My first 50 mile ride, Complete. Ride the Coast..

My goal was to complete a 50-mile ride by the end of 2015.  With a little help and encouragement from my fellow riders I decided on the “Bike the Coast” ride, which ran from Oceanside down past Del Mar and back.   Looked like a great route for me, the max elevation change was listed as 217 feet which would be great for me knowing how lousy I am at hill climbing.    I drove down the night before and bunked with some friends (Thanks again Erni and Hiro!) as we had an early start.   That night we went to McDonalds and bought a bunch of Sausage McMuffin’s and Egg McMuffins that we could warm in the microwave as we would be on our way before we could get breakfast elsewhere…

Four of us left the hotel at 6AM (Erni, Hiro, Jackie and I) before the sun even came up, and met up with James at the starting area.   Knowing it was going to be HOT out there, they started launching the 50-mile riders about 20 minutes early.    The early part of the ride was uneventful, and we were pushing the pace a bit.   At the eight mile mark it happened again… I got another leg cramp!   I stretched it out a bit and was able to make it to the first of three SAG stations.  These areas were crucial to us, especially with the heat already rising.   The organizers of the ride did a FANTASTIC job with them, plenty of water and electrolyte drink, oranges, bananas, snacks…  I refilled my bottles, ate a banana and a few pretzels to gain salt.   Jackie gave me a couple of pills called “Sport Legs”, and they seem to take care of my cramping problem for the rest of the ride.   Thanks Jackie, you saved my ride!!

When we took off again we were told constantly that the police were out in force, and to be careful to stop at ALL stop signs.    Despite the warnings we saw several of our fellow cyclist receiving tickets.  I’ve seen countless times where cyclists will just blow through stop signs, thankfully my club doesn’t ride that way!

The outbound route had us riding along the coast most of the way.  Was very scenic and I wish I had stopped to take a picture or two.   I had never ridden this course before and was really enjoying it, even though the temperature was rising.  The Santa Ana winds were from the east, no relief from the ocean next to us as would be the norm.    At one point I looked over and saw the Del Mar racetrack, seen it a thousand times from the freeway but this was the first time I saw it from the other side and it looked so majestic.   It was also a sign that we would be leaving the coastline and turning inland soon.  When we did there wasn’t much to look at, just a bumpy path that lead inland.   Finally we hit the main road, and SAG #2 was in sight.   We were supposed to go up another .8 miles and turn around before stopping, but James blew a tire literally across the street from the SAG (which just happened to be a Performance Bike store), so we stopped there first.  Just like the first one this was fully loaded, so we relaxed a bit as James’ tire was fixed.    Then it was on our way again.  As we hit the turn-around we saw a rider down, with a crowd of folks attending to him.  Our assumption was that it was heat related, it was over 90 and wasn’t even 10am yet.   It was sign that the return trip wasn’t going to be as easy at the outbound…

THE WAY BACK: DEATH BY 100 HILLS…
Remember when I said the elevation change for the ride was listed at 200-something feet?   They lied.  About a mile in we were looking up a really nice, long hill.   This was a hill that would do Palos Verdes proud!   I had to walk up the last 1/3 of it.  Turns out there were many more to follow, just not as long or steep as this one.   One by one we got through them, sometimes the rest of the pack would pull over and wait for us slower riders.    Know the best part of going uphill – yup, going DOWN hill on the other side.   Twice my Garmin had me going over 30mph, something I rarely do because one little bump at that speed and you are in trouble.    Slower speeds too, I’ll describe that later.    We were riding along Via de la Valle and passing Del Mar Racetrack on the left, when we saw the ocean again, and rejoined our outbound path along the ocean.  A few miles later we were back at SAG #1, only 14 miles to go!

SURVIVING MY FIRST CRASH:
We were on an uneventful stretch.  Three riders were about 300 yards ahead of Erni and I as we were cruising at about 17mph along a nice straightaway.   Then all of a sudden my front wheel hit a section of uneven pavement, I yelled out something and in the blink of an eye my bike and I were sliding along the pavement.   As I went down I saw my front tire clip Erni’s front tire, and she went down too!  A few seconds later I came to my senses and heard Erni asking if I was ok.   Thankfully she was no worse for the wear, although she had a cut on her knee and the palms of her cycling gloves where torn.    

