That Was The Weekend That Was

So, the weekend...

Friday I rode the towpath (no Sals), then had dinner at Which Brew where I met Brian, and also Doug & Lori a little later. Easy.

Saturday I got up, did a little reading, then rode down the Towpath again, caught George Hrab and the Geologic Orchestra at the Bethlehem Block Party. Pretty cool, hung out with Greg & Judy and some of their friends, who have family connections to the band. Kris R also showed up on her road bike, and we cruised through downtown after the Geologic Orchestra show, got some ice cream and then rode through Fountain Hill, until we went our separate ways when I got to Sals. Did a pretty good ride there, maybe two hours, basically my standard loop there: Spanky to the Switchback, then Ridge, Peak, Boulder and Upper Spanky trails, and then across to the Quarry Trail, but I bailed at the scrabbly old ATV climb, dropped down that to the St Luke's trailhead where I saw John E. He was with the woman he sometimes rides with, who's a neighbor of Eric & Kris; they had just come from the block party, said it was a little more exciting than the way I remembered it -- seemed under-publicized to me, but maybe things picked up in the afternoon. Anyway, talked to them for a while, then headed back home via the towpath. Thirty seven miles total.

Got home, showered, then went over Doug's parents's house (shout-out to faithful reader Toni: yo! yo! yo!): D&L, Brian, Joe & Toni (Doug's parents), and Eric & Kris a little later, also a guy named Ron, Joe's friend from work. Doug knew his son when they were kids, & accidentally spilled the beans on some youthful indiscretion... Lots of food, plenty of cool talk around the fire on the patio, pretty mellow though this day was a little tougher than Friday.

Sunday was the hard day. Got up around 7:00 AM, got ready & met others at Joe's mom's house for the Independence Day road ride: about 70 miles including a climb up "the hard side" of Blue Mountain at Wind Gap, and a short-but-sweet 15% grade about mile 50. Very good ride, I felt strong especially towards the end, and the ride was followed by a swim (I think the chlorine messed with my skin & sinuses) and the post-ride BBQ picnic. This was great, lots of people -- there were eighteen on the ride, and more came later, big crowd -- lots of food, and when the sun went down Greg busted out the fireworks. Ohhhhh! Ahhhhh! Smaller than professional stuff, but about the same quality, and very impressive.

Things broke up after that, and I went home about 11:00. Got home, changed my shirt and walked over to Carrie's house about a mile away, where she was having a party. It looked to be (slowly) winding down, but there were quite a few people there still, and I probably stayed until about 3:00 AM before walking home.

Monday I mostly slept in until about 2:00, then did laundry and lay in bed reading (finished Pattern Recognition), until I went over Brian's to say hi: Doug & Lori were over, they were grilling chicken but I'd already eaten, drinking beer but I wanted no part of it, and they got a good chuckle over my sorry state. We went to Hartman's for ice cream, and that was the end of the July Fourth weekend! And now the summer is in deceleration...