Biking in California-->June 25, 2011

Motorists in CA are nice.  They know how to be respectful of cyclists.  It is the law in CA that motorists give cyclists 5', just as it is in NM, and they know the law.  We are visiting in Ridgecrest (think Mojave Desert) and it is HOT even early in the morning.  It is hot and WINDY in the evening, so I opt to ride in the morning because windy is not my favorite addition to riding option.  I had a great ride up this long, slow hill this morning that if I lived in Ridgecrest could quickly become one of my favorite routes.  One thing I did notice is that cyclists do not appear to be quite as friendly in CA as they are in Albuquerque.  I said hi to everyone I saw and not everyone said hi back to me.  Now having come back down the long incline at a blisteringly fast pace, it could be that they were white knuckling the ride down the hill and did not feel comfortable with even a finger wave salute or a breathless "hey" to respond to my cheery, "Good morning" as I ground up the hill.

Les and I did the trip to CA by leaving Fort Sumner on Wednesday night after work and driving to Gallup where we stayed at a less than lovely Rodeway Inn.  The AC didn't work well and the bed was quite likely a refurbished billiard table.  We got to bed about midnight and were in Walmart by 7 to get some frozen chili and tamales to take to Stephen.  He lives in the land of no chili or Mexican food.  Since we are loving parents, we take him frozen chili products when we visit.


I could of course make tamales, but we are having a vacation and making tamales is not a vacation task and it is over 110 degrees in Ridgecrest and they use swamp coolers in Ridgecrest; I am taking frozen tamales; that is sufficient motherly affection. 

There is loads of BLM land around Ridgecrest, so one of our favorite things to do while we are there is go shooting.  I took my Smithfield XD 9mm Subcompact, my favorite concealed carry automatic and a bunch of ammunition, and Les took his coyote rifle and the shotgun.  For his birthday I'd ordered him a modification kit for the shotgun, and he wanted both of us to have a chance to shoot it.  Stephen had recently purchased a new Colt 1911 45 automatic, and I wanted to try that out.  I've had my eye on a Kimber 1911 model 45 for a while, and that will probably be my next handgun purchase.  I like Stephen's Colt a lot, but the Kimber is such a nice gun.  We played a fun shooting game using a dartboard target and teams.  The game is called "Around the Clock".  Stephen and I were teams against Les and Dan.  It is a common dart game were you have to get all of the numbers in sequence and then finish off with the bulls eye in the center.  Stephen and I won and it was fun to shoot for a couple of hours.

Another thing we always do when we visit is mess with computer stuff.  On Saturday I moved the church web site over to Concrete 5.  That means some different sort of html and php programming than I am used to and with Stephen's help the migration of the web site went quite smoothly.  I like messing with the technology aspect of this, but only when I have the time to do it.  Most of my schedule is too jammed with the daily tasks of life, but on these little holidays I have time to mess with new learning, and it is fun to acquire some new skills and dabble in stuff that is not routine.

Sunday Les and I will do the Road Warrior trip back to Fort Sumner.  We will get up early and begin the 14 hour journey back home.  A week from Sunday, July 3rd, I head off to church camp at Pine Springs and I am so excited about that week.  Six of our high school girls are going with me and I know we will have an awesome time. Training there will be interesting since I never get more than about three hours of sleep a night.  We are up until midnight or one with the kids, and then it is like a slumber party in the adult cabin; we just stay up and chat like teens until early morning.  I still try to maintain some semblance of a training regimen, so I get up and run or bike in the morning and then get out to serve breakfast at 8.  I teach class for the girls who are going on to college and class time is from 9-10.   This year we are studying I John and I love that book.  This week is my favorite of the year.