I Rode!

maricel had her first soccer game today. she's pretty coordinated; but she's not a rocket ship like her sister maura. it was cool watching her. the game seemed like it was a million miles away though. it was all the way down in this town called castle rock. not exactly a convenience for us hillbillies. she seemed like she had fun. one of the reasons why she's so into it is that her best friend grace is also her teammate. man, the other team had a bunch of ringers. i still dig our team. they're called the stingers. yeah, sting 'em y'all! she played the entire game. she drove it pretty good down the field a couple of times. well, long story short the final was 5 to zip. unfortunately we were the zip. next time y'all. next time. after the soccer game she went with grace, her li'l sis abbie and her dad andrew to one her classmates' birthday party. it was inside a gymnastics place where they had full reign of the equipment. that's a cool way to have fun in a place that doesn't have people dressed up like forest creatures and without a bunch of plastic balls full of dioxin to mess 'em up later down the road. good clean fun without any gimmicks baby...
as for me, after they left, i head down to chris' joint to do a team of two ride. nothing hardcore. we're both no longer put in the killer miles we used to due to work and his graduate school program in mechanical engineering. so we just cruise the flats for three hours and change. mellow-yellow.
on the way to golden, the birthplace of coors beer, i see this sign...
not exactly a pick-me-up as a cyclist. kind of ominous though, don't you think? just happened this year, on a road my teammates and i normally take for granted that our lives won't end here. this road though has twice been a place where motorists have confronted us with their opinion of how cyclists should not be here. one confrontation ended up with us calling the state police and the motorist being fined, the other time we were run off the road but we had the wherewithal to get the dipshit's license number. so further down the road we see his shrine...puts things into perspective no?
on the return trip we're just talking up a storm. we usually talk about about personal stuff because we're pretty good friends. nothing i'd like to share with y'all but it's been stressful for both of us recently. nothing like bike therapy to ease the mentalness of being stressed. the weather has been absolutely beautiful the entire ride-slightly chilly even-but on the way back we're in much better spirits than when we left and i take some photos o'chris being chris.here he is trying to show off his downhill skills on the flats-needless to say, ouch. you gotta dig the trees' canopies almost touching above the streets.three and change hours later we head back to chris' and i'm cooked. my legs haven't moved that much in a while and again i'm bummed due to my lack of fitness. it was a great ride today with my boy chris and equally as cool watching my oldest tear it up on the soccer field. thank goodness for weekends y'all. amen.