new location

ok, i finally got tired of blogger. it's been good to me, but it's time for me to move on....

http://ex-cyclist.com

check out my new bike!

enjoy


when i get some time, i will try to archive the posts from this site.

first morning in california

i was very excited to be in the california mountains again. so excited that i woke with the sun [5:00am]. i never checked my watch, but it was pretty early i could tell.

my first goal was to climb donner pass and get some pictures along the way:

you can see the old railway along the top.





this picture on the left is looking down at donner lake.

the climb up to the top was pretty easy... at least easier than i remember. after all i did this climb twice last year, once on a rented mountain bike, and once on my unicycle while carrying a huge back pack. this was nothing like that, thank god!!

i got back to camp pretty early and decided to do some more exploring on my bike. i am so happy that i decided to bring my old bianchi with the cyclocross tires rather than my mtb bike or road bike. since i had a bike that could go anywhere i found a pretty sweet single track not far from camp.


if anyone knows "jp" please thank him/her for me. this trail just climbed up the mountain on the south side of donner lake. it was full of switch backs and until i got a peek of the lake i had no idea where i was. it was one of those trails where you want to turn around because you're getting further away than you planned, but because it's so unknown, you're all alone, and the gound is perfect.... you keep going.






so i kept going and i am so glad that i did, because at the top of the trail i found the railroad tunnel....and i just love tunnels.











it was really freaky to go inside because it was so dark, damp, and full of bat noises. there wasn't much room on the sides to dodge a train if needed either!






but i had to get this shot :)

first night in california.

after driving all through the night we arrived at donner lake about 6pm. it was still pretty light and we were able to find a pretty cool camp spot, and put up our tent. we had dinner at taco jalisco in truckee [best mexican restaurant ever!!]... with our full bellies and still a bit more day light left we headed off to lake tahoe.







we stopped several times along the way to take some pictures and by the time we got to the lake it was starting to get a bit dark. i don't have any pictures, but me and the boys took a little swim that night. it was pretty creepy swimming in dark cold water, but very refreshing!

sacramento

it's been about a week since my vacation was over and i've been busy catching up with work and home projects. actually it's been so hot i just sit around all day and try not to move.


i think that right now i am hotter than i was when i was back in sacramento. weird, but for the first time in a long time it was actually cooler in sac than in colorado. speaking of sacramento:


while in sacramento i tried do as much as i could but we only had a couple of days, and doing just "me" stuff would have pissed off the family.


i did a little bit of running one morning around william land park. when i was younger, i used to run this every day.... twice a day!

i know it may not seem like anything special, but it was about 3.1 mile around, and almost completely shady. on this morning i only ran two laps, because i'm not in the greatest running shape right now.


anyway it's a beautiful park, and it reminds me of home.... speaking of home, it seems that the neighborhood that i grew up in turned into a ghetto. i'm not using the word loosly either.... it's really bad. my old house looks pretty good however, and it still has our family name on the driveway.

while running on the beach part i.

There guys were holding what looked like a shark

running at morro bay

where in the world is the ex-cyclist?

while running part ii.

my bare feet were killing me at this point, but i still managed to climb this coral covered rock to get this picture

lame sand castle

I did not build this

mary jane sand dollars

I was going to carry these back with me but then i decided that a picture would do