Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Lucinda had a sleepover at Aunt Maggi’s house this weekend. We took her down there on Saturday afternoon. On the way back, we stopped off in Long Beach to have dinner at El Torito and look at some desks for Cathy.

On Saturday night, Cathy and I had one of those rare nights out as a couple. It was fun, and we didn’t get home and in bed until close to 1:00. Then on Sunday morning, we both got up early. I went for my regular Sunday morning bike ride, and Cathy went to the gym.

Lucinda and Aunt Maggi went out for a while on Saturday night. On Sunday they went to the pool near her house in Irvine with another family. Lucinda had a couple of other kids to play with, which worked out well.

Sunday afternoon, it was time to pick up Lucinda. On the way down there we saw a car lose its wheel on the 405 freeway. The left front wheel came off, and the hub fell down onto the pavement in a shower of sparks. It would have been spectacular at night. At the same time, the wheel rolled away across all five lanes of traffic. When it hit the center divider, it bounced up in the air and landed on the other side of the freeway in the oncoming lanes. We watched it bounce three times on its way across the lanes before it went off the other side of the freeway. It was probably the single most spectacular incident that either of us had actually witnessed on the freeway.

Today’s ride was a new route out to Glendora and back, with a stop for a bagel in Arcadia. I took a few pictures on the ride, but for some odd reason, they didn’t come out. The camera did something weird, and the pictures all looked like pointillist paintings. When I discovered this, I took a few test shots around the house, and they all came out fine. I don’t know what happened.

Anway, the ride was very pleasant. We went east through Arcadia by a new route, which was nice. Then we went south a bit and then back up to the Santa Fe Dam bike path and on to Sierra Madre Ave in Glendora.

When we turned south in Glendora, we stopped for a minute to regroup. I noticed a real estate sign, so I picked up a flyer. It was a nice house, but nothing spectacular, but they were asking $1.1 million for it. I’m so glad we bought our house back in ‘95. If we were trying to buy a house now… Yikes.

From Glendora, we went south to Covina and then back through West Covina and Baldwin Park. It was a basically flat route, and we went pretty fast. When we got to the snack stop at Goldstein’s Bagels in Arcadia, we were all marveling that our average speed was somthing like 17.3 mph, which is fast for our group. Normal is about 16, which includes stopping for red lights and such. When we were moving, we were going pretty fast. And it was fun.

The last part of the ride was back up Orange Grove and Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park. The ride came in at 40 miles even, and I decided that that was enough for today.

40 miles.
cycling