Day One-hundred-and-thirty-four: A sudden urge to ride

The day started out as a quite domestic day.  When I got up I thought that I should wash my sheets.  After my stretches and crunches, but no push ups or Nordic Track, I cooked some wild rice while I was cooking my high fiber oatmeal (with All Bran).  When I was brushing my teeth after breakfast I noticed that the new valve was leaking.  I was glad that I hadn't put away the tools as that allowed me to put a little extra torque on the compression nut.  I went ahead and put a cap on the out flow just in case the valve itself was leaking.  This allowed me to put away the tools.  On one of my trips to the garage, I took the clothes, and sheets, and set one load to washing.  Then I ran a dishwasher load while I drained, chopped, and mixed the Mango Black Bean Salad (MBBS).  By that time all that was finished, it was time for lunch so I ate some of the MBBS.  It was made with fresh mangoes and I suppose they were better than frozen mangoes, but they would have been better still if they had been a little riper.

After setting my first clothes washing load to dry and starting my second, I noticed my motorcycle.  This put the question in my mind as to where I could ride.  Now, I have a tremendous amount of things to do staying around my house but when I went out in the backyard and saw that I didn't yet need to water I decided to forego doing anything else around the house.  Not to be completely unproductive, I decided to take the scenic route to Whole Foods to buy the supplements I do actually need to buy.  Whether or not I truly need the supplements is another question.  The nice thing about buying such things, they aren't bulky and definitely fit in my motorcycle's sissy bar bag.

After the third start, I finally made it a ride.  First I just went back my drive to get a reusable bag.  Then after starting out again and getting into second on the road in front of my house, I realized that I hadn't checked the temperature and needed to.  As it was, I just had to go back for my chaps.  The ride consisted of going down Highway 1 to Pescadero Road, Alpine Road, Page Mill Road, around Palo Alto stopping at the Whole Foods in Palo Alto, reconnecting with I-280 from Sand Hill Road, and home.

But what the ride represented and reminded me of was a trip down Memory Lane.  (Something my whole Life after Layoff has been.)  I passed the La Honda Band Camp site, which was also the site of a team building Ropes course for a team that was okay, except for its manager.  I passed Heritage Grove and Los Trancos, two stops that Marilyn regularly had us go to and often took guests.  I didn't pass the turn around spot for Marilyn and my last motorcycle ride together.  Instead, I made a bigger circle around it but I certainly thought about it, a lot.  (It is hard to ride when eyes keep tearing up.)

Some of the ride, Alpine Road, was literally on the equivalent of a paved lane.  I had forgotten what it was like to ride a leaf covered multiple 180 degree turn road that was barely wide enough for one car, in spite of the yellow dashed line on most of it.  There were spots the road painters gave up trying to sustain even that fiction.  Fortunately what little traffic there was happened on the two widest sections of that road, three cars together with the first two Police Cars and one car by itself on a blind greater than 90 degree turn.  Thank goodness it was a small car and cautious driver as I was shaving the middle but still on my side of the road to minimize my turn degree.

I didn't pass a convenient gas station while I was in Palo Alto and noticed that the richer cities seem to have fewer gas stations anyway.  Maybe they are just artfully hidden away.  I barely noticed a whole shopping center with all the trees and demur signs.  So, to make sure I would make it home, I stopped in even a richer city but with a gas station I knew exactly where it was, Woodside.  Woodside is supposed to have more horses than people.  Houses are supposed to be on a minimum of an acre of land.  Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle, is reputed to have a most expensive estate in Woodside.  I don't know whether or not he has horses.

However, I have a tenuous connection to Larry Ellison thanks to Marilyn.  She had our bed frame and end tables reconfigured.  The wood worker/cabinet maker that did the work used left over teak from some work she had done on Larry Ellison's yacht.

Back at home I quickly emptied the clothes dryer, plopped in the washed clothes, and started washing the towels that I used to sop up my indoor fountain water.  All in all, I did four loads today.  What with cooking and clothes washing, it was still quite a domestic day, with the joys of at least a three hour motorcycle ride to boot.