And the day after

It was Friend Beth's birthday breakfast. Last year, I tried to ride over, and found a lot of snow. This year, it was freezing fog. After checking the Weather Underground local weather stations, and noting that it was below freezing at my house, and only got colder going up, I elected to ride to the Sunset Max station, take the train to Holladay Park, and ride over from there. The transport method home would be late binding.

Uneventful trip to Beth's. I did toss in an older Bike There map, just in case (I can get lost in Portland :-) ), but I just headed north on 7th until it went away, cut over to 9th, then east on Ainsworth, north on 15th. E-Z.

Hot coffee, good company, lots of good food. Cecil showed up minutes after I did; we visited with Joel, who we haven't seen for awhile, and Tori, who I think we scared into never trying a fleche, and Dave and Edna and...

As Cecil thought she ought to be HOME somewhere around noon, we set out; we'd ride together until I either stopped at a transit stop or arrived at SE Madison, from whence she goes home and I cross the Hawthorne Bridge, and ride up through downtown, Washington Park and Sylvan and then downhill to home.

As we were assembling to leave, a shocked hush fell over the remaining guests once they realized that Cecil and I really are Bobbsey Twins. When we ride, we often match from head to toe, even without pre-planning. As we did today - Orange Bell Metro helmets with attached lighting, yellow Showers' Pass jackets, black pants (not the same ones) and the black and magenta PI Gore-Tex shoes... Comments were made about had we ever considered riding a tandem :-)

But before we left, Beth's across the street neighbors, who were firing up an amazing big barbeque, asked if we were vegans. The guy is a pit boss and sous chef and he does events, and apparently makes a nice bbq tofu. Not being the vegan, or even vegetarian half of the set, I would be more interested in his traditional offerings. He said he cooked most weekends; we should stop by and taste. (Are you reading this, Joel?) Then they asked how far we were riding and had the predictable responses. Really, folks would be surprised how far they could ride once they got into it.

As the road was no longer freezing (not that it was in any way WARM), I elected to ride all the way home. Toes are froze, but the rest of me is fine.

From Beth's house to mine, by a longer route than I'd probably take if riding directly (I'd cross the Steel or Broadway Bridges, rather than the Hawthorne) it is just over 14 miles.