Yesterday I woke up and it was 67 degrees in my house. I put on sweats and fuzzy slippers and curled up under a blanket on the chaise with my coffee. I'm in college now, so I'll do the math for you. That is a 22 degree difference in indoor temperature. In just two days. I was happy when I could get my apartment down to 74 in the morning before it started going up again. Last night I closed most of the windows so I didn't freeze.
On Saturday I went for a bike ride with a couple girls from my cycling club. It wasn't a club ride, just a few girls getting together to ride our bikes up a mountain.
Clair lives exactly two miles from me-door to door. I ride down my street to the high school, take a short right and then left onto the busy street. I only ride that for a little while before I jump onto the bike path and ride over to where it dumps out a block from her house.
Dorothy showed up not much later and we loaded our bikes into the back of Clair's truck. Dorothy and Clair are both teachers. Clair teaches kindergarten, Dorothy teaches Calculus in high school...and I'm about to take Calculus in college, so I'm glad I'm meeting such awesome friends.
We chatted it up while driving to the little community at the start of the ride. The ride up Mt. Hamilton actually does not start at the base of the mountain, which would've been nice. It starts a couple ridges over. So we climbed up the side of one ridge and then coasted down into the valley...up the next ridge and down a short valley descent. Then we finally started up Mt. Hamilton. From where we parked it was a 19 mile ride to the top.
The weather was perfect and the company was awesome. There were some fast cyclists on that road that day. They flew past us...up hill! We just went our own speed, grinding up the hill.
At the top is Lick Observatory.
The bust of Mr. Hamilton himself...for whom the mountain is named.
The view to the south/southwest.
San Jose is nestled way back there somewhere in the valley.
Oh, there it is! You can see my apartment from here!
From whence we came....notice also the ridge lines. I know we started east of San Jose, so I'm not entirely sure which of those ridges we came over...except that we went through two valleys, so probably the ridges that you see, we came up and over.
Yours truly at the top. My apartment there in the background....way back there.
Dorothy, myself and Clair.
Proof that we made it to the observatory.
Heading back, after a terrifying descent (for me, the other girls loved it). Once we got about halfway back, we turned around and saw this. Mt. Hamilton and the tiny little observatory way in the distance...from whence we came.
I zoomed in and it looked like a fortress perched high up on the hill.
So along with the observatory at the top is a post office, a vending machine that only takes bills and coins, and a little courtyard with a fountain where we ate our bars and nuts. We all decided that the California flavored savory (not sweet) bar that I made them try, tasted just like California. Sticks and grass without the ocean.
We piled our bikes back into the truck and went to Clair's for some lemonade. After chatting until our muscles were stiff and sore, I had to pedal the two miles back to my place. It wasn't the miles that bugged me. It was the thought of getting back on that saddle. It was only a total of 42 miles for the day, but the uphill climbing put my body in a weird position and put way more pressure on the saddle. When I got home I couldn't even sit on the couch, so I laid on my stomach on the living room floor and checked my email.
Sunday was my off day, and I also didn't have a whole lot of homework to do since I was already 2 out of 3 finals down. So I finished my last final project and couldn't figure out what on earth to do with myself. No exercising, so that cut out most activities I knew how to do. I don't walk, so there's that. My friend and I were talking about that (like, who walks?) and she said "I know, it's like drinking decaf coffee!". I read up on computer science and did a little computer programming on Codecademy.
I've been having some pretty stubborn issues with my IT band (the big fibrous band that runs from your hip to your lower leg on the outside of your thigh) since Boston and it's pretty frustrating. I'm not able to run more than 2 to 2.5 miles at a time right now. I've tried a good mixture of everything. It seems to be slowly getting better from doing some strengthening exercises. Sitting does not help. But it's hard not to sit when you've just cycled for more than 40 miles, you can't run and you don't need to get back on the bike, and now it's too cold to swim (ok, that was a bit of an exaggeration...kinda. It's pretty chilly now).
One day at a time I suppose.
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