't feel up to heading out with the group. It was nice to go out on my own this afternoon. I decided to explore some other routes I've been wanting to figure out. There were quite a few really courteous drivers on the road today - and I'm not being sarcastic. It's true. I know it's often hard to believe, but some drivers are quite diligent about being careful around cyclists, and they deserve some credit for that. I've started waving at people a lot. I think it makes them feel happy and makes them watch out for me. Maybe I'm doing it a bit more since the accident - even though it wasn't a car that hit me, you know, it makes you a little more cautious.

There is a really cool tool on the web now: MapMyRide. You can get the elevation and everything. I mapped out a 90K route from my front door into Gatineau Park, the whole loop of it and back. I'll try to do that as often as I can as I get further into the season.

Ouch #3 (I think)

For some reason (likely not enough stretching on my part) this week my legs were really sore. So I finally broke down and went to yoga on Monday night. I've been telling myself that I need to go for, oh I don't know, 10 months or so. I used to go much more regularly. So I bought a package and I'm committed now. I've got to keep my muscles flexible. Unfortunately I had let it go too long though, and ended up at the massage therapist on Wednesday night. I got a new massage therapist since my regular one changed offices and, well who knows, I just didn't wind up going there. So, this guy used to work on the Russian Olympic team or something, recommended by boyko, who is an insane runner now. My hamstrings were all glued together I guess. Ouch. It hurt. I hope to get in two good rides this weekend. My asthma has been bad this week tho, so I need to listen to my lungs. I also bit the bullet and am really, seriously looking at getting my bike fit sorted out. My wrist is in a lot of pain and I've had this instinct I need smaller handlebars. As well I learned today that I need them a little closer to me - shorter stem. So that's in the works.

Next week my job changes a bit and I won't be traveling the whole of Eastern ON anymore. I'm grateful for that. But of course, with new reps joining the team, there is a lot to do in terms of transitioning work. So I'll be traveling a bit in the next 2 months for work, as well as for cycling. The first cycling trip is only 2 weeks away. So cross your fingers for me that my asthma starts to settle down and the exhaustion I've been feeling this week subsides.

(JFF - Check out one of my new Shebeest tops)

TGIF

This week did not feel like a shortened one. It was long. And grueling. I'm tired. I'm glad it's the weekend. Short weeks are hard. They always are. You have to cram 5 days of work into 4. Not fair. Such is life.

So - cool thing: one of the chicks that I cycled with in France last year decided to do a tour of Canada. She's from Dublin, Ireland. And she's in town this weekend. In fact, I picked her up in Kingston and brought her to O-town with me yesterday. The planner she is, she'd asked me my schedule and I gave it to her and suggested that if she wanted to see Kingston she could meet me there since I'd be there this week. So she took the train from T-dot and toured Kingston for a day while I was working. So I'll be hosting her this weekend. In between riding, of course. Tomorrow a good sized group of us will be riding out to Pakenham. Should be a nice ride. We often head east because some of our riders know good roads out there. And we always have a good time no matter where we ride. It's always nice to learn new routes though. Sunday I'll be cheering on a bunch of my friends who are running the half-marathon. And they think riding 100K is nuts!??? ;) Kidding. I think it's great. Which is why I'll be cheering for them.

I want another 4-day, ride my butt off weekend. That rocked! I'll have to plan some this summer.

Photo of the baby racoon we found up at the cottage I visited last weekend.