Commander Riker once said “Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise”.   Well, if that is true you can call my bike “Enterprise” because a crash at that speed should have left me with some serious hurts.  I started taking inventory: feet, and ankles ok, knees… one sore and bleeding.   Worked my way up and everything was good.   I know my helmet hit the ground, but there wasn’t even a scratch on it!   Only issue was knee, not even a scratch on my jersey, shoulder or elbow!   All I had was a 3-inch wide area on the outside of my shin that was scraped up pretty good and a big cut under my kneecap.    Erni called Hiro to let him know what happened and they circled back.   By the time they got to us Erni and I were already back on the bikes and had resumed the ride.   At the next stoplight Jackie gave me some wipes to clean up a bit with – thankfully it looked a lot worse than it felt.   We caught up to James a while later, he had stopped with cramps in both legs.   We only had 3 miles left, so we gave him some liquids and the rest of the Sport Legs pills that Jackie gave me earlier, and were soon on our way.   Not long after we crossed the finish line together.   The doctor at the first aid center had me cleaned up in no time.  :)

TOTAL STATS:
52.2 miles in 4:20
Average speed: 12.0 mph
Elevation change: 1,745 feet  (their estimate of 200-something was just a bit off, eh?)|

THE NEXT DAY…
I was up early the next morning as always.   But there was a problem… I couldn’t put much weight on my left leg right away, the knee I scraped up was really hurting and it wasn’t because of the bandages.   Eventually I got going an after a couple of steps it loosened up a little but was still sore.   It is like that every time I get up from a sitting or standing position…

Right now it looks like it is just sprained, I’ll be on crutches for a few days to give it a chance to rest and heel.  If needed we’ll re-evaluate after that, but thankfully it doesn’t look like anything serious..

Would I do it again: You bet; it is already on my calendar for November 2016!   And I’ll be keeping an eye out for that little pavement bump on mile 44…

Hawaiian vacation - Day 7

Well, the rain didn’t go away.   At least not in the morning….

For the first time since we’ve been here I was ‘rained out’ of recording the morning sunrise.   I was surprised it was raining so hard at 5:45am when I looked outside, but I hadn’t slept well the night before so I ended up going back to bed until 8am. 

We checked the weather reports for all of the local spots, and it didn’t look good.  Rain everywhere.  :(    Since it wasn’t currently raining where we were, we decided to stay in the middle part of the island.   Jen found a waterfall not far from us called Wailua Falls which was really cool.    However the water was mostly brown because of the big rainfall earlier in the day.   Even the beaches seemed brown, so we stayed away and spent the afternoon at the pool.    We BBQ’d again, then went up to the room to start packing up for the flight tomorrow.

And we got our internet connection back late tonight!

Jen and I shared one last night on the balcony.   After she went in I stayed a while and almost fell asleep outside.  So peaceful…

Hawaiian Vacation - Day 6

Rain, Rain, go away….

After the last few days of fun in the sun, we’ve all acquired various degrees of sunburn.   So maybe today wasn’t such a bad idea…

The sunrise was quite breathtaking this morning, I set my camera on a 10-second timer to record it and it came out pretty well.   Jen joined me today, maybe Shannon will tomorrow.

At around 8:30am we had finished breakfast and I was posting up my blog entries when I felt it getting a little damp on the balcony; a small mist had come in and really cooled things down.  As I looked up the clouds opened and it started pouring rain.   I grabbed my Surface tablet and went inside, and came back out with the camera.  The next 20 minutes was a torrential downpour the likes of which I haven’t seen in years!   As it ended we had a really nice rainbow stretching over a few miles from our property.   Not long after that the sun was out and dried up all the rain (OK, I know that’s corny but you know the tune).

