San Ramon Art and Wind Festival

From the website, family adventures and pictures below:

website details

We arrived at the crack of dawn to see the balloons take off.  Unfortunately, the trade winds were not cooperating and it was decided that it was too dangerous to fly.

Balloons were still filled with air and heated so we could all gather around and see what they looked like. We watched for an hour or so, had coffee and a donut or two, and then headed off for a more formal breakfast.  Kira and Bew slept through the whole thing, but Rich Strauss did join us for breakfast before taking his motorcycle back to Southern California.

We returned later in the afternoon with Kira and Bew to wander the booths and activities.  Of course we had to buy a kite too.  I think my kite flying skills were a little rusty.  After an hour or so of attempting, we finally caught on and got the kite to fly.  Over the course of the next hour, we broke the string once and watched it float away.  We did manage to retrieve it.  It also got stuck in a tree, wrapped around a large light post, and Conner got jumped on by a friendly dog while holding on tight.  Conner took charge all afternoon and did a great job keeping it aloft.

Endurance Nation Epic Bike Ride

Rich Strauss, founder of Endurance Nation, came up from Southern California for the weekend to hang around with a bunch of members from the area. He stayed at our place. His notes were posted in the EN forum, so I copied them down to the blog.

Day the Second and more riding in the cold, cloudy then sun and fun. Today's route was a good bit of former ToC stages, including Calaveras Road and Sierra Road (5k, about 9-15% grade). After a good 8hrs sleep (finally), I was greeted with a double latte served by EN NorCal barrista Tom Glynn. We met the rest of the EN/FMRC posse in Danville and then proceeded to ride some flat, pretty fast roads to Sunol, a little railroad junction town at the base of some great climbs. Me, Tom, Dave (? FMRC guy) picked up a Randy (Random Dude) on the way and had some fun hammering on some good climbs and descents. We arrived in Sunol a few minutes of ahead of everyone. I had a feeling the caffeine was going to be a requirement today so a quick double espresso (that's a total of 4 before 9am) and I was good to go.

We then started riding to the base of Calaveras Rd. John Stark was feeling froggy, apparently, and drilled up ahead only to look back and wonder where everyone else was. I circled back to offer a wheel while Tom continued on. I pulled Josh to the base of the climb and then he said "ok, that's it, 10' to the top." I figgered I would try to catch Tom. No friggin way but I killed myself trying. About .88 IF for the first 1:30 of ride time.

After a regroup and group photo Tom, Randy (real name Joe) and I hammered up and down Calaveras Rd. I love this kind of riding: sharp, blind corners, fast descents into good visibility sweepers...just good, fast, bike skills riding. We stopped at the top of the descent down into town for another regroup.Tom, and Tom's New Best Friend Randy and I rode down the hill, into town and stopped at the gas station at the bottom of Sierra Rd. Espresso #5 in the form of one of those gas station capawhatevers out the machine. Good enough, I needed the caffeine. Then we started Sierra road. 5k at average grade of probably 9-10% with more than a few 15-17% pitches. Just. Wrong.

Tom says "are you just gonna cruise this or TT it?"

R: Wha?

T: cuz you're going kinda easy, he sez, at about 14% grade. I just tried to keep the bike upright and Tom in sight for the rest of the climb. Yes to the former, failed the latter.

At the top we waited a bit for Randy, decided he was just Randy and carried on. Fun descent on stoopid narrow road, like bike path narrow, praying there is not car around the blind corner you're taking at 32mph. Hit 49.9mph on rough, shadowy descent. We carried on down Calaveras (awesome road, if I haven't mentioned it yet) and then traded pulls into a still headwind when it flattened out. Back in Sunol and espressos #6 & 7 from the same server who pretends not to recognize me . Tom and I climbed kinda chit chatty (me talking just to slow him down) until we got to the top where it flattened out for a great 20+ mile stretch back to the cars. We traded pulls just absolutely trying to bury ourselves silly.

Back at the car and the numbers were:

4:3686 mi

5900ft gain

.845 IF

325 TSS

Shagometer = 8.9/10

Quick drive back to Tom's house for a shower and then the kids come home. Parker runs up the stairs to my bachelor pad and starts to break dance on the carpet. Conner (spellingbee Rainman) and I trade "how do you spell" punches back and forth while I my vision is blurry from near bonkage.