Rejuvenated

Wow. I can't remember ever having a weekend that left me feeling the way this last one has. I took Friday off work - although, I have to admit, since I didn't have my computer the whole week and just got it back Thursday late-day, I did catch up on a few emails Friday morning... BUT after that, I headed out to Gatineau Park and did a loop with Ruth. Then I came home, packed up and cleaned up a little, and then headed down to Kingston. I had a fun evening with Shannon and her hubby. Next morning Shannon and I got up and rode to their family cottage with her brother. Her husband drove the car out later with our stuff. It was a really great ride from the edge of Kingston out to Otter Lake. The weather was great. We stopped a couple of times and took some photos. It was all rolling hills, so my legs felt it after doing the hills the previous day, but in the end it still felt really good. We did a few less km's than I'd anticipated, and none of us minded. Next day after a little work around the cottage (we found a baby racoon) and a trip into Newboro, I headed home and had dinner with friends and went out to one of the local clubs - although it was pretty quiet on Sunday night. Monday I did another really great ride with 4 other friends from the regular crew. The wind was crazy and I was happy to have our two strongest pulling into the headwind - although I think the crosswind was the worst. Despite some asthma (allergy season is upon us) on the hills early in the ride, the last 20K felt really good. Even the headwind at the end was a challenge, but felt good. When I got home I spent the rest of my day cleaning like a mad-woman. One of the people I cycled with last year in France is doing a tour of Canada (she's from Dublin!) and is meeting me in Kingston this week and driving back to O-town with me. So I had to clean my place! It was the motivation I needed to do it.

So, with all of the riding and fresh air, and cleaning my place I finished the weekend feeling really great. I didn't touch my computer. As a result, this morning I woke up at 6 AM and got up without any problem! Wow! And I didn't go to bed early either. So, what's the trick? I don't know, but I need to figure it out. I want to become more of a morning person and this morning gave me hope that I might be able to do it. Maybe I just need to have 4 day weekends all the time. Wishful thinking?

Ahhhhh!

So far such an amazing long weekend...

Friday I took the day off and did a loop of Gatineau Park with one of my friends. Then I packed up and headed down to Kingston. Went out for a great dinner with my friend and her hubby. Next morning my friend, her brother, and I biked to their cottage near Smiths Falls and the rest of the day we just relaxed in the amazing weather. It was a really amazing ride. The weather was as close as you might ever get to perfect. Her family welcomed me in to the cottage and we had such a fun time. We even had blueberry pancakes this morning for bf. Today we drove into the little town we went through on our way there, Newboro, and had a fun time at the little shop they had there. We spent a half an hour in their massage chairs. lol! Now I'm back in O-town and plan to ride tomorrow, although the route has yet TBD. I happened to have chosen the best days to ride, as right now it's cold and raining, but tomorrow is looking sunny and warm! Woo-hoo! Still one more day left! :)

Happy Long Weekend!!

MTL, Cycling - you know, the usual

This weekend I went on a quick road trip with my sister! We've never done that before. Our destination: MTL. Our purpose: Cirque du Soleil and shopping. And we did a good job of it! We hit H&M on our way in (my first H&M experience was in Milan with Cookies a few years ago). This was my sister's first visit, and I do not think she was disappointed. Needless to say, we left with a heavy bag each. Then we headed downtown for a bit more serious shopping - Simon's, shoe shopping, Zara, Mango, and BCBG. I got a dress for Stef's wedding at the last one. I haven't bought a 'real' dress, maybe ever (high school grad perhaps?). That place was insane! I came away with the dress and while the saleswoman was really nice and extremely attentive, I wasn't buying the $250 shoes. Then Cirque du Soleil... I counted, this was my fourth show. It's a brand new one called Kooza and I have to say - the BEST one I've seen yet!! WOW! We were on the edges of our seats for many of the acts. My sister said her hands were sweating. The stuff they did left your jaw on the ground. If you haven't seen a show, do it - it's always worth the money.

Then Monday night, a last minute offer to ride with a couple of the strongest riders in our group. I haven't ridden with them yet. We did about 50k and it was really great. I pulled for quite a while in the wind and was strong. And Frank noted that I kept up with them on the hills - I'm stronger than last year. :) Today I stuck to my promise to Jessica that I would cross train and I went to the gym (easier to do when it's raining). And with an offer to get to the park on Friday afternoon, I decided to take the day off! Extra long weekend - woo-hoo!!!

