Graduation Day

Rebekah graduated from High School yesterday and we planned for a small party afterward. Our day started off with losing power at 330 in the morning because an underground power line went bad. I ran into the Puget Sound Power crew at the 7-eleven when I went for a coffee run and they told me a fuse blew. A fuse blew? It sounded like a howitzer went off. Sounds right to me he replied. We had sticky buns ready to go into the oven, but the lack of power put a slight damper on breakfast. I fired up the generator to run the essentials. You know, curling irons, hair dryers, straighteners and then decided to use the turkey roaster to see if we could salvage the food. To our delight, they came out just fine and all the girls were able to prep themselves for the ceremony. We were happy to see the power back on when we arrived back at the house and we were back in business. The first thing on the agenda was to turn on the grill and get the onions going. Easier said than done because the stupid thing stopped working. I made a few calls, got a hit to pick up a friends and drag it back to the house only to find out his grill decided to quit as well. I finally decided to go old school and get the briquettes soaking and after getting the burgers cooking I remembered why we switched to gas because the smoke was crazy thick and choking me out, but it got the job done.  

A very fattening breakfast, but worth every calorie. 

Jaz and Bek posing with her diploma. 

The 2014 Senior Banner. 

Bagging It.

I'm back on the single speed for commuting and that means no bike rack, panniers or trunk bag. What it does mean is everything gets packed into the Camelbak, including lunch. 

Here is some delicious noodles and meatballs prepped for cramming into a little space. Eating today reminded me of hiking the trails years ago when all the food was consumed in this manner. 

Pinensula Metric Century

A co-worker (Dave) and I signed up for the 100K PMC route for yesterdays ride and he was kind enough to pedal at a pace I could keep up with. Some of the hills were significant in elevation gain and really tested my leg strength/lung capacity, but I made it up all of them. The views on the coast line weren’t the greatest because the sun didn’t come out until the end of the ride, but what we did see was quite impressive. The route was marked, but some of the painted directional symbols need to be done again because we missed a few turns. Luckily, Dave has ridden the area several times in the past and got us back on course. The guy commutes at least three times a week with a 37 mile round trip and this was just another weekend ride for him.  

Dave and I at the finish.

Showing off our bad ass commuter muscles, we showed up with fenders, bike racks and fat tires still installed and we were the only riders to do so. The rest were all roadies, prepped for speed instead of distance. We may have been heavier and slower, but we still showed up a fair number of the speedsters and the softer ride was well worth it. : ) I feel we didn't do too bad on time since we left at 0730 and finished at 1300 stopping at each of the three rest stops for food, fluids and a restroom break . The volunteers were serving Strawberry Short Cake at the finish and if I didn't have another 45 minutes in the saddle I would have kept eating until they cut me off. It was gooooooood. Doing a long ride without any mechanical issues is a bonus and we were fortunate to fall into that category. I did encounter some ghost shifting, but I’m hoping a new cable will fix it. My rear wheel stayed in place, so I guess my drop out fix is good to go. Together we did 62 miles, but I road home to make it 75 for me and the longest ride for the year. I’ll need to get more miles in if I’m going to hang with my brother during the Midnight Century.