Tom and Ashe ride off toward Ventura County

 All Categories, Bicycling  3 Responses »
Nov 062011
 

Tom gave a call this morn­ing around 7:30 on the new PST (Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time) sug­gest­ing a bike ride to Carpin­te­ria.  Sound­ed great to me so at 8:10 we met at Los Banos and rode off togeth­er. We road down the coast, along Hwy 192, through Gob­er­nador Canyon to the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty line, back through Carp, then up Padero Lane and on to Stack­ys in Sum­mer­land for lunch before head­ing home.

It was the nicest ride we’ve had for awhile, I think because we had an open agen­da and no need to rush to be any­where. There are more images of course. Click on the mon­tage above to view them.

 Posted by at 12:30 pm

Carol Preston gets to the Eastern Sierra

 All Categories, Food, Hiking  2 Responses »
Oct 262011
 

Car­ol and I drove up to June Lake on Sun­day and spent three nights and two full days explor­ing some of the East­ern Sier­ra, par­tic­u­lar­ly look­ing for areas with fall col­or.  On the way up we stopped for a hike at Lava Falls and a vis­it to the Nation­al Park Ser­vice’s won­der­ful par­tial­ly rebuilt Man­za­nar site and museum.

Mon­day morn­ing some oth­er vis­i­tors sug­gest­ed High­way 120 as a good spot for col­or so we explored along the June Lake Loop then up 120 into Yosemite; lunch­ing, hik­ing, and pok­ing around in Tuolumne Mead­ows.  Mon­day’s din­ner was at the spec­tac­u­lar Con­vict Lake Restau­rant, YUM. What an end to day one.

Tues­day I went for a won­der­ful morn­ing hike up to the water­fall over­look­ing our Dou­ble Eagle Inn then we drove over to the Mam­moth Lakes area for an after­noon of dis­cov­ery in new ter­ri­to­ry for both of us.

Wednes­day we drove away from June Lake and stopped for break­fast at Toms Place before descend­ing to Bish­op and head­ing south on 395.   We stopped at Olacha for a pho­to op, Red Rock Canyon for a short hike, and the Lan­cast­er In-N-Out for lunch.

We had a great time and passed through and vis­it­ed much spec­tac­u­lar coun­try.  Click on the above mon­tage to see a slide show con­tain­ing images and more details of our outing.

 Posted by at 5:00 pm

Australian Hank’s very interesting rig

 All Categories, Bicycling  1 Response »
Oct 212011
 

Jill had two more tour­ing cyclists drop by for a “Warm Show­er” the last two nights (click here for info on WarmShow­ers). These fel­lows were from Aus­tralia. Pic­tured above is Hank as he was get­ting set to leave this morning.

The oth­er bloke was already gone, off to Star­bucks then on to the skate­board park down by the wharf. He’s car­ried a skate­board with him for their entire adven­ture. They flew into Van­cou­ver and bought their bikes there. Their route was through east­ern Wash­ing­ton to the Colum­bia, along the Colum­bia, through the Gorge into Port­land, on to see the Colum­bia ter­mi­nate into the Pacif­ic, then down the coast all the way to San­ta Bar­bara. When they arrive in Los Ange­les they’ll leave their bikes and fly to New York for eight days, return­ing to Los Ange­les to ride to the Mex­i­can bor­der, then fly home to Syd­ney. What an adventure.

Things to note on Han­ks set­up above (click­ing on the image presents a larg­er ver­sion of same):
   ♦ The stacked up stuff on the rear rack. Typ­i­cal long haul; load it up, bungee it all down.
   ♦ The cre­ative place­ment of the “han­dle­bar bag”, very cool.
   ♦ The disk brakes and an advan­tage I had nev­er considered.
         Hank had bro­ken 19 spokes by the time he rode into an Arca­ta bike store with four
         of them unre­paired. Yet he could still ride with the wheel WAY out of true because
         the bike has disk brakes. With brakes stop­ping on the rim and his size he probably
         would not have been able to ride with two spokes bro­ken, amaz­ing to me who has
         bro­ken many a spoke while tour­ing. Disc wheels may be in my future!

 Posted by at 10:30 am

October Full Moon Event

 All Categories, Food  Comments Off on October Full Moon Event
Oct 102011
 

Mar­ilee put out the call and she, Car­ol, Steve, and Ashe arrived for anoth­er Shore­line Park potluck, chat, moonrise/sunset and gen­er­al fun evening. High­light: Car­ol brought some yum­my D’An­gelo’s wal­nut bread along with cream cheese and her own pump­kin but­ter.  Tom, an acquain­tance of Ashe’s, first rode by on his bicy­cle then lat­er strolled by with his ukelele and stopped to ser­e­nade us.

Thanks to Mar­ilee for again being the FME coor­di­na­tor.  Click on the mon­tage for a larg­er ver­sion that includes our strolling minstrel.

 Posted by at 6:00 pm

Cynthia and Ashe ride 77 miles on the
San Luis Obispo Bike Club’s Lighthouse Ride

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food  4 Responses »
Sep 242011
 

Hey! What’s with all the food? I thought this was a blog entry for a bicy­cle ride?
It is. But one needs lots of calo­ries to ride 77 miles, read on gen­tle reader.

