wickedwords

I can't believe how busy I was, and what a good time I had. Friday was Ev's testing day for Aikido, and he was promoted to 1st Kyu, the brown-with-black belt; it took him about a year to achieve it, and now he wants to go for the full-on black belt. It's really cool that he is so close to getting it, and he wants to do the year-or-more's worth of work that it will take to get there.

Saturday, we spent at the Puyallup fair. We went to the 4-H crafts exhibits, which are like extended science fair stuff in a lot of ways, plus the quilts, and art and photography exhibits. The black-and-white exhibit contained some of my favorites.

After that--and a short trip to watch the giant pumpkin carver--we hit the midway, and Ev road several roller coaster rides with his dad and I, then this one thing called the 'jumper' which would have made me seasick. We took a break after for a scone (mine) and elephant ears (Lar and Ev), then hit the barns. We got there just in time to watch the Llama judging, and Ev took a few photos; it was really cool that he could get in so close to them. Then we looked at the usual cow, pigs, and goats, and by that time, we were done in by the sunny weather. Ev road his last ride, and we swung by the scone stand for a few biscuits for friends. ("Oh! You're going to the fair? Could you bring me back a scone...?")

I was pretty exhausted when we got back, and dinner that night was foraged from the hot food bar at PCC. In fact, I think I might have gone to bed early, because I had to get up Sunday for...

The Cascade Bike Club's Spawning Cycle! I haven't done much riding since the STP, so I was quite happy to do the short, flat ride rather than one of the hilly ones.

sherrold and her partner went, along with

gattagrigia and

jjjlllvvv. None of us were being hardcore--though J and B and Sandy all rode up Capital Hill on the way back to get the car, which J had parked near their place. (G and I locked up our bikes and hung out at the espresso stand, waving at the 3 Day Walkers as they passed by.) So we were a social group, and I had a blast. It was so different from the intensity of training rides, it felt like a completely different thing. Plus the weather was perfect, and riding along the waterfront in the warm sunny weather was incredible; it made me really happy.

So, yeah, all-in-all, a great weekend.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

The fetching the car thing was based on the belief that there wouldn't be all that much parking around Myrtle-Edwards, which when we got there turned out to be false. Hey I don't go down town very often if I can avoid it. :-)

At any rate, the extra mileage was good for me, as I'm not sure that I would have been willing to ride in that sort of traffic by myself, and also in knowing that I could make it back up the hill to S&B's, which is something I couldn't have done when I first got my bike. It was also just fun being with other people. and it was really useful to have conversations about how to pass buses etc. In all sorts of ways I was really pleased with the experience.