Boyz

So, last night I was dressed in my cycling gear, had just finished pumping up my tires, and was almost out the door when the phone rang. It was MizB.

She said, "Do you want to go to Poncho Villa for a drink?" - uh, oh.

I asked, "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing. Jen and I are going there, do you want to come?"

So, I said I was just about to head out on my bike, but I could meet up with her and Jen later, depending on how long they intended on being out.

She said,"OK. I think he's going to move", referring to the most recent bf. Uh-oh.

So, I changed back into my 'street clothes' (the ones I wear when I'm not hitting the pavement at 30kph - ha, ha!) and got picked up and we had margaritas and daiquiris on the patio. I'm such a cheap drunk, I had one and my legs felt funny (it's the tequila - we all know someone who isn't allowed to have it anymore - right Weakley??). The girlz were laughing at me - it was 'mucho grande' though. Then we got this idea and the three of us headed down to the market to have our palms read! I've never done that or anything like that before. It was fun! The lady wrote all of the stuff on our hands. She wasn't too far off on quite a few things too. Actually she was bang on for a few things for each of us. I think it cheered MizB up, but the news is: the boy is moving. Sigh. Too bad.

Altruism

I'm into finding different words instead of always using the same ones, so there you have the title of this post. When I worked as a student at Nortel in the summers we used to do the newspaper crossword at lunch and on Monday we'd pick one of the words and use it all week. Yeah, we were geeks, but it was fun anyway. In fact, it often meant a lot of laughter over the course of the week. But I digress, as that's not the purpose of my post...

Funny. The other day I was talking to a physician I call on about traveling (he travels a lot and is always interested in hearing about my plans). I told him about the idea of a trip where I can give back. Something about the poverty in Panama put that idea in my head I guess. He cautioned me about crime and disease with a couple of stories of other physicians who have traveled to really crazy places to help. I said that I guess in some ways I'm still pretty idealistic. I'm often conflicted with being pretty jaded, having had some tough experiences in life, and still being a little on the idealistic side deep down. I wanted to share something with whomever reads here, because it touched my soft side. It reminds us that when you do nice things, it does make the world a better place because people are reminded of the fact that we are all human. These days people frequently forget that. Like aggressive drivers, and bad cyclists (I had to add that - don't worry, I'm not holding on to it - I'm laughing as I write that part).

So check this out, and be sure to read the post on the Breakfast Fairy and the follow up post.

Content

I'm surprised how quickly I was able to think of another adjective starting with the letter 'c'. That's me right now. I'm going to have an epsom salts bath and do some serious stretching. This morning I did strength training with Jessica and even though she knew I was going to go climb hills this afternoon, we still did squats with a kick (no weight at least) and hamstrings. Yikes! When I got to Fortune Lake hill my quads were burning before I even started. But I made it!! Luckily that hill has a few flat spots where you can recover a bit and I actually recovered really well on those parts. I have this funny thing about riding, where I seem to be strongest in the last leg of a ride. So after Fortune Lake I seemed to be able to stand up and climb fast on the short hills. Weird. There is this nice, quick, moderately steep climb right before you get back to the Gamelin parking lot and Ruth and I climbed it standing doing 30kph!!! I was shocked when I looked down. The descent right before didn't hurt to get our speed up. And one more thing about today's ride was that Pink Lake, while still very challenging for me (granny gear territory), didn't seem as bad as my imagination leads me to believe. I think after a summer of Gat Loops I'm going to crush that f-ing hill! The wind was something fierce today too. We did not go as fast as usual on the big descents for fear of being blown over. Seriously. And there were trilliums everywhere in the forest. I don't think I've seen them like that before - the whole forest floor covered in them. Very pretty.
So, as you can tell, my bike is back in working order. A very nice bike fairy fixed a broken spoke for me. :) Tomorrow - Tour Nortel.