Lunch at a swank cafe in Danville where I finally break the $15 barrier on a burger and fries (!). Aaron (HighSpeedLowDrag) receives an epic FAIL for his pink lemonade to my Triple Exultation. Parker (background) reflects on the broken shell of man that is Aaron Smith and tells him to cowboy up for Triple E for the next round.
Coach Rich's Weekend Digits:

241 miles

862 TSS @ .80 IF

13:15 ride time

8976kj

ATL/CTL/TSB: 130 tss/d, 78, likely south of 50 tss/d tomorrow.

Tomorrow I load up the AdventureCyle and ride back to LA, have a supacool route schemed out. About 450 miles. Dunno if neck and back will be giggy.
WORK is SPEED Entering the Body

Pick Your Own Fruit

Today we had a great time foraging for our own food. We headed up to the Delta area of the Bay to a town called Brentwood. This is obviously a big farming area which I was totally unaware of.

The neat thing about these farms is that much of the fruit is "pick your own". And so we did. First stop was the cherry orchards. The trees were only about 12-15 feet tall and covered in fruit. It was easy to just pull cherries no matter your height. The filled bucket tapped out at almost 25 pounds. We'll spend a week getting through these. Yum!


Next stop was the peach orchard. Not quite as "neat" as the cherries, but we did manage to get enough to keep us full for a while.

This adventure is definitely on the list again. We got a map of the farms in the area and when to expect each of the crops to come in.

Our Day in the City

Bew's time in California is running out and this was our first opportunity to bring her into San Francisco and see the sites.  We hit many of the typcial tourist sites including a ride on the cable cars, walking around Pier 39 and watching the seals, and driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.  The weather was fantastic, even for San Francisco Standards.  All in all, a fun day!

Parker Turns Four!

Today was Parker's big day.  All day was a celebration, starting with my home made crown, which he wore all day. After school it was time for cake and presents.  This year it had to be a Batman cake, which he picked out from Safeway.  The theme this year was super hero stuff, sports stuff, and sleeveless shirts and basketball shorts.  (Don't ask!).  Presents included lots of Spiderman clothing, a sword, fishing pole and some sports shirts (sleeveless) with matching shorts.  

Measured him yesterday and we are pretty sure he grew four inches over night.

Dianne Gynn, Mother of the Year Award

As noted on the news; click here to view:

Yeah for Mom!

Conner and Swim Team

Conner has stepped up to the big leagues recently and has joined the swim team at Club Sport, down the road from us.  Previously he was taking swim lessons once a week and working on stroke improvements in a very small pool.  No long swims at all.

On his second day of swim club, having never swam more than 10 yards in a row,

 was told to jump in and swim to the other end of the pool, 25 yards away.  I think he surprised himself by swimming not only the first 25, but the remaining 4 or 5 lengths that day.  He now regularly swims 8-10 laps or more each session.

The time commitment has also increased dramatically as he now swims for 30 minutes Monday to Thursday, 45 minutes on Friday and then 45 minutes to an hour on  Saturday they go to the local high school pool and practice diving off the blocks. There are swim meets all summer.  He loves it and is turning into a fish.

We are also lucky enough to have a fantastic photographer as a parent and he takes dozens of pictures on a regular basis and posts them to the web for us to download.

Parker has decided now that he is almost four, he can start swimming.  Conner has offered to coach him and Parker has  agreed.

Boyscout Camping

Conner and I did our first boyscout camping trip this weekend 45 minutes from our place at Lake Del Valle.  This was Conner's first camping trip.  We used to camp a lot when Kira was younger, but have not done so in a long time.  It's time to start again!

The weekend didn't start out so well with forecasts of rain throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

We arrived Saturday morning to a little drizzle, but not much.  We set up the tent and met a bunch of the other campers. Then it was off for a hike.  Half way through the hike, the rain completely stopped and that was the last of it for the weekend.  It poured on the way home, but we were in the car and it didn't matter. The hike was a little long and muddy and Conner was happy to be done.

The rest of the weekend was great fun.  A treasure hunt using a compass, learning to use a GPS for orienteering, games of capture the flag, making marshmellow blow guns, dodge ball and hanging out with 30 kids, none of whom had anything electronic.

We had a campfire at night with smores and other good things.  Steak for the adults (yum!).  The kids told jokes for an hour or two and then it was off to bed in the tent.  We played cards for a while and then fell asleep.

More fun Sunday morning, then we tore down the camp and headed home.

We are definitely signing up again next year.