July 4th ride to Seward

Though the night before I was extremely skeptical of my ability to handle a 62 mile journey from my doorstep to Seward and back -- half of which would be during the mid-day UV peak -- I somehow actually woke to my alarm at 3:30, headed out the door at 3:50 (sans coffee), and made it to the designated starting point by 4:25.

I first met Ortiz on N street, which was cool because I was nervous about meeting a crowd of new people all at once. Before we got to the bridge we happened upon mombok, whose macintosh had been made unbootable the night before by the 10.4.7 update. Apparently there was a small window where Apple had a bad update package up on their servers. Those who were effected got a dialog box that said something failed to install. Guess what, I got that message when I applied the update yesterday. Luckily, I haven't rebooted yet. I'm afraid to.

Next I got reacquainted with CVO, having only met him briefly at Tour Day France. Soon thereafter he lit a roman candle to signify to all who could see that the train was leaving the station at 4:30am sharp. Before we got too far I discovered Cornbread was among the group. (I didn't recognize him in his roadie gear.)

The ride out was awesome. It was dark; I was unfamiliar with the route; nobody was in too much of a hurry, and every once in a while some fireworks would flash around me. My favorite was a roman candle illuminating us from behind. We could see our shadows appearing large and then shrinking, wrapped in alternating green and red frames shimmering on the pavement.

The hills on highway 34 were pretty challenging to me, but I kept thinking of Syd, who always sees wind and hills as an opportunity.

We arrived just as the sun was asserting itself in the sky. Our bikes took refuge in the CVO's parents' back yard and we chilled for a minute. That's when the above picture was taken. The day's activities: the ceremonial explosively-launched anvil, a good pancake feed at the VFW (where I observed the art of sly photography), watching warm-ups for a pole-vaulting competition (very nice), checking out the craft booths, buying beer, chilling more in the back yard, watching Alter-Nate's mini-anvil fireworks display, and eventually getting introduced to Thad and Scott.

All in all, a really cool bunch of guys to hang with. I could learn a lot from them, the least of which is what the heck "GB" stands for.

Just as it was time for the 10:30am return trip, Sydney arrived with Conrad. I bailed on the crew so that I could ride back a bit later in the company of this beautiful woman. However, before we returned we had an opportunity to check out a mind-boggling collection of bicycles. I was asked not to share the pictures that I took. Rest assured, even a newbie like me was blown away. Too cool.

The ride back was at a "nice pace" (Syd's code word for "excruciatingly slow", I think.) My legs were dead, the hills seemed worse this way, and the wind was not blowing in a helpful direction.

But I made it. It was the best way I've ever spent the 4th of July, although it wasn't until today that I realized it.