The Ride

DoubleB picked me up early yesterday and we headed to Beechwood for the Tuesday night ritual. I've been running the gears the last couple of weeks as I have not been feeling one-gear-fully-rigid strong as of late. I must admit, it's been a good feeling to do the climbs completely as opposed to planning on where to unclip, hop off and run (well, okay, walk) up the hill. Help the ego which seems to have transferred to the rest of the trail as well. First lap was crap, no doubt about it. Only redemption was not having a tree take me down this week. Missed the new rock garden, missed the exit on the new log bridge, missed the berm bowl... you get the idea. 2nd lap became the best one I've had in over a month. Still missed the new rock garden, but it will still be there next week. Things started flowing much better. Climbs felt even better. I still climb like a cow climbs a tree, but they did feel better on lap two. Cleaned the new bridge. One touch on the berm. Waited for some others to cycle through, went back up the trail for another run at it. Clean and did the full 180 to the next trail. Turns out it was all psyche, looks worse than it is. Finished up the lap, did my obligatory parade lap, changed, re-hydrated and headed over to the fire and grill. Chicken brats and grill puffballs. Yes, puffballs. Some huge ones in the woods next to the trail. Never knew you could eat them. Peel, slice, grill. Pretty tasty. If I'm ever lost in the woods, I want Jay to be one of the people with me.

Julie has settled into her back to four-day work schedule and has added every other Saturday as well. We were starting to dip into savings too often. This was in hope that we be able to start paying ourselves again. Don't know that this will happen though. We're about to be punished yet again for being smart and not completely over-extending ourselves. Makes me feel just plain wonderful that we can turn over our "wealth" - and I use that term very loosely in this case - to someone for redistribution.