Well that was actually a busy weekend.  As a matter of fact, I took off Thursday & Friday and stretched it out into a 4-day.  This was triggered by a visit from my ol’ buddy James from KC, AKA Munkirs, who flew up for Thursday & Friday.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen him we actually had things to talk about.  Maybe not two whole days worth, but if we rationed the subject matter and kept the chatter to a minimum, we stretched things out pretty well.  He actually rolled into town on Wednesday night, which allowed for a nice early start on Thursday.  We started off with a solid hike up in Auburn, at Hidden Falls Park.  (Random side note:  I’d originally planned on Horsetail Falls as a destination.  On a whim I checked the forecast:  30 degrees and heavy snow.  Time for plan B.  If you’ve seen one Falls you’ve seen ’em all.)  I’ve been to Hidden Falls, but only on my mountain bike.  There is, I found, a reason for this.  Hiking is slow and hard.  Hills that are challenging on my bicycle are downright torturous on foot.  Oh well, the scenery was nice and they didn’t have to fly me out in the medevac.  After our hike we dropped by Mt Vernon winery, where I had a club pickup to make.  Hey, it’s a long drive out there, gotta make the rounds.  We then wound over to Auburn Ale House for a quite passable lunch on their patio.  Not quite done yet, we made the somewhat long drive to Folsom, and visited the Folsom Prison Museum.  It’s small but interesting, I usually take visitors by there.  After a quick stop by the house to clean up, THEN we drove up to Shingle Springs and met some friends at the recently opened Breakroom.  We’ve been there quite a few times and it’s growing on me.  If that sounds like more activity than I usually have in a given day, well, it is.  Heck it’s more activity than I have in a given week.  Guess I need house guests more often.

Friday we huddled up over a delicious breakfast of boiled eggs to plot the itinerary for the new day.  His first suggestion was “Work out and bike ride.”  The conjunction in the phrase threw me off.  I’m assuming you meant “Work out or bike ride.”  Alas, my hearing was correct the first time.  So we got ready and took the walk over to the gym at the neighborhood clubhouse.  Full disclosure, I badged us in the door, waited until he got started, and walked right the heck back home.  That’s just too much exercise for one day.  By the time he finished up, I’d enjoyed my umpteenth cup of coffee and was ready to go riding.  So, we loaded up and drove to the nearby American River bike trail.  It’s a nice paved trail that follows, not remarkably, the American River.  We rode for quite some distance.  Not sure how far, let’s just go with “Farther than most normal human beings are able to travel on a self-powered two-wheel vehicle.”  Yeah, that far.  In addition, we were bucking a 20 mph wind.  Not sure where THAT came from, but it was rather defeating.  Luckily that finished my physical torture for the day.  We finished the day back at the house, on the patio grilling a tri tip.  Much more my speed.