But we weren’t done with the rain just yet…

Jen had planned a few things we wanted to see in the northern part of the island, and a beach we were going to check out up there.    About 11AM we got in the car and headed north while the cloud cover was minimal and the temperature about 85.    30 minutes later we approached our first destination – in another torrential downpour of rain!    We went inside a shop and was talking with the owner; she told us it was going to be like this for a while as there was no wind to push the storm away.   She also advised us to drive down to Kapaa, as it was supposed to be nice there.   We smiled and said thank you; Kapaa is where we started from and where our resort is.   LOL

So instead of frolicking on the beach of a very drenched north Kauai we headed back down south.   We stopped for some shrimp at a local place we have wanted to try and got some Mexican food for Daniel and headed for the resort.   After lunch we did the last of our shopping, and hung out at the pool for a couple of hours.   I had been marinating some chicken all day, which I barbequed to perfection (if I do say so myself), and we had a nice dinner in tonight.

Only one thing would have made the night complete:  Internet access.    But for the second straight night we have none even though I have paid $50 for a week of higher-speed, multi device access!  I’ve been on the phone (again!) with the properties Internet Service Provider to no avail.  Apparently the entire property is down.   Not happy.    I can’t check my work Email, personal email, or even post this blog.    I have an account on PhotoBucket (which took quite a bit of doing, apparently their site doesn’t like Windows 8.1, but does like the latest beta build of Windows 10) but can’t upload photos there.   We are going through the data plan on our cell phones at a prodigious rate, maybe I should have spent the $50 to add more data to our plan this month instead of paying it to the resorts ISP….

Hawaiian Vacation - Day 5

Wow.   That’s about all I can say about today.    Outside of renewing my wedding vows with Jen today was the most fun we have had the whole trip.     Oh, you’d like me to expand on that?   Ok, I’d be happy to…

The sunrise was awesome as always, but blocked a bit more by cloud cover than previous days.   Maybe I’ve become desensitized to it having seen it 5 days in a row?    I am still capturing it every morning.  Tomorrow I hope to find a spot where I can set my camera in a static position and do a time-lapse series in the exact same spot.   Jen says she wants to watch it with me tomorrow.   I know Shannon wants to see it too.

I didn’t stay long, as we had to be on the road by 7AM.   We scored a couple of 2-for-1 fares for an excursion put on by “Blue Dolphin Charters” and needed to be on the south part of the island by 8am.  Not to provide too much info ahead of time – but if you are even in Kauai BOOK A TRIP WITH THIS COMPANY!.  Any questions?   I am having issues with their website on my Surface Pro, but we had NO issues with their tour and service.   Their staff were helpful, funny, and a joy to be with.

We took a catamaran (I’m guessing about 120 feet long) up the western coast.   We chose the morning trip as the seas are said to be the calmest and there is a better chance of seeing dolphins.   I can’t speak to the former, but the latter was definitely true as we saw a lot of them.   I normally get seasick just thinking about being on a boat, today was no problem although I did take one Dramamine before we left.   We saw some of the most breathtaking shorelines, cliffs, mountains, waterfalls,…. And even came upon several schools of dolphins!    After we turned back we stopped for an hour and were provided with snorkeling equipment so we could take a look at the area ourselves.   Unfortunately there were no dolphins there, sometimes there are and that would have been awesome but still there was much to look at.   It was the first time I had been snorkeling and it was a blast!   The kids had a rough time getting started but once they got going they seemed to enjoy it as well.    I wish we had more than 1 hour to spend there as it was awesome!    But we had to move on, and they provided lunch for us as we resumed our trip back to dock and arrived about 2:30.   We were all tired when we got back and some of us took naps when we got back to the resort.   Tonight’s menu consisted of “See Food”, which for us means “You see food in the fridge, warm it up and eat it”.   Leftovers is another name for it. LOL  Tomorrow I’ll will be making BBQ chicken.  :)

We decided to stay home for the evening and relax/recover… then the fun stopped.  Our internet went out.   I have no idea when I will be able to post this, as I spent an hour on the phone with the 3^rd-party company that provides the resorts’ internet service.   I spent $50 for unlimited number of devices on a higher-speed network for the week we are here – this is unacceptable!

