Wilder Ranch

We woke up at 7:00 to get ready to go to Wilder Ranch with Andy. We prepared for our bicycular journey by making some delicious who-can-go-wrong-with salami. Since we once again didn’t have real cheese, we used that prossesed American cheese food. (I tell ya, Americans can make good milk but they sure don’t make good cheese. You could tar a roof with it and it still wouldn’t taste good). Andy came fasionably early at 7:28 (when he was gonna come at 7:30). We left pretty soon after. Boy, it’s sure gotten cold in the morning, especially for biking. It was mainly my hands that were cold. My chest was a little nippy but the windbreaker helped. I didn’t want to wear a lot of layers ’cause I don’t like bike riding wearing a lot of layers if I’m hot ’cause air can’t cool down the arms ‘n chest ‘n all if jackets, sweaters and parkas are packed on. My hands were really freezing but we stopped at this little part on the coast under a tree overlooking the ocean. There was a bench there. We didn’t sit on the bench but I think I should mention that it was there. I managed to really warm up my hands in the sun there ’cause we spent a while there while Papa and Andy talked about something.

Since the rest of the journey was uneventful unless you were there. I’ll skip ahead a bit.

After we biked along the coast, we came across this asphaulted paved path. I’ve always found it interesting ’cause it’s like a road where cars can go but the road is just for bikers, horseriders and pedestrians. Since it’s smooth and there’s usually nobody there, you can just cruise down on any side of the road or anything. Better seen than said. there’s this dirt ramp that’s pretty neat to bike over. It feels more dangerous on the street bike. It was more fun to do on the mountain bike. After that, we went downhill for a 30-40 second thrill ride and cruised on down to Wilder Ranch. I must say, biking at Wilder Ranch with my temp. bike sure ain’t as fun ’cause my back brake doesn’t work very well so I can’t do dusty skids on the dirt road. Plus, it’s a street bike and it’s more trecherous going over little bumps ‘n all.

We had lunch among the rotten apples gracefully swinging on the apple trees. Andy had a light breakfast consisting of an apple, apple juice and cookies. We were filled up enough with our sandwiches. Andy had to go to the Longs Marine Lab to do a little docenting so he went off and we went to see the horses. Last years, we went to Wilder Ranch and saw the horses. We noticed one of them looked like John Kerry (though please, let’s not get political here) and we had a mini-snickers (when I say mini, I mean mini, it wouldn’t fill up a horse at all) bar so we decided to give him a little break from the hay, boy, he sure enjoyed it! He reared up his feet and gave a big smile. We made fast friends. When we came back, it looked like he remembered us. We were thinking about giving him a candy but than again, he has to watch his carbs.

The journey back was fine. We had to go back uphill and the only gear that really works on my bike is the lowest gear so pedaling uphill was sure a treat. I didn’t feel like walking my bike so I just gave my legs all the power they could dish out. When I got to the top, boy, they were a bit worn, but after a little swig of water, they were good.

Since the admission to the aquarium is free the first Tuesday of every month, we biked on down to the Marine Lab to see Andy do his stuff. We were a few minutes early so we waited. I joked that maybe they wouldn’t let us in since we were barefoot and we might hurt our feet by accidentally stepping on a turtle. Well, when we went in, we only made it a few yards before some lady came up and asked us if we had shoes. Since of course we didn’t (or at least that’s what we said), she rung up the manager on the phone and the manager said it was fine. They had some pretty neat exibits. We hadn’t been there in at least 6+ years so it was neat going back. Andy was pretty dressed up in his Marine Lab uniform! He showed us the sharks ‘n squid ‘n all. It was nice ’cause it was a small aquarium. Enough exibits to wet your aquatic whistle. Andy was gonna show us the dolphins but he had to do some Otter Day presentation with somebody. We decided to come back again with Mama to see that.

So, we came back home and did work. Several hours later when we went to Karate, I found it much more difficult than usual to go into deep stances. I realized it was probably those strenuous bursts up the hill on the lowest gear. Oh well, ‘ts’all gooood.