Catching up on the Sunday Ride

Hello All!  I came back from my trip to Las Vegas on Thursday night and I have to say it was pretty relaxing.  You guys may not realize it, but I've mellowed a little bit in the last ten years.  If I went to Vegas before, it was up all night, hit all the clubs in Mandalay Bay, take a detour to visit with some new "lady friends" who like to sit "real close" to you, sleep all day, lather, rinse, repeat.  Nowadays, I can do all that, maybe, spread out all over a week, but not in one night, every night.  Eh, call it growing up, growing old, slowing down, getting bored, saving money, becoming mature, etc.  I now appreciate that you can do stuff during the day in Las Vegas.  I know, I know, it was a very foreign concept to me too.  But, I've just recently quit my job before going back to school, I'm sitting on a ton of dough that I've saved up to go back to school, and I'm still used to waking up a 5 in the morning.

These days I get up at 6 in the morning, and I still feel like I overslept.  So, what is there to do in Las Vegas during the day?  Well, since it gets to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at about 10 in the morning, you've got to get poolside pretty early, otherwise, not only will you look like a lobster without the proper protection, you'll feel like a turkey about to get served for Thanksgiving.  Also, you know me, I'm a pretty outdoors kind of guy, but I'm not stupid enough to get my hour of cardio work in the Las Vegas heat.  So, there's the air conditioned gym and the treadmill.  No, I did not bring my bike to Las Vegas, and I can't stand sitting on those exercycles without clipping into the pedals, so back to running for an hour.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I hate running.  Yes, I used to run up and down 5 miles of hills everyday while I was a student at Berkeley, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it.  Running only feels good when you stop.  I hadn't run since last summer, so I knew I was going to be feeling pretty sore the next day.  Running uses totally different muscle groups than cycling, so even though I'm in pretty good shape, all it means is that my lungs can take the punishment, but my feet, ankles, and hips don't like all that impact.

So, what did I do poolside?  Hard to believe, but Vegas does not pack in the hotties on weekdays.  So, to be distracted from the flesh of middle-aged and middle America, I brought music and books.  When I'm on vacation, I can usually read a book a day.  Just give me 3 uninterrupted hours and I can polish off your 400 page pop fiction novel.  Non-fiction takes a little longer and I need a week to take on some metaphysical treatment on philosophy.  Did my tanline even out?  Noooo!  Thanks to the bike, I still look like some crazy farmer with a sock tan.

So, did I take any pictures?  Yes, but only of the stuff that interests me.  They wouldn't let me take any pictures in this one place because... uh... it's not their policy, yeah, that's the ticket.  Otherwise I took pictures of what you usually see here.  There were after dinner cups of coffee at Delmonico's:

 

Still had to have my 5 cups of coffee a day.

 

There was hanging out by a waterfall and reading (Yes, I'm very boring, go back to reading my blog):

 

There's me in the shade.

 

Pretty... I really had to go to the bathroom.

 

And then there were places where I really needed a bigger flash and a big zoom lens.  Well, not really, but, well, yeah there were.  I didn't even have a chance to gamble, I was doing too much other stuff.  Like I say, I've mellowed in the last few years, so I don't have to cram everything into a vacation if I don't have to.

Then I came back and was able to ride my bike after a week and a half.  Can I say my butt missed the punishment without sounding weird?  No?  Okay, nevermind.  Lessee here... ah!  My legs were really itching for a good ride (take that weirdo police, nyah!).  So, my Sunday Ride did about 35 miles, rolling around the hills of Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia.  Of course, we had to stop for some cuppa joe.  Here's the view from Buster's in South Pasadena:

 

There's the Gold Line leaving Mission Station

 

And now I'm back in Pasadena for at least the next 2 weeks.  I rescheduled my jury duty for next week, so hopefully I don't get on a case.  I'll just say all defendants are guilty as I point to the defense attorney.  That should do the trick.