Band for you

Chad had open house duties last week since I was gone at rehearsal, and actually made a video of the band, so you can *see* Nim play her piccolo.  Enjoy.

Murphy's Law Meets Planning Ahead

Planning ahead is supposed to be good.

There is an organized bike ride called RAMROD (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day) that I've been wanting to do for a while.  Circumnavigate a volcano in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest with food/beverage support -- how cool is that?  The volcano that I associate with hiking and outdoor adventures of my youth, at that.   At the end of July, which it should be gorgeous, too.

Never mind that it historically has been 150+ miles, with about 10,000 feet of climbing; the exact route varies somewhat from year to year due to winter road damage, construction, and the like.

The RAMROD organizers can only allow something like 800 people due to road safety considerations imposed by the park service, so there is a lottery every year to allocate the spots.  For a long time, you couldn't enter the lottery as a group, which pretty much ruled us out, as we wouldn't plan to do it unless we could both get in.  However, they started allowing small group lottery entries last year, which pulled the ride into the realm of possibility.

This summer was already looking pretty full, and our riding so far this year, while regular, has not especially been planned out as training for a big event.  I entered us into the lottery anyway, figuring that some of the 800 spots would go to last year's volunteers, and the odds of actually for this year being picked were not high.  You see, their lottery is weighted to favor people who have entered and failed to be drawn in previous years.  My thinking was "We want to do this next year, or the year after, so I'll essentially just be getting in line by entering this year."

Yeah, right.  Of course our names got drawn.  (You saw this coming.)

Now we're committed.  They haven't announced the exact 2015 route yet, but there is hope that it will be the "traditional" ~150 mile route.  It has a giant climb up Cayuse Pass about 100 miles in to the day.  Chad has had minor panic about setting up and following a training plan; I merely looked back at my old ride spreadsheet and decided that because I've been riding at least as much as the year before the STP (longer, but flat) and the year we did the Death Ride (a little shorter, but hillier), that we are in pretty good shape as long as we keep to our normal habits.

[Insert denial about the two and a half weeks in June that we will be in Utah hiking rather than riding, and the fact that I don't have as much opportunity to ride once Nim is out of school.]

It'll all be all OK -- we can do it.  Without too much suffering.  I think...

Hamilton

Every year, I ride Mt. Hamilton on or around my birthday.  The year, the weather was gorgeous and I had plenty of time, so I drove over to the hill after breakfast and headed up.

Very slow to warm up.

Total and utter lack of motivation.

Really didn't feel like doing it that morning.  

Just rode up it last month.

Booooooring.  Crave variety.

As a result, after the first thousand or so feet of climbing, I made a right turn on Quimby and started exploring.  Despite the fact that this section of road climbed a little more, and more steeply than I had previously been doing, the bicycle ennui disappeared and everything immediately felt better.  Yay.

Of course, following this route meant I had to navigate without a map, ride some roads I had never been on, and ride some others in the opposite direction than I had previously done.  How fun!

But, yikes,  the steep part of Quimby looked like it would pitch me off the edge of the world.  I can't believe they are going to *race* down this on the Tour of California next month.  Some of the twisty switchbacks have an 18% grade, and despite the fact that the pavement looks ok to the eye, it actually has some weird undulating ripples to it that pitch you around.  Still, the views are pretty good :)

And yes, of course I've ridden *up* this before, just never down it.

After plummeting back down into San Jose, I turned south onto San Felipe Road, and discovered a gentle, rural, shady green climb that I had never climbed before.  Aside from a few suspicious cows at my snack stop, I didn't see much of anyone for miles.

San Felipe runs into the top of Metcalf Road, which was still covered in wildflowers despite the fact that many of the other hills are starting to turn brown.  I must have hit something weird on the phone with my sweaty fingers, resulting in a funny "old photo" effect being applied -- somehow appropriate to the atmosphere of this very rural, gorgeous section of road.

Another steep descent back into civilization, and then a bike trail along Coyote Creek, followed by some minor navigational challenges due to my lack of map, and I made it back to the starting point having covered more miles and gained more elevation than would have happened doing the normal Hamilton climb.  A most entertaining morning! (Happy Birthday to Me)

Happy Easter

Fun with chemistry: Vegetable-dyed Easter eggs.
Red onion skin
Grape juice
Artichoke
Yellow onion skin
Turmeric
Radicchio
Really pathetic leftover beets
(I quite prefer these to the artificial candy colors of traditional dye kits....even if a few of the colors just dyed white eggs brown!)

Kid hiding behind her bunny loot.

I sang a Palestrina double-choir mass as a singer added at the last minute for the church choir directed by the guy who does Early Music singers, and was almost asphyxiated by all the incense.

Hope you all had a good Easter.

Spring!

It's definitely spring here -- about 85 degrees and sunny, sunny, sunny when Chad and I rode out to Pescadero over the weekend.  No pictures of that (too busy trying to squeeze the ride into the time window encompassed by Nim's computer class), but I do have photographic evidence of spring-like conditions seen while mountain biking at Coe earlier in the week.

I was impressed that the microscope app on my phone took decent pictures of teeny-tiny flowers.  This filaree blossom was less than 1/4 inch across,

as were the butter-and-eggs,

and of course, the ladybug.

Family hike

I dragged everyone out for a short hike at Rancho San Antonio a couple of weekends ago.  We saw many and varied interesting things:

Turkeys!

View (trail, bay, and Mt. Diablo in the background)

View (NASA Ames)

View (San Jose and Mt. Hamilton)

View (rainbow over the expensive houses)

Many, many California newts

Followed by a very predictable result

Rides

Though some parts of the country are still in the throes of winter, that is not the case here...so I've been riding.  Guess where I rode (from home) last week:

That ride was followed up by a climb up Hamilton the following day.  Not bad for early-season riding!

Also forgot the chalkbag

Nimue thought her climbing chalk bag was ugly, so I made it into a monster.  Its LED eyes blink randomly, and lots of people have noticed it at the gym.  (the chalk bag hangs off the back of her harness and blinks down at everyone below; there is a hole in the top of its head for her to reach in to get chalk to dry off her hands)

Forgotten Valentines

I forgot to post these tasty Valentine's Day treats

Chad 3-D printed a miniature version of a cubesat.  I made a mold from it out of food-safe silicone, and then made peanut-butter-filled chocolate cubesats on sticks.

Yes, we are weird.