Seriously, I guess I need to update this.  What can I say, we’ve been busy, and 90% of it you don’t want to hear about.  Heck, nobody probably wants to hear about the remaining 10%, but I paid for this thing and dang it, I’m going to use it.  Sometimes.  I’m going to just pretend the last few weekends never happened and jump right up to this past weekend.  This past weekend kicked off Friday with absolutely nothing.  Well, the Royals were playing out here on the west coast and those 7:30 games just killed me.  Who even stays up that late?!?!?  On the positive side, they were very watchable on the back patio as it cooled off nicely by that time.

Saturday I got a strong start with a decent bike ride.  I still don’t get many long-distance rides in out here, usually between 15 and 20 miles.  Heck, Munkirs and I used knock out 30 miles on any given week night, 20 is one of my “long weekend” rides out here.  Oh well.  But, what my rides lack in distance, I feel they make up for in climbing.  I’m sure I’ve probably mentioned it before, but no matter what direction you ride here in El Dorado Hills, you will no doubt hit some hills.  I usually ride “this hill” or “that hill” so far this year;  Saturday, for whatever reason, I decided to ride this hill AND that hill.  They aren’t the worst (best?) hills in town, but they ain’t flat either.  Indeed, in my short 20 mile ride I got in 2,000+ feet of climbing.  About the only perspective I can offer on that number is that my all-time record for one day of climbing is 4,000 feet…  And that was spread over 100 miles.  Yeah it’s a little “rolly” out here.  I still have 2 hills on my “list” that I haven’t even been able to make it up.  I almost tried one of the two Saturday since I was in the area, but chickened out.  I’ll wait until it gets really hot and give it a try.  Anyway, fun ride.  I saw some turkeys, which are always sort of cool to watch, and some really nice old cars that were driving around, and quite a few fellow bikers.  Not so cool things, I dang near hit a big snake.  Scared the crud out of me.  I was on a road that was closed to traffic, focusing on trying not to hyperventilate from the climb, and didn’t even see it all laid across the road.  I barely missed it’s head at the last second.  I don’t THINK it was a rattler because I’m pretty sure I’d have been bit if it was.  I sure wasn’t going back to look.  Note to self…  watch the road.  After that bit of exercise we took the pups to the dog park for a little play time, then we all went to the El Dorado Saloon for lunch.

Sunday took a rather unexpected pleasant turn.  Can’t remember the last time that happened.  I had to work that evening, which generally causes me to just write off the entire day and lay on the couch.  But when some friends called and said they were heading up to Camino to check out a new winery, we figured what the heck.  It was a quite pleasant day out, so we dropped the top on the convertible and met up with everybody.  Good times.  We spent the entire afternoon up there in the area, just kind of hanging out and enjoying the weather.  When we got home, everybody came over and fired up the grill while I snuck off to work.  I’ve been on something of a bad run of luck with my work stuff lately, but for once everything couldn’t have gone smoother.  Wrapped up my stuff in about 45 minutes and had a nice plate of grilled chicken waiting on the table for me, woot!