First Big Ride of the Season

Well spring is in the air here in Baltimore and I for one am grateful not to be wearing multiple layers and/or be hiding under a pile of blankets.  While I spent yesterday outside building planters for the upcoming gardening season (more on that later), today Bernard and I hit the road to get in some major miles.  While there was no specific cue sheet, I headed over to Fort McHenry and the Museum of Industry before picking up part of the route from Tour dem Parks Hon.

One of my favorite sculptures in Baltimore outside the Museum of Industry

Bruno Mars and Ellen In Action

Every once and a while I get caught in a vicious You Tube cycle and before I know it, an hour has passed and I have watched nothing but clips from the Ellen Show.  I did come across this gem when Bruno Mars and Ellen decided to prank an unsuspecting nurse.  Enjoy!

#100happydays Update

 So far so good with the 100 Happy Days Project as today marks the one month mark.   

Here is picture #32.  Bonus points if you know who created these pyramids?

 

Today I headed into DC for my Bike and Roll "orientation" which meant checking out the new space, catching up with some of the staff and signing all of my paperwork.  Over the next few weeks I will be helping out with bike tours, including those which include those during the Cherry Blossom Festival.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL (50 and sunny) so I decided to play tourist and stroll around the Mall. 

Check out the rest of my project on Instagram. 

Bike and Build Reunion

Every once in a blue moon, Bike and Build alumni get together for a bike ride or a build day; today we  headed out to Alexandria for a build day.  There was a smattering of alumni and new riders and I had the privileged of breaking in some of the new SUS '14 crew. You can follow along as Dan and JoBeth (below) prep for the summer of their lives and possibly throw them a few dolla dolla bills so they can reach their fundraising goal of $4500.

Dan showing them how it is done with power tools!

Here is the motley crew after a successful build day.  I did figure out how to install some doorknobs. 

Afterwords we met up with more riders for a Bike and Build  pot luck.  It was great swapping stories from the road,  seeing Kristin and Alex from SUS '12 and squeezing in a dance video for old times' sake.  We are counting down the days until the warm weather comes and we can all go ride bikes.

Valentine's Day Wrap Up

The last few Valentine's Day posts have covered everything from candy ice machines to history lessons to nerdy cards.  The bad cards continued this year too (see the post below), but I also had a bona fide valentine. 

First there were some sunflowers :)

Then Dan and I decided to head out to Loch Raven Reservoir for some hiking. While we got about ten inches of snow from this week's storm, that did not slow us down!

What better way to wrap up the evening than eating a home cooked dinner from the BF.  

Here is is hard at work tenderizing some chicken:

Valentine's Day

Check out some other nerdy Valentine's Day cards.

On the Road Again ...

A week flies by when you are having fun.  The universe must have known because the sun decided to come out and we were able to enjoy a few brief hours of "warm" weather.  On the way home we headed down Balmy Alley to check out some of the street art!  One of my favorites is this one of Max from Where the Wild Things Are. 

After breakfast, I got Elise all packed and ready to go (and checked that she actually bought a return plane ticket).  With Alex and Peter heading home to get some work done, I decided to hit up one of my favorite bookshops in the cit, The Alley Cat.  The place is filled with second hand books and new ones related to all things biking and cooking. 

One of the perks of flying Virgin America is you get to hang out in Terminal 2 before take off.  This brand new terminal is the first LEED® Gold-Registered Terminal in the US and everything on the inside exudes everything green, sustainable and California.  The place also comes with a meditation room for all the yogis and these awesome topography sculptures.  This is not the world's best picture, but gives you an idea.  Check out this site for some of the other sculptures.

Playing Tourist: Part 2

Day two of tourism was short and sweet because you guessed it ... more rain.  As Elise is into all things mechanical, she is a mechanical engineer after all, we headed out to the Cable Car Museum.  One of the cool things about the cable cars, AKA the things you see in the Rice-A-Roni commercials, is they are pulled up and down the hills of San Francisco by a single cable.   All four cars are pulled by a set of wheels here and one more down in the back.

