Old and new

Cape Cod Rail Trail

I'm finally done with school! The first thing I did on my first "free" weekend was to put away the trainer and gave my bike a good cleaning outside. Polishing it made me realize that this bike has been though quite a lot. Scratches here and there remind me of the various crashes I've subjected it to. I recall all of them, too: the first fall not being able to clip out in time right in front of the Broadview, riding into a ditch while out training with David, then the infamous accident in Sandusky, OH, one riding out of Yosemite, and then on the same day on a really sharp turn which led to my first flat ever with 2 more days to finish the 4K. Then last year I wiped out on wet road at the ALA autumn escape. It's been almost four years and I'm glad The Juggernaut is still in good shape despite all the mishaps.
On Sunday I drove down with L and K to Cape Cod to do the CCRT. 2 miles in, we took the wrong turn at the rotary and ended up in Chatham. It was a completely subconscious move by L and I... we simply followed what we did last October during the ALA ride. This added 20 miles to our planned ride. Surprisingly the trail was pretty empty for such a warm day. This was my first ride outdoors this year and it felt great.
Lunch at Catch of the Day was satisfying. On the ride back I thought that name would be brilliant as our Wildwood team name...
Somehow the 22 miles back just flew by. Maybe it was the tailwind.
I reset my odometer before we started in the morning. Logged 61 miles today. I thought about setting a milage goal for this year but decided against it. I'll just ride.

Los Angeles, CA

To celebrate my birthday I decided to take a couple of days off from work and visit Cheng and Maggie in LA. Wendy also made it down from Saratoga to join us for the weekend. Getting there was a bit of a pain (UA moved my flight which resulted in a 4 hour layover), and my hopes of escaping the New England winter for a few days was thwarted by record-low temperatures in LA, but I had a great time nonetheless.

As I grow up, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make very good friends. This is partly due to the fact that I've become more private after college, and don't spend enough time with the new people I meet to really develop strong bonds. I'll admit that my being opinionated is also to blame - I am more critical nowadays. That said, I'm happy with the way things are. My handful of close friends are spread all over. We may not hear from each other often, but when we do, we never have difficulty getting worked up in our long, animated discussions on random things. Maybe I enjoy aged friendships so much that I feel the need to brew new ones.

It was comforting to see that my friends here are all doing well and nearing the turning point in their lives. Mid-twenties (shudder) is such a happening time! Ending one thing and starting another is never easy, but I guess youth is a powerful enabler... and so we dive in fearlessly. What a luxury. I wonder when I will start experiencing the reservation that comes with age? Hopefully, never.

I didn't intend to ramble like this... it's a travel journal, after all.

I find California quite exotic. The idea seems almost irrational to me, however. On the flight from San Francisco to Burbank, the woman sitting behind my row was going to the Xena convention. I was like whoa. I used to (like, 10 years ago) want to go so badly!

In lieu of a birthday cake, we had Beard Papa's cream puffs (ha! take that, phantom gourmet). Calamari sandwich on the wharf at Santa Barbara was great too, as was the chicken meatloaf at Doughboys. The trip ended with a ritual trip to IN-N-OUT, complete with animal fries and lots of reminiscing about the "good ol' days" (when exactly that refers to... changes every time though).