When I get these posted I will work on the picture site I promised.  I really wanted to do that tonight, AND get started on some of the music that I have been working on in my head – but instead I was trying to solve computer problems.   Seems like I do that a lot…

 

 

 

Hawaiian vacation - Day 4

After all of the excitement of Day 3, today was a bit more low-key.  :)

It is raining off-and-on tonight as I type this from our balcony, nowhere near the rain they have been getting back home in Southern California though.  Kind of glad we aren’t there to experience it, and in a way I’m also disappointed that we aren’t there.   Jen was with me for a short while tonight, but retired early.    Despite being low-key today was quite tiring, and we have a busy morning tomorrow…

I took a different camera with me this morning as I got a cup of coffee from the reception desk and walked out to capture today’s sunrise.   The cloud cover was thicker today, so there wasn’t as much to see.  I was glad I didn’t wake Shannon to accompany me; she really wants to see the sunrise before we go back home.   I don’t think the pictures came out as well as the ones I’ve been taking with my Lumia Icon cellphone, so I’ll return to using it tomorrow.

Despite the peacefulness here I am still only sleeping 4.5 – 5 hours a night.   Those who know me well know I have sleep disorders, and my daily schedule which includes 4-5 hours of commute time to/from work a day, does not have enough time to sleep as much as I should.    I had hoped the relaxed schedule here would provide me with the opportunity to sleep more but so far that hasn’t been the case.

This morning we started off at the Church at Koala, the church that the Pastor who performed our ceremony presides over.   As awesome as his ceremony was yesterday, his sermon today was equally good.   Even Shannon liked it, she told me “I wish we had this church in Long Beach.”   From there we stayed down south to see the “Spouting Horn”, where the water runs under a series of rocks and shoots high into the air.   Quite impressive, actually.   On the way down we drove through the “Tunnel of Trees”, a section of the highway that is covered by tall trees that hang over the roadway above – trust me I’m not doing it justice here as it is quite a sight to see.

After that we returned to our resort and changed clothes and spend the rest of the afternoon at the same beach we visited earlier.   We rented a couple of boogie boards and had a great time, I even got to ride one for a while.  Lol    Daniel cut his foot on something, and we ended up returning to the resort sooner than planned, he stayed up in the room as the rest of us spent a couple hours down by the pool.   We tried the Mai Tai from the poolside bar and were not impressed.

OK, what is the deal with Mai Tai’s in Hawaii???    We have yet to find one what we really like, and to be honest the best one we have had was one we made at home with a simple recipe we found online (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mai-Tai/).   Maybe everyone is trying to outdo one another rather than focusing on the final result...

 

Hawaiian vacation Day 3 - Jen's big surprise

As promised, this entry is a day late.    We had a late night last night, but it was a GREAT night.   One that my wife Jennifer will certainly never forget…

It started with another quiet morning.   As I have done every morning I walked to the shore and photographed the sunrise.   The cloud formations have been a little different every morning, providing a unique view to the beginning of each day.   We did a little shopping, saw a hula demonstration, just taking things easy in the early part of the day.   We had a busy evening ahead; yet Jen was the only one who didn’t know what was in store.

Earlier in the week I told Jen that we were driving down to the south part of the island to meet up with a cousin of someone I work with.    She knows I work with someone from Hawaii, but he has no cousin here - I just needed a cover.    I had been communicating with someone here for something that I hoped would rock her world.  We left for the southern part of the island at 5:00, and not knowing the traffic patterns in the area and it turns out we left too early, so we walked around a small mall before going to the address he provided me to meet up with him.   The address he gave me was for his church; when we saw that I was afraid Jen have things figured out.

It was there we met Harold.   After a few moments of small-talk I turned to Jen and took her hands and looked into her eyes as I asked her the question I’d been planning for weeks: “Jennifer, will you honor me by renewing our wedding vows?”   The look of surprise on her face made all the planning worth it as she instantly responded “Oh my gosh, yes!”

