Photos from Today's Ride

Heeeeerrrrrreeeee'sssss Julie!
Fall colors!
Up close and personal with a caterpillar.

It Turned Out to be a Beautiful Fall Day!

The weather report was for sunny skies and 62 degrees. Julie and I headed to Yelm on the road in the fog and overcast sky. Our plan was to eat lunch at a restaurant called Doug's in Yelm. On another ride, we had eaten at the Mt. Tahoma Golf Course restaurant and a couple there said they usually eat at Doug's. We thought we would give Doug's a try. We arrived at about 11:00. It was a tough decision, but we both decided on lunch food over breakfast food. We both had hot open-faced turkey sandwiches. We were not impressed. It was okay, but the food at Mt. Tahoma is better. Guess we should have asked the couple what was good.

After Doug's, we hit the trail and headed to Rainier. Of course, Rainier is home to the Main Street Cookie Company. We stopped. Mindful of the need to not go overboard and order my usual three cookies, Julie and I each ordered one, had them cut them in half and we swapped halves. It's just so hard to choose one variety! This was a good compromise. YUM!

Back on the trail, instead of turning onto the Chehalis Western, we continued on the Yelm/Tenino trail to Tenino. From there we took the road home, stopping periodically to take photos. The sun finally burned off the fog and clouds for a gloriously blue sky. We stopped at Kipperts feed near the Oly airport because they had two HUGE pumpkins out front. One weighted 1142 lbs.!

We cut through Trails' End (this time without the gratuitous hills) to Henderson and over to Julie's.

It wasn't the warmest day for most of the ride, but, nonetheless, it was a beautiful Fall day for a bike ride!

Total miles: 51

A Beautiful Night to Ride to Mah Jongg

As I pulled out of my driveway I noticed the sun was setting and the sky was pink. You know what they say, "Red sky at night..." that's right, CYCLIST'S delight!
As I was riding along Yelm Hwy. on my way to play Mah Jongg (ancient Chinese tile game--not to be confused with the Mah Jongg matching game on the computer), the sky just kept getting more beautiful. At the Chehalis Western Trail bridge, I just had to ride up to the bridge so I could take these two photos. They are not the best as I took them with my phone, but still beautiful. Of course, a photo can rarely do justice to what the eyes see! A lovely Fall evening!

Back to Fall Riding

Yes, Fall is definitely in the air (along with some rain)! Julie and I decided to put the bikes in her truck and go someplace besides the roads we have ridden a million times. Julie wanted 40 to 50 miles so we headed south to Rochester High School where we parked the truck and unloaded the bikes. It had been raining on my ride over to Julie's, but by the time we got to Rochester the rain had pretty much stopped. Still, I kept my rain pants on for the moment. We headed south from Rochester toward Centralia. Along the way we met up with a couple of guys from, I think, Minnesota. They were doing a sag supported tour from Vancouver, BC to Bandon, Oregon. We pointed them in the right direction to Centralia.

When Julie and I got to Centralia, we decided we should probably eat lunch because there was not going to be any other food opportunities until we returned to Rochester. Shockingly, we did NOT eat at Subway! We ate at the Country Cousin, an icon of sorts, in Centralia close to the outlets. We both had delicious hot turkey sandwiches.

After lunch I took off my rain pants and switched to my fingerless gloves as well. Still had the rain jacket and helmet cover on. We took a back road loop to Galvin Rd. and Galvin (the blink-and-miss-it town). From there it was onto Lincoln Creek Rd. for the flat to rolling ride along Independence Valley. Along the way I stopped to remove my helmet cover (it does a great job repelling water, but also trapping heat and sweat). We made it to Manners Rd. where we had to climb the longest hill of the day. However, we were rewarded with an even longer downhill on the other side.

Then it was on to Independence Rd. for the ride back into Rochester. By then I had removed my rain jacket as the sun was even shining! I noticed a lot of what Julie thought were Wolf Spiders on the road. They were probably looking for some warm house to hole up in for the winter. Besides the lots of cows and horses, we didn't see much in the way of other animals. We did pass a field of nice looking pumpkins!

We made it back to Rochester and loaded up the bikes. It was a nice Fall ride!

Total miles for me: 41

(Sorry no photos. I forgot to take my camera.)

Dinner at Le Pavillon Rose and Fireworks

My starter.
My dessert.
The Fireworks

Beach Time

My own sand sculpture.
Max and I at the beach. Well, there WAS a great photo here, but I have removed it (under protest)!

Photos from Pornichet and La Baule

Sand sculptures in Pornichet.
Pornichet Port
The Sea of Humanity in La Baule