Why Do I Remain Lumpy?

Found a little cafe' shop with fresh rasberry tarts and chocolate-peanut butter smoothies on my ride yesterday.

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Just can't figure out why I never loose any weight on these rides...

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"Lumpy 4Ever" out

Weekendus Horribilis

This was amongst the worst weekends of my life. On friday, my younger sister was diagnosed with cancer. An not just cancer, but big cancer, LMS (leiomyosarcoma, info at:
www.leiomyosarcoma.info . It's a really bad one, and she's in for a huge fight against the beast. She'll be starting chemo this week.
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On saturday, the first tornado in, oh, forever hit our small village. Luckily nobody was hurt, but not the way you want to spend your saturday evening. The rain was incredible. Having been in an F-5 once before when we lived in Cincinnati, this paled, but it was still a bad memory.
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And then sunday I ran out of patron tequila, which got me through friday and saturday. Anyone had a weekend that bad?
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"This week: asteroid strikes earth, destroys humanity; Bush survives" Lumpy out

Muggyville, USA

Took a quick drive down to Philly yesterday; well, quick if you discount the, oh, 200 MILES of construction on 90, 81, 481, 76, 15, and 390. Like NYSDOT and PADOT lives to make my life miserable.
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Had a great time catching up with the MEDE boys and some other folks along the way. It was about 85 and 110% humidity the whole day, except when it was Tstorming. Which was most of the drive. And THAT's a really good time in a Mini Cooper
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Lumpy out

It's a Family Affair

Rosenthals and Kathy on a rare rest break.

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We paddled Lake Ontario a bit this past weekend with the Rosenthals. The weather was a bit choppy, on the Pond on the way out, but it got MUCH choppier once we hit the lake.

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Kara was exhausted from her morning 2 hour swim workout, and she was really lagging through the Pond segment. But, when we got to the Lake, it was all hooping and a hollering as her small boat was thrown all over the place by the waves.

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Kathy however was another story, as she discovered budhism and was doing yoga and praying to Krisna just to not flip her boat. Which, she didn't. And man, was I happy about that!

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"A tale of two paddlers" Lumpy out

'Yacking down the Genesee

TOP: Acrobatic biplanes with smokers doing loop-d-loops over the river

BOTTOM: Kayak Kathy lubing up before her post-yak nap/sunning session

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One of my other projects is to kayak the navigatable length of the Genesee River (some dams and falls stop it from being totally boatable). Last weekend we did the section from Mt Morris to Geneseo, about 15 miles in total. We put in just below the Mt Morris lower dam, into what looked like a class 5 rapids. Fortunately, it only looked wild, it was just water with a lot of bubbles in it. Must be something that the dam caused. The river was flowing nicely, and we made over 4 mph. Peter and his dad Lee went in the tandem, and Kathy and I solo.

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It was also "Dumping Day" on the river, as first peter and lee dumped during a bio break, and then about an hour later Kathy did the same. Can't these people learn to pee and portage at the same time?

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We anticipated a totally secluded, quiet river paddle, and it was for the first hour or so. Then, unbeknownst to us, it was the day of the Geneseo air show, and the river basically circumnavigated the airport. So we had things like packs of P-51 fighters, acrobatic biplanes, and an F-18 take off directly over our heads. They shook the entire river, and the wildlife was going insane from the noise...as were we. But, we had a bird's eye view of the festivities, and they were very cool. The highlight was a WWII fighter flying in formation with an F-18 at about 200 feet off the ground. Very cool stuff indeed.

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The session ended on a tough note, as our exit point turned out to be about, oh, 60 feet below the roadway. In thick, shoe-sucking mud. And up a rockface. And through a pricker bush grove. It took us 4 hours to paddle, and over 2 hours to get the boats out of the gorge through the muck, rock, and brush. Then, peter had to run a couple of miles to get the car, drive back, get me, go get the trailer, and then do the boat re-loading. A great paddle turned out to be a very long day...

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"Apparently F-18's are faster than kayaks" Lumpy out

Driving Miss Monsoon

TOP: And this is all we saw for, oh, 3 HOURS on our drive down

2nd: Yup, just the sign you WANT to see when you're off mountain biking

3rd: Manayunk arts festival in full swing

4th: Our favorite mid-trip restaurant is closing. RIP Mamasitas

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We headed down to philadelphia last weekend to do some visiting and eating. An old friend of mine had just sold his company and wanted to take a few of us out to dinner as a thank you for our help in getting him off the ground. It was an awesome meat-fest at one of those brazillian meat houses, dead animals on a skewer, plus boatloads of mohito-like drinks. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

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But first, we had to get there. I drove to Binghampton, then switched off for a quick snooze. I believe my last words were "huh, those clouds look a little dark don't they". Anyhow, within a mile of kathy taking the wheel, the heavens opened up into an epic thunderstorm, huge lightning bolts flying everywhere, trees down all over the freeway (and, of course, this was all happening in a major road construction zone to increase the fun), torrential rain (as in it was like you were underwater the rain was so intense. Kathy drove for about 3 hours, which turned out to be 20 miles, before she finally found a pullout to changeover. And, I swear, within 2 miles the skies turned completely blue again, and the sun came out. I guess we know now whose side god is really on...the atheist's!

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Following the meat-fest, we went up to Jim Thorpe PA and mountain biked the lehigh valley trail. It's an awesome trail, riverside for miles, and we got to watch a ton of rafters and kayakers below us on the river. Lot's of history in the area also, as this was the major coal mining region for a fledgling united states.

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Sunday we met old friends andi and lou for breakfast and then hit the manayunk arts festival. I can say in good faith that I did not purchase ANY jewelry there; I cannot make the same statement of "she who has her own income again". Lovely necklace however.

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Another mirror ride home. I drove for 3 hours of bright sunshine, 1 mile after Kathy took the wheel, another huge thunderstorm and torrential rain. And then clear again once we switched off in Syracuse.

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Along the way we stopped for dinner at our favorite little mexican half-way house near binghampton. It's tucked away in a little no-name town, and we stumbled upon it maybe 5 years ago when we were desperately low on gas one drive. As we walked in, there is a sign saying that the restaurant was closing that night at 9pm forever; the owners were retiring. It was sad to see, and I have to give a shout out to the Mamasitas crew on Lennoxville PA for 5 years of awesome fresh made guacamole, burritos, and lemonade. Enjoy your retirement, and godspeed.

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"Crying the Mexican Blues" Lumpy out

Couple More SD Pix

TOP: DelMar Beach at sunrise, on my way to hiking Torrey Pines...I looked for Tiger Woods, but nowhere to be found

2nd: Fortuna Mountain. Apparently "mountain" means you have to hike uphill

3rd: Old Mission dam on the SanDiego River. Very cool little setting

BOTTOM: "Arnold" Lumpy on the Santa Margharita trail