Jun 19 - lots of flowers

Perhaps it's the cool and the rain, the delayed Spring, but 522 is a wildflower paradise.  Late in the day I took Emma with the car for a "project" and we went flower picking, bringing home a big bunch of flowers for Nana.  They're in a vase on the table now.

See -- now that I'm retired I not only have time to stop and smell the roses, but I have time to stop and pick the daisy's !

Sandy and Emma went out in the Kayaks.  Emma is quite accomplished, turning, going backwards, and made it to Matthew's and back.  Sandy was close behind, naturally, with a rope handy in case she had to give her a tow.

Thank heavens for drop ceilings.  I extricated the big wire bundle that was in place for the old 6' satellite TV dish and pulled through a new wire for the internet dish.  It's now in place and has provided a significant drop in attenuation.  Of course we were ok from that standpoint now but at Christmas we had trouble.  We'll see what happens in the cold weather six months from now.

That used up about 100' of cable from my 1000' roll.  I don't think that I'll have to buy any more cable for a long, long time.

The other "major project" that I accomplished was re-screening the front of the gazebo.  I've still got that side section to do, but it's low and can be accomplished standing in the water, no ladders or docks needed.  I've temporarily fixed that with tape so it's not gaping open.

I leave tomorrow for Toronto and fly early Saturday to San Francisco.  I have no idea how I'm going to manage the bike box and luggage, but I'm sure that airline luggage carts play heavily in my future.

I need to ride today and then pack.  I'm still pondering the drop bag locations on this ride, especially the first one.  I can either do 256 miles or 324 miles, i.e. 413 kms or 523 kms.  I've never gone as far as 523 kms before a night stop.  Wait ... I'll have to check last summer's Lake Ontario ride to see where we got to since that started at 6pm too.  No, that was only 420 or so kms and we got in after 8pm.  It's just that the first 100 miles (200km) of the ride out of Davis CA is supposed to be really flat and there will be bunches of riders together.  It could go really quickly.  I don't want to get to that 413 kms "overnight" at 5 or 6 pm.  I suppose if that happened, I'd simply pick up the clean clothes and change at the 523 mark.  Hmmm.  That might leave all options open.

If I end up doing the 256 mile option, then the balance of the ride becomes 194 miles, 127 & 168 ?  That's odd.  If the 324, then it's 194 & 228, i.e. a three-day ride.  More hmmm.

Onward ...