We were even good tourists and remembered to take a picture for Mom.

After that we braved the rain once again and headed up the hill to the Tonga Room, a Tiki Bar in the old Fairmont Hotel pool.  Elise and I each got a libation the size of our head

followed by a spoon to get the rest of the pineapple goodness.

(n+1) = (p-1) = Number of Bikes You Should Have

Where n = number of bikes you currently have

Where p = number of bikes which will cause your partner to leave 

This morning came bright and early as Captain Jack drove through San Francisco to pick me, Elise and Ben up for a mini SUS reunion.  The original plan was to grab some breakfast and go for a hike.  Breakfast was AMAZING and we carbo loaded at the Howard Station Cafe in Occidental- Jack raved all summer about this breakfast place and let me tell you it did not disappoint. This picture is WAY brighter than what we saw.

Originally, we were going to spend the morning hiking in Armstrong Woods.  We crossed out fingers and hoped the tree cover would block out the rain, but no dice.  Within 5 minutes we were pretty soaked and after twenty we decided to pack it in and take on another adventure.  I would have taken a picture, but we would have looked too pathetic and Ben's shorts had become a little see through. 

First stop was up and over the mountain to St. Helena where we hit up our first winery of the day - when in wine country do like the middle aged adults and fake like you actually know what you might be talking about.  The wine tasting, which was so-so, was followed up with an olive oil tasting.  I missed the memo that we were making fun of our winery experience - SUS Jelly Picture #1.

Feeling overly pretentious and a little out of our comfort zone we decided to head south for a tour and tasting at Lagunitas Brewing Company. 

Elise and I are going for the wet dog look.

SUS Jelly Picture #2

The specialty beer even comes in a dog mason jar. 

The rest of the evening was spent enjoying beers and nachos and reminiscing of the good old Bike and Build days.  I also think we have Elise convinced to sign up for the 2015 season. 

Playing Tourist!

Another rainy day in SFO which means there will be a serious lack of bike riding while we are here.  After a morning of breakfast and job perusing, Alex and I headed out to see if we could find any new tourist places in the city.  The first stop was Chinatown and it was pretty typical filled with nicknacks and lots of tourists.  The highlight was the magnet shop with magnets EVERYWHERE!!

 

After wandering around we came to the conclusion that lunch would be the next best thing so we found a taco place in between Chinatown and Little Italy ... go figure! San Fransisco always prides itself on serving up the greenest, most locally grown, organic, etc. things so coming across this queso was pretty fantastic.  

The tootling continued and we wound up at Pier 39.  

While we have ended up there in the past, we somehow missed all the sea lions.

Later that night we got word Elise's plane finally landed and went for some good old BBQ.  It definitely made me miss the awesome southern meals we had a few summers ago.

Hello SFO!

First official stop of vacation: breakfast at St. Francis Soda Fountain.  This super cute, step back in time diner truly delivers on all classic breakfast foods and a few fun twists.  The chef's mess complete with biscuits ... GET OUT OF TOWN!!  Also props to the guy a few booths down how had an ice cream sunday at 1000. 

Alex and I volunteered to cook dinner so we took a walk in the heavy mist to pick up groceries before we met up with Peter to get down to work at a local coffee shop.  They boys read applications and I applied to jobs.  All was not lost because it had great jams and I got an iced mint mojito coffee. 

After what seemed like a million applications a piece, we headed home to start happy hour and get the beef stew in the oven.  Here is the crew acting candid for a "candid dinner photo."  Talk about a bunch of hams and some shaky hands.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane!

Alex and I are trading in our heavy coats for some puffy vests and heading out to San Francisco to meet up with Peter and Joan and a few SUS'ians!  Although we have covered most of the hot tourist spots, I am sure we will hit up some favorites (biking over the Golden Gate bridge) and find at least one or two new gems.