Pick-A-Nick

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 179.5#, 10.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 178.5#, 10% BF

Falling behind on my photos: Memorial Day weekend, Tom & Barbara's wedding, Dad's birthday, Mountain Bike Weekend, and now Heath & Margarita's wedding... I'll get right on it I swear...

Had a dream last night I found a kitten on the PPRAC ride. No allergy problems, dreamland is good like that (usually).

Hall of Fame: Thanks & Congratulations to my Uncle Pat, whose $250 donation is my biggest so far.

The weekend...

Friday night seems so long ago now. It looked like rain so I blew off riding, and later went to Which Brew to meet Brian and Eric. Talked to Hans for a bit; his brother Heath's wedding rehearsal dinner was on the back deck -- luckily, the rain never came. A Skulldiggers side project was playing, and the place was extremely crowded, so we (me, B & E) shared a table in the back with Chris & Kara, Weyerbacher manager & waitress, now married I guess, & some of their friends.

My plan for Saturday was to ride Fiddler's elbow before working out at the gym, but I blew that off in favor of my standard Sat AM: pick up the drycleaning & then have breakfast at Coffee Works. I got to the gym early enough, so I went for a 2 mile run (it felt great), had a good workout with Dawn -- except I forgot that we agreed to do a body fat test, and the run put the kibosh on accurate results so that's now scheduled for next week -- and finished with Fiddler's Elbow.

That should be a two hour ride, depending on the exact route, and the highlight is the climb up Fiddler's Elbow Road in Harmony, reputed to be the steepest road in New Jersey -- a total death march for about a mile, with the final section being so steep it's almost silly. I got there, as storm clouds started gathering, then I started the climb and the weather turned even more ominous, and finally I came around the last bend and confronted "the Wall," with lightning and thunder and swaying trees -- all it lacked was a gloomy Frankenstein castle. (Actually there is one: a house at the top where the owner, a youngish guy, is usually outside w/ a friendly greeting -- & a comment, if you're walking: the hill beat me, I had to stop and regroup before hitting "the Wall" but made damn sure I rode past the house...) Into the storm, and I decided to cut the ride short, was done in probably 1:30 or 1:45 even with the slowdown from rain/visibility issues.

Saturday Night, or rather evening, I stopped by Margarita's house, post-reception BBQ. This was the less formal thing for friends etc, pretty nice. They are now off on their honeymoon, a Windjammer cruise in Penobscott Bay. I left there and went back downtown, met Joe & Cindy and Doug & Lori at the River Grille (fancy dining, good thing I was "dressed up"), joined them for a drink there, and one next door at Montague (a disco? wha?), then headed home.

Sunday I joined up with a bunch of guys from Valley Mountain Bikers to ride at Locust Lake near Tamaqua, someplace I didn't think I'd ever been before. Serious riding, but I had been there before, knew it as "the Burma Road trails;" I guess that name should explain the difficulty level... Excellent day!

Sunday night was Paul and Mary's Heritage Day party, with burgers, dogs, orzo salad -- great tasting stuff & I never had it until this weekend, now had it two days in a row -- food, beer, etc etc, and front row seats for the big fireworks show. I hung out there with Brian, Paul & Mary, Violetta, Scott S from work, plus lots of people I sort of know as "Mary's friends" or "the Genesis crowd." Good bunch of people.

I took Monday as a rest day, worked on the mountain bike. Tonight I'll probably do a towpath/sals ride, wednesday a road ride w/ Joe G, Thurs singlespeed at the 'burg, Friday towpath...