A zero calorie cinnamon roll

Peony farm on Jackson School Road

My new favorite treat is a whole wheat cinnamon roll from Grand Central Bakery. Lately I have been riding the west hills of Portland and then making a detour down to the NW Grand Central. Today, Memorial Day, we decided to ride from our house out to Hillsboro, up to Skyline via Mason Hill & Moreland, then down McNamee to Highway 30, stop for the cinnamon roll and then head home. Making sure they were open today (until 4 pm we were told), we arrived at 2:50 and the bakery was closed! Luckily, St. Honoré, another great bakery several blocks away, was open.

I love Portland. There are so many good places to eat! This tip is for my friends that love a good breakfast. Try Tasty and Sons on N. Williams.

Here's a link to the Carmel-San Simeon video I posted 5/10/10. MobileMe works better for viewing:

http://gallery.me.com/smoerer#100000

Duckling sighting

The two mallards that frequent my pond have ducklings! My neighbor spotted 8 of them walking behind the female mallard today in her back yard. I hope they are in a safe place away from the neighbor's outdoor cats. The marsh behind our house is the most likely place they are nesting.

riding a section of the RondePDX in the rain

Courtesy of the MAC coaches, we rode the southwest section of the RondePDX route last evening. Riding up and down Westwood was an experience, especially going down with wet brakes that didn't seem to work very well. I love this route. What could be better? Lots of good training terrain without ever leaving Portland. The light at the top of Council Crest was surreal. The rain had let up and we were enveloped in a veil of wispy fog, Mt. Hood visible as if viewed through an opaque lens, the sun setting behind us. http://rondepdx.com/

(Today's paper states that 'Portland has crossed the 4-inch rainfall threshold for the month'!)

racing the rain

I've heard that El Niño has come to an end. Portland is witnessing the return of wet weather. We've had 3.09 inches of rain so far this month. Doesn't make for good bike riding weather. Today, after 2 hours at dog school, I came home, checked doppler radar for the Portland area and had, what I thought was, a 2 hour window of time to ride the Vista-Council Crest-Fairmont loop from my house. I almost made it. At 3:20, at Council Crest I could see a storm rolling in from the southeast. Hearing thunder I thought I'd better toss out the Fairmont loop and head home. I made it to within a half mile of our house when the sky opened up accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Nepenthe and beyond; "We're at where?" and other ways to mangle the English language

I obviously don't know how to save an iMovie to Quick Time in order to export it to my blog, but this will have to do for now until I can figure it out! You'll have to put on some reader glasses to see the titles and sub-titles.

2010 Pacific Coast Century

We have just returned from riding the Carmel Valley to San Simeon Scenic Century. Originally written as a 93 mile bike ride, we turned it into 115 miles, courtesy of Allan's broken spoke on his rear wheel only 10 miles into the ride. Luckily a van came along and took Allan back to Carmel where he loaded his bike into his car and went into Monterey. After waiting in front of the wrong bike shop for a while, he ended up getting the spoke fixed. Meanwhile, VA, Craig and I enjoyed coffee and some really good pancakes in Carmel while we waited. We finally re-started the ride at about 11:30 am with 20 extra miles on our odometers. The weather was beautiful and we had a tailwind most of the way. Hurricane Gulch proved to be slightly scary and I thought I was going to have to walk a bit or be blown off my bike. VA yelled, "you can't walk 100 miles!" (I was only going to walk until I could manage to stay on my bike). We enjoyed the views at Nepenthe at the 30 mile point of the route (we liked to remind Allan we were at 50) and had some good laughs due to the psychedelic bathroom light at Lucia (71 miles). At 83 miles we stopped for apple pie and coffee at Gorda, good prep for the last two hills, the 'double whammies'. The last 15 relatively flat miles were really fun with strong tailwinds pushing us up to an easy 25-30 mph pace without much effort. After a stop to watch the elephant seals, we reached what we thought was San Simeon at about 7:15 pm only to discover it was really a turnout for the abandoned town of Old San Simeon. It was getting cold and dark and Craig mentioned, "we don't even have a car to sleep in." We called the Cavalier Inn only to get a recording for their corporate office, so we got on our bikes and headed towards Cambria. After cresting a small hill, we saw the Cavalier Inn sign in the distance. We pulled into the parking lot at about 7:30 pm, the last group to arrive. Emergency Dewars on the rocks helped ease the pain and we joined the large group for dinner, some of the riders having arrived at 1 pm, most at about 3 pm. My pride made it hard not to tell people we were late because of a broken spoke and, on top of that, had added a few extra miles!

Going to the dogs

Literally. Every Tuesday for the past 6 years (thanks for reminding me Gary), I have gone out to the Sandy area to train my Cairn Terrier. For a Cairn she's pretty smart and knows some good tricks, mostly due to the expert guidance of our trainer, Jim, who loves to remind me of that latter fact. My good friend, Lois, joined this group 4 and 1/2 years ago. I have no doubt that soon, Luke, the cute English Cocker who doubles as a beanie baby, will surpass my dog and no doubt get his Open title before Paisley. But, I will be strong and happy for her and give her a resounding, whack, I mean pat, on the back for a job well done.

It must be spring

A pair of ducks has come back to our pond again, making this three years in a row. Our dog, Paisley, a Cairn Terrier is obsessed with them. They are oblivious to her stalking.

The rain has returned in Portland, making for some wet riding. Craig and I managed a long ride this past Sunday which included a trip up Brynwood again, this time taking only three driveways to gain momentum to get to the top. Our goal - no driveways!