Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Alias The CROC...

Pendleton Bicycle Club's Century Ride of the Centuries, otherwise known as "The CROC" with appropriate crocodile motifs everywhere took place this Memorial Day weekend, and it was a blast! It was headquartered at Wildhorse Resort, the local casino, and each day started at Tamastlikt Cultural Institute which is a pretty cool tribal interpretive center.

The whole party started out on Friday with check in and a reception at the Pendleton Convention Center. Nanci C., her friend Lynne, and I carpooled from the RV park at Wildhorse. I drove. When we got there, via the bypass road, Nanci was heard to say, "We didn't get here by the directions I got!" At check in we got a bag of "stuff", including orange Sock Guy socks with green toes and heels and crocs around the top. Pretty cool stuff there! Of course I wore mine for the first day of riding. They did clash just a skosh with my TBB jersey, but what the hey, anybody who's running around in bike shorts isn't exactly too fashion conscious anyway, right?

Several people from Baker City and the surrounding area were there, and we did a group munchout on Mexican food Friday night. We also included Nanci and Lynne, but I couldn't back up far enough to get them in the picture because there was a table in the way...

So, clockwise from the bottom left is Janie, Kim, Mike, Brian, Corrine, and Nanci's right hand...



Day one gave riders a choice: to ride to Echo and back or to ride to Echo then push on to Hat Rock and come back over the hills to Wildhorse. The Hat Rock part added enough to make the loop a century. The ride began in a drizzle, which made the trip down the hill on the paved bike path, which switches back and forth rather sharply in spots, somewhat interesting. Especially the horse apples at the bottom just before we turned onto the street.


The route led through the center of Pendleton until the Roundup grounds, then we took the new bypass to get to the old highway to Echo. This sign is at the city limits of Pendleton...



Once we got out of town, we gradually trended downhill, following the (I think) Umatilla River. One side was rock bluffs in a lot of places and the other side was irrigated fields. It made for quite a contrast. The tandem couple below just happened to pass me as I was juggling pedaling and picture taking at the same time...





Part of the terrain was sagebrush too. Quite an unusual sight in Eastern Oregon...Not.

There were flowers everywhere. Most of the yards of the houses we passed once we got out of town had irises and crocuses blooming everywhere. This house had lots more, but this was all I got as I coasted by. I almost forgot I had a camera with me...



All of the rest stops had themes. Apparently this is a tradition on this ride. The title of this one was Kamanawanaleiu, and all of the ladies were in grass skirts...

A comment must be made regarding the food on this ride. Not only were there bananas, fresh pineapple, bagels and peanut butter, etc., but there were hot baked potatoes, cookies, rice krispy treats with your choice of cranberries in them or chocolate and peanut butter on the top. And cookies. And Fiddle Faddle. If you went away hungry, it was your own fault. And this was just one rest stop. I have it on good authority that one of the stops on the Hat Rock part of the loop had hamburgers and hotdogs...


Also at this rest stop were Nanci and Lynne. They of course got there before I did, but we left together, and I managed to keep up with them until the first time the road went up, at which point they pulled steadily away. I'm used to that sort of thing, because I'm not much in the climbing department. But I don't mind spending time in my own little world. People know me there, and it's comfortable...
But I got back with them when Lynne had a flat, and I somehow managed to keep up with them the rest of the way back...




This house was sitting beside the road covered in graffiti, the majority of which seemed to be promoting the joys of marijuana consumption...



I ended the day back at the RV park with 68.44 miles, and an average of 12.4 mph for the day. Not bad for my first road miles of the year, I thought. And especially considering that I had a dog in my backpack. A bulldog, that is. The Baker High School mascot is the bulldog, their colors are purple and gold, and the junior class was selling these a few years ago...


This is my mother in law's travel trailer. It made a nice "home away from home". And the overhang sheltered several bikes every night...


Day two I didn't take very many pictures, but I couldn't resist this one. One of the overall themes of the ride was to find the infamous Helix Hussy, who had poisoned the Gatorade. This was one of the casualties, who was sprawled alongside the road to the top of Emigrant Hill...


As I noted, I didn't take too many pictures on Day Two. The reason is that it was raining and I was totally concentrated on getting my little chubby body to the rest stop at Deadman's Pass. It rained all the way up, and just below the top I ran into the clouds. If you look behind Kim and Janie, you can see the fog. It reminded me more of the coast in the fall than Pendleton in the spring...

The actual turnaround point was a good distance beyond the rest stop, but I wussed out and went back down the mountain. I did manage to average 6.5 climbing, and 10.4 overall, with 38.4 miles for the day instead of the planned 72...

Another note regarding the fog: while we were at the rest stop, the fog/clouds lowered further down the mountain, making seeing the markings for the numerous potholes in the curves a trifle difficult. The fog lasted until essentially the last curve of the hill...


Day Three dawned cloudy, but turned out to be nice. Nice enough in fact that I found myself wondering at the Bar M Ranch rest stop what the glowing orb in the sky was...

Meanwhile, I tried an experiment. I wanted to see if I could get a picture of myself while pedaling. It worked, but I seem to be taking it way too seriously. My wife wanted to know why I didn't smile. I finally decided later that I didn't try to smile, pedal, and juggle the camera at the same time because I was afraid I would end up upside down in the ditch...



There were a number of picturesque sights along the way. This particular place had about a dozen army truck in various states of disrepair lined up in the bushes...