I was really lucky to find Harold (aka Pastor Kilborn), as he took care of EVERYTHING.   He worked with me to select the right location, obtained the beach permit we needed and performed  the perfect ceremony for us.    We followed Pastor Kilborn's truck as we drove to a remote little cove in Keoneloa Bay where her performed our ceremony with Daniel capturing the event on video and Shannon taking pictures.   It was perfect, lighthearted at times and serious at others.   I’ll be posting pictures online soon, and the video as well if we can find a place to host it.

From there we went to dinner at a restaurant that Pastor Kilborn recommended.   It was a bit pricey (what isn’t in Hawaii?) but it was very good.   Afterwards we returned to our resort, and after getting the kids settled we relaxed with a bottle of Jen’s favorite champagne.

In short, it couldn’t have gone better.  Jen was beaming all night, you couldn’t have rubbed the smile off her face with sandpaper!  Lol   I REALLY surprised her; she said she didn’t remember talking to me about renewing our vows but was thrilled that I had taken the initiative to make it happen.   That was the whole point of this vacation for me – to give her something she would remember for a lifetime.

As we left the cove I told pastor Kilborn that 25 years from now we were going to do this again, and to go ahead and mark it on his calendar.    Actually,  I hope it won’t take us that long to return here!

My Facebook post with a picture from the ceremony has generated over 120 likes – that’s by far a record for me!    It was great to see some of the names of friends, old and new, who have virtually joined us in our celebration!    We really wish our oldest daughter MaryBeth and her family could have joined us, as well as Don and Susan Dewey who married us nearly 25 years ago.   Were we selfish to have run off and do this in a faraway land?   Maybe.   But I really think that this night will be just as memorable for Jen as our wedding was 25 years earlier… and that was what I was hoping for.

 

Hawaiian vacation - Day 2

I am back on the balcony after day 2 of our trip.   It is not as humid tonight, and Jen has joined me, enjoying a Pina Colada as I am enjoying a bit of my favorite French Vodka.  We’re talking about what we want to do the next few days and when to have some downtime as well.   Shannon came to join us for a bit, Daniel is asleep after our busy day.   It is sprinkling on and off, which makes a nice contrast to the sound of the ocean.   Pretty much everything shuts down at 10pm here, so it is very peaceful at night.   Even the other people who are out on their balconies are quiet – enjoying the same sounds we are.

The day started with Jen and I watching the sunrise.   Our Facebook friends got a look at some of the pictures we saw; later today I hope to get an online gallery up somewhere to share the pictures we are taking so look for a link in an upcoming blog entry.    We talked about how we are going pool our pictures and create an album to commemorate our 25 anniversary trip to Hawaii.

Today was kind of different.   We started with our obligatory meeting with the timeshare folks – I’m guessing it is the same with all timeshares that when you visit them they want to ‘update” you on what is new in their program.  OK, what they really want to do is sell you more points/time.   We upgraded 2 years ago and are happy with the level we are at.   By at least attending the meeting we get som e perks, and scored 2-for-1 prices on a couple of events we’ll be going on in a few days.  Stay tuned.

After that it was shopping.   Last night I went to the local Safeway and was shocked to see how high the prices were.  $7 for a gallon of milk?   $5 for a small container of pancake syrup?    Eggs were almost $1 each!     Well we found out where the CostCo is, and the WalMart (only one of each on Kauai) and found the prices much more reasonable.   Guess we are in the ‘tourist zone’ .   Gas is about $3.70, surprising lower than our recently-inflated $4.30 in Los Angeles.   Some sort of shortage pushed our prices up almost $1 in the last week.    After that we took the kids to Kealia Beach about 5 miles north of our resort.  The beach here is very scenic, but isn’t fit for swimming as there are a lot of rocks and a 3 foot shoreline.   They had a blast there for a while, when we returned we went to the pool at our resort before heading up to our room for dinner.  

I guess we were all pretty tired.   In fact I am finishing this entry on Saturday morning because I fell asleep on the balcony – Jen had to wake me up so I could climb into bed.   LOL

Saturday will be a big day, and my post may be a bit late because of it.   Trust me, it will be worth the wait. :)