Team OYB: home again home again!

Hi all...

Well, we're back. Whew! 7000 miles in 30 days with little kids in a
minivan and a tent...oh yeah! It was great actually. It's good to be
back, safe and sound.

We're already back into 110% selfemployment panic mode. Ah the
desperation of the barely solvent. All risk all the time. Can't beat it.

Hey, these Bob posts are cute! : ) I've just gotten started. Actually,
I have to back off. Work to do! Full report later. Well, I'll post it at
my website and let ya'll know when I do.

The gist is that I'm now 15 pounds overweight. Hey, I only gained 10 lbs
on a monthlong grand gourmet roadtrip. Not bad. I tried to ride every
day. But the last week we just blasted home from LA.

Training after the last report:

*Two days of pushing strollers in San Fran all day, riding busses, in
90+F.
*Riding the very twisty gorgeous roads around Nevada City. (Downieville
is gorgeous and a great little town! Totally wellpreserved, distinctive,
shady Sierra mining town.)
*Riding a pass out of Susanville.
(Man, I loved my new 28-t cog! I just love the hills!)
*Craning neck to see climbers at Yosemite. (Man, I hate slow,
standaround sports.)
*Riding the Hollywood Hills above Cahuenga every day for a week.
*Pushing a stroller and holding a hand all day in Disneyland, 90+F,
millions-crowd. (I have no idea why a few dozen didn't collapse of
heatstroke. It was like a special forces mission for us. Max effort.
Hydration and food saved the day. Recommendation: only go in cooler,
offseason. A few of the rides are great, though. Here's my rank: 1
"Pirates of the Caribbean" by far. 2 "Peter Pan" 3 Tarzan's Tree 4
Jungle boat and 5 Tom Sawyer Land various boats. I consider all these to
be wonderful and inspiring even for adults, well, maybe certain kinds of
adults. (Tarzan Tree and Jungle Boat have short/no lines even at
peaktimes!) I suppose all the rides are OK in better conditions. I
*hate* lines, tho. Has any theme park beat the waiting problem? I'm
interested in crowd control, not theme parks.)

Restaurant report coming, too. We found some great sleepers out there!

The Four Corners area was probably the coolest landscape. Neat old
towns, too.

LA is such a cool town, though. It's pumpin! (My uncle has been livin in
the H-Hills since mid-50's, way before it was cool or pricey to do so.
His new neighbor is Marilyn Manson! It's great having citrus trees in
your yard, man!)

I've decided I disapprove of the Grand Canyon. Gimme a Mild Canyon
anyday. Little canyons are where it's at. Go find a 50-100 foot
canyon/mesa anywhere and you'll have heaven. The Grand Canyon is
probably only popular due to its shock and spectacle value: both values
which I consider to be worthless and of interest only to mobs. To get
out of a car then look over a miledeep cliff at cliffs 10 miles away is
just too much and silly. Can't relate to it really. I've heard you have
to do the hike down/up to really understand it. I agree. Except the hike
down would be still a disorienting shock. I say that if I could drive
into it somewhere from the bottom then hike up (and earn it) then back
down that I could then handle the GC. Otherwise, it's over between us.
Gimme any of the thousands of other little canyons within 500 miles
anyday instead. Yo!

Got my first rollerski in since getting home! Boy, I have my work cut
out now. It simplifies my training anyway: Goal #1 is now my only goal:
lose weight. By way of training and eating less. Onward!

--

Jeff Potter
****
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