This is the Bar M Ranch driveway sign. It's proof that I was really there. You'll just have to take my word for how I got there...



An item of particular note: the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, had a number of people aboard who did the ride with us, but on spin bikes. I hope they didn't get rained on the way we did. The theme for this rest stop was one of thanks to and support for our troops. There was even a log we could write on and sign. It was pretty cool...


This picture is of a poster showing some of the people who were "riding" with us, including the ship's executive officer...

This is what it looked like back at the start when we got back. It was much nicer than the day before...

This day was interesting. I rode back with Nanci and Lynne, and we did some pacelining at least until we got to the first hill on the set of rollers leading back to the highway, at which point I dropped back. Not because I wanted to, but because, well, it was a hill. Then I figured out how many miles we had left and decided that I was going to hammer the rollers and if I fried my legs, I was driving home anyway so it was no big deal. So I did. I was happy with my performance...

This day was 52.8 miles, 13.3 mph average. Total miles for the weekend came out to roughly 159 miles, if I did the math right, which is always questionable...

Overall, this was a great ride with good food and a group of volunteers that went out of their way to make things entertaining. I think I'd like to do it again next year, to see if the weather's better if nothing else. Sunday night after dinner was a raffle with some pretty good prizes. I won a Pendleton wool blanket...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Reno, Nevada and Points West and South, Part 2

So in Part 1 we found ourselves in the amazing city of San Francisco. Of course since we were in SF only for the day, we had to do as much as possible in the shortest period of time. We didn't have time or it would have been cool to do the computer tour of the city via small three wheeled, two passenger, "vehicles" that were buzzing all over. Instead we went for a trolley ride.


It's easy to see that if one lived in San Francisco, one would want to either live and work close to where the trolley goes, or own a car with an automatic transmission. Those hills are steep!


But the view from the tops of the hills is really scenic. That's the Embarcadero (below) at the edge of the water...



The next few days were taken up with meetings (commonly known as the sensitive alternative to work) until Thursday. Originally the conference was supposed to last until noon on Thursday, but it ended Wednesday afternoon instead. The conference chairman had arranged for a luncheon cruise on Lake Tahoe for Thursday on the sternwheeler MS Dixie II. The food was good and the lake was as flat as a floor. It was quite a contrast from last Saturday (see Part 1). That's the MS Dixie on the right.




As we cruised across the lake, the robotic tour guide (prerecorded live) pointed out the state line between Nevada and California. It was the first time I've ever actually seen a state line. The slanting line to the left is a ski lift.



There is a bay on the far side of Lake Tahoe called Emerald Bay. The water in Lake Tahoe is like Ivory soap, it's 99 and 44/100th's percent pure, and it's incredibly clear and blue. Except in Emerald Bay. In Emerald Bay, the lake bottom comes close enough to the surface to turn the water to, yes, emerald green. Emerald Bay was once owned by a very rich lady who wanted a medieval style house, which was built in I believe 1924 and is called Viking House. It now belongs to the National Park Service, and can be toured.



As soon as we got back to the hotel, we had to catch a shuttle to the airport so we could wing our way home. We got home about midnight, and I had to be in Ellensburg, Washington by 11 the next day to go to a college rodeo, so it was a short night...

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Reno, Nevada and points south and west

This isn't exactly in sequence temporally, but that's life, I suppose.

So anyway, back in the dark ages of mid-April Cheryl (my lovely wife) and I went to the ICMA conference in Reno, NV. We had to leave immediately after the conference so we went down a bit early. We got there on Friday night.

Saturday morning we were wandering through Eldorado when we were accosted by one of those "Get free shows and free food" types who promised us we would only have to listen for a little while. They were selling vacation rentals that actually sounded like a pretty good deal, if we had any extra money, which like most people who are "married with children" we don't. But it only cost us a couple of hours, and we got tickets to a really good show and two free buffet dinners, so it wasn't too bad of a deal.

Some friends from Missouri, Mike and Leann, got to Harrah's where we were staying about noon. We hooked up with them and drove up to Lake Tahoe, which was doing an excellent ocean imitation due to the wind stirring up three foot white-capped waves.






















After Lake Tahoe, we had to get back to the hotel so we could go to our free show, which was called "FloorPlay". It was a quite interesting take on ballroom dancing, with a very modern flair. As I told Cheryl at the time, "'Dancing With the Stars' it ain't!"

The next day we drove to San Francisco with Mike and Leann. Our first stop, being touri, was of course the Golden Gate Bridge, which we walked across and back. I took several pictures along the way, including one of a sign which is on a lot of the beams of the bridge structure regarding the consequences of launching oneself from the bridge.


Not to make light of the wording of the sign or of the reason for its being there, because suicide is a sad thing, but isn't it obvious that jumping from the Bridge would be fatal? And wouldn't that be the reason for jumping in the first place?















On a much less morbid note, the gardens at the south end of the Bridge were quite beautiful.


From the Bridge we went to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch, then wandered the Embarcadero. On the water side is a submarine which one can tour for $9, and a battleship which costs $8 for the tour. We declined to do both tours.

One can get an excellent view of the infamous Alcatraz Prison from the Wharf as well.


From Fisherman's Wharf we went to Ghiradelli Square for chocolate (of course) then rode the trolley cars. More pictures in Part 2...