Crusty

No longer a description for my leg, arm, and right hand. The last of the wounds seem to be healed. It's my mood that I'm describing this evening. After spending two long and very busy days in Kingston I was happy to have received a phone call during my drive home to get out to the Gats and climb some hills. I got home and changed and prepared my bike as quickly as I could and then got out the door equally as fast. On my way out I noticed my back wheel was rubbing against the brake pad. In fact, I couldn't move the bike forward. I fiddled with it a bit and figured I could quickly fix it when I got there (while in the back of my head I was also thinking something might be wrong because I couldn't easily fix it at home by loosening the skewer and realigning the tire). So, I battled the traffic and got to the park. Upon meeting up with my friends I asked them to look at the wheel and tell me what they thought - at this point I'd been frigging around with it and was considering loosening the brake pads (even though I had that little voice in my head saying: "don't be a dumbass"). As I described to another person later: 'after much deliberation and expert discussion from 3 only-semi-mechanically-literate cycling chicks', we decided I should not be descending hills at high speeds with a warped tire. And hopefully it's just the tire. So I came home and sulked. And then I got to responding to some work emails that really pissed me off. So I had to save them and look at them again later when I was in less of a crusty mood to be sure I wasn't being unreasonably bitchy. Yeah. At least I have the sense not to whip off the types of responses I'd like to sometimes. That and earlier today I even thought of a very witty and equally nasty response to a voicemail I received. Where do days like these come from? I'm just glad I don't have them often. You know, getting knocked off my bike the other week, I was calm (in shock, mind you), and unreasonably nice to the person who did it to me. Then some days, you just want to tell people like that to piss right off. Yep. Crusty day. Crusty Bex. What else can I say? At least I have friends who then pick me up for dinner and encourage my unusual decision to have a margarita. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll find a new adjective then.

Philanthropy

Week-long meetings tend to burn me out. Not to mention ones when lots of new things are coming down... like some new additions to software to learn, facilitating training, giving a presentation to my colleagues, meetings about how my job is going to change (we're expanding), etc, etc. The cool thing we did last week was VTI Day. This day used to be reserved for head office employees only until about 2 years ago when they started having our national meeting in April and we got to join in the festivities with the rest of the company. Each year is different and this time they set up the biggest tent I've ever seen in the parking lot of the office - apparently it took about 5 days to set it up. They gathered us together at the lunch hour and sent us all off in groups on different buses to places we'd chosen ahead of time to do community service. I went to the YMCA daycamp with 40-50 of my closest friends to set up the camp for the new season. We painted picnic tables, the pavilion, cleaned out the offices, the shed, set up the canoes, and cleaned up the walking paths, etc. of debris and garbage. After returning to the big huge tent at HO we all sat down to a very nice dinner and they presented employees with awards of recognition (for which they were nominated by their peers). The MC was a Canadian comedian (I don't know who - I don't pay attention to those things). Then Tom Cochrane came out and gave us our own private concert! Crazy night. Crazy day. It was a lot of fun.

After the trip to Panama, I started feeling a little burnt out from traveling. When I've thought about it I still get that feeling of longing to see the world. But with all of the work travel in the last year, and everything else I do, I haven't been able to imagine physically going anywhere. I started thinking about just sticking around town for a while - at least this summer. Ride my bike, do some tours that are within driving distance, etc. For the first time in several years I don't have any idea of where I might travel to next. I'd like to do an overseas bike trip with some of the people I cycle with, but I'm not sure if that will come to fruition. I guess part of me is waiting to see what might happen there. And then this week after participating in the volunteer day at work I started to think about visiting places that I want to see and experience and while I'm there, give back to that community. So I started looking into that kind of thing. My next trip might be quite the departure from what I've been doing up until now. And with that, I have started to think about where I might go next! But that would be next year, and first I have to see how work goes since next year will be a pivotal one for the area in which I work. I'm not sure what time of year I might travel. For now, I'll keep you posted on the small bike trips. Those should be fun as well. You don't have to go far to have an adventure!