Monday, November 5, 2007

fall riding and romantic memories. Yipppeee!

Well, finally having some time on my hands and no team commitments right now, I've been able to spend some time luxuriating in long fall rides with my honey.

Saturday - Los Altos Hills

Saturday, we got out early so we could make the memorial at 2 pm. We decided to do some meandering through the Los Altos Hills. We rode the flats up to Arastrdero, then left on Purissima, right on Elena, left on Robleda and right on Duval up to St. Luke's Chapel in the Hills - the site of our marriage 2.5 years ago. We did some kissing intervals and looked out at the view before heading back to Elena. We turned right on Moody and then left on Tepa for the steep, short climb to the quarry. We crossed over to Magdelena and descended to the flatlands again. Very nice!

Saturday afternoon, we attended Leone's memorial. It was nice. Leone and Bill had recorded themselves with him singing and her accompanying a few months back when she was dying. They played the songs with pictures of them on the screens. It teared me up really good. Fortunately, there were only two sets of folks I recognized (besides the family) and none that recognized me. So, we didn't have to do any of that awkward "I remember when you were this tall" bit.

Sunday - Conquering El Diablo



Each year in the fall we've made a tradition of returning to the top of Mt. Diablo on our bikes to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement. This was our 4th trip, so 3 years since our engagement. We've done 1 up north gate, down south gate and loop back in the flats; one up and back on north gate; one full loop including Morgan Territory after the summit (that one hurt); and yesterday up and back on south gate. We took our friend Erika for her first climb of the summit. We had lots of company, as we were climbing in the midst of a large Filipino cycling club (probably about 40 riders). It was fun, and we did it at a VERY leisurely pace, which was great.

We had some pizza and beer to replenish and returned home. It was a great day!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

what a nice weekend!!!

Chris said...

I hear lots of people talking about El Diablo. I will have to check that thing out, in my car, when I am out there someday.

Kimberly (aka. DrKim) said...

sounds like a great weekend! :-) fun, romance, cycling...what more could you ask for (well, except the memorial, which was probably a bit sad, but still a celebration of a life..).

Itinerant Rick said...

ahhh, fun times, relaxing times, remembrance times. Thanks for everything. We need to do that some more.

Itinerant Rick said...

chris - when we get you out here, we will put you on a bike and you will ride to the top of some of these hills - Diablo, Hamilton, Tam, Page Mill. You will learn the joy of the hill :-)

rdlola said...

So you were able to enjoy our beautiful weather! Hard to believe it is fall here with tank tops and flip flops on...

~ lauren said...

ohh, sounds so nice!

i like that last picture. looks self portraitesque.

chatterbox said...

Wow! Ya'll have been busy commenting while I've been in meetings all day.

flandria - it was fabu!

chris - yes, but you need to *ride* it

kim - yes, all was good. even the memorial was a celebration of life!

c-rick - yes, thank YOU for the great weekend!

rdlola - woo hoo! summer in Nov.!

lauren - glad you like the pic. I thought that one was fun of all 3 of us!

Jackie said...

Ahhh, kissing intervals! Yes!