Cyn­thia had men­tioned doing this months ago. As the time drew near I decid­ed to jump in and par­tic­i­pate so I mon­gered us some tick­ets from the very cool tick­et exchange sec­tion on the SLO Bike Club web site. 

The short ver­sion is we had a great day vis­it­ing, rid­ing, and eat­ing. The long ver­sion is con­tained in the slideshow pre­sent­ed when you click on the above image of us in intake mode. 

There are lots of images with com­ments. You can use your mouse to man­u­al­ly has­ten the show or to present it in full screen/living col­or. If your sys­tem can­not present the above slideshow click­ing here presents the same con­tent in a dif­fer­ent format.

 Posted by at 4:30 pm

Forty five mile ride down to Sea Cliff — Nice

 All Categories, Bicycling  1 Response »
Sep 192011
 

I am wish­ing to ride a bit for the next few days to get ready for the SLO bike club’s Light­house ride this Sat­ur­day, hence today’s 45 miles. Cyn­thia E. and I had made a plan to do the Light­house ride and I have just today got­ten us two tick­ets by using the SLO BC tick­et mon­ger­ing site, very cool and easy: one from San Diego, one from Fresno.

Today’s des­ti­na­tion of Sea Cliff was par­tic­u­lar­ly so I could ride through the cool con­struc­tion cor­ri­dor for bicy­cles that Cal­Trans has set up on the south­bound 101 near La Con­chi­ta (seen in the upper right pho­to above) but also because its one of my favorite stretch­es of road. 

Inter­est­ing inter­play of fog and sun all dur­ing today’s ride. Click on the above mon­tage for a larg­er one of six with more info included.

 Posted by at 5:00 pm

A big croquet match at Vista del Monte

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Sep 162011
 

Phyl­lis’s won­der­ful nephew Eric is vis­it­ing she and San­ta Bar­bara for sev­er­al days. Today I was includ­ed in a very high pro­file cro­quet match on the Vista del Monte grounds. We had a nice time play­ing with the uneven and rough grass pro­vid­ed by Vista del sav­ing me from total humil­i­a­tion by the Kiwi Pro, whew.

Phyl­lis and Car­ol were the pri­ma­ry fans cheer­ing but sev­er­al oth­er Vista del Monte res­i­dents made com­ments or sug­ges­tions as they walked by us. Post game Car­ol was crav­ing some oys­ters so she, Eric, and I drove down to the Fishouse on Cabril­lo for same.

A very fun time for all indeed. Click­ing on the image of the three above will pro­vide more shots of us all that include sev­er­al nice ones of Phyllis.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

Tom gives me a lift to Casitas Springs so .…
I can have a great bicycle ride home

 All Categories, Bicycling  2 Responses »
Sep 142011
 

Tom called this morn­ing to say that he was head­ing down to the Ven­tu­ra area and asked if I’d like to ride down with him so that I could ride my bicy­cle home. What a great offer!! About an hour lat­er; just enough time for me to lube my chain, retape the left side of the han­dle­bars, have some break­fast, and get on my rid­ing duds he arrived in his truck.

We had a nice vis­it dri­ving south on US 101 then east on Hwy 33 6.2 miles to Casitas Springs and Sher­lock­’s. We walked in to find a very inter­est­ing antique lamp store. A few min­utes lat­er Tom came back out­side with me to help unload the bike and me get set to ride off. What a serendip­i­tous day! I was all set to doo­dle around on the com­put­er for most of the day but thanks to Tom I had a very fun adven­ture in the real world, e.g. away from the computer.

As usu­al click­ing on the mon­tage above presents more, clear­er shots of the day.

 Posted by at 3:30 pm

FMEs resume!!

 All Categories, Food  4 Responses »
Sep 112011
 

Mar­ilee set up a sec­ond resump­tion of our Full Moon Events (FMEs). I was unable to attend last mon­th’s but was at Shore­line Park at 5:00 this evening. Lots of fun for all and good food as usu­al. Click on the above mon­tage to see more of our activ­i­ties. We look espe­cial­ly good at full screen so click on that choice if you wish.

Thank you M.K.

 Posted by at 4:38 pm

Nice SBBG sponsored hike up Rattlesnake Canyon

 All Categories, Hiking  3 Responses »
Sep 102011
 

Car­ol Carter had this fun idea for sev­er­al of us to join in on a San­ta Bar­bara Botan­ic Gar­den hike up Rat­tlesnake Canyon this morn­ing. She, Steve, Mar­ilee, and I met SBBG docent Diane Ken­nett at the trail­head at nine. Along with three oth­er folks we had a very infor­ma­tive and pleas­ant few hours polk­ing around along the trail. The most inter­est­ing fac­tiod of our out­ing was dis­cov­er­ing that a dam was con­struct­ed with­in Rat­tlesnake Canyon at the same time as the one in Mis­sion Canyon, ~ 1804. You can see it in the left image of the mid­dle row above.

After our out­ing Steve, Car­ol, and I repaired to La Super Rica for a won­der­ful lunch. Anoth­er great day in the life. Click­ing on the above mon­tage will present a larg­er one of same for more detailed viewing.

 Posted by at 9:00 am
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