Tag Archives: biking

50 miles and Bonsai

Saturday ride time!!  John planned out our route for the day.

This was about a 50 mile loop.  We headed out at about 10:30 as we thought we would go out for lunch in Saratoga.  Temps of about 60 predicted. There was a tailwind on the way down there and we were booking!  We took our first stop at mile 11, which is at the peak of some hills.

It was a nice day.  I was a bit chilly to start with.  I just had on my YMX Yellowman shirt and my jacket.

However, I was sweaty at this point.   😀

We headed back out and zoomed on down to Saratoga.  Hills are easy with a tailwind!

We got to Saratoga around mile 21 or so with an average speed of 14.3 mph!  We ate at Elizabeth’s Table, which is a reincarnation of the Cupcake Lab, which moved.

Not so much focus on cupcakes, though.  They do focus on local products, which is neat. I got an Irish Breakfast burrito, which had egg, potato, cheese and corned beef hash!

Yum!  I had a biking appetite for this.  Early on in miles, I get really hungry.  When  the mileage gets up there, I lose my appetite.

After lunch, we walked around Saratoga and saw a sign for a free Bonsai show.  It was a display of the local Bonsai groups (which is actually pronounced “bone-say”.  I have always said it wrong).  It was neat!

This one was cool:

We got to vote on our favorites.  I chose this one:

I also liked this one:

After we went through this exhibit, it was cuppicake time!  We hit up Bettie’s. I got a Cosmopolitan.  It is a cranberry cupcake with lime buttercream.

Intense!  I don’t think I would get this one again, but it certainly was flavorful.  And full of artificial color goodness  :mrgreen:   This is a regular size cupcake, which seemed kind of small to me.  I think they make them smaller now.  John got a jumbo German Chocolate and lopped off a hunk for me to eat.  We also had a visit from my sisters and the nieces, who live down here.

Niece noshing on cupcake:

We had to leave shortly thereafter as we had about 2.5 hours of riding ahead of us.  We took a longer route home than to get there.  About a mile and a half out, I noticed the the strap to John’s bike bag was dangling and we pulled over to fix that.  Then I though I would check and see if mine was doing that and I noted that my bike bag was not on the back of my bike!!  I realized that I left it on the bench next to where the bikes were parked when I was getting my helmet and gloves on.  Cue panic!!!  I tried to turn around fast and ended up toppling right over.  At least it was onto someone’s lawn and not asphalt.  John was still upright, so he took off back to where we had parked the bikes.  I got myself righted around and I hit every. single. red. light.  Ugh!    I was almost there and John was on his way back to me with my bag.  Thank goodness.  If we had been anywhere else, that bag would have been long gone.  It had my camera, wallet, phone, keys – all that good stuff in there.  I would have been very sad if it was missing.  Phew.

Of course, all of that meant adding over 2 miles onto our trip, which was already long enough LOL!  Did I mention we were now heading into a headwind?  If not, consider it mentioned.  My legs were feeling quite good, though.  We just kept churning out the miles.   We stopped at mile 36 for snacks:

I had 2 dates.  These are the big medjool dates that are about 65 calories each.

It is a very pretty view on this part of the ride.

I took the lead to let John draft.  He is always much faster at the start of our ride and I am much faster at the end of the ride.  It was brutal into the wind, though, I have to say.  When we hit the downhill portion where we normally hit 30+ miles per hour, we only managed 23!  That was how hard the wind was blowing.  You can see that downhill in the map above.  We reach the river level at the bottom of that downhill.

Phew!

At about mile 45, we came back up that climb and knew we were getting close to finishing up.  My thigh was aching a fair amount.  I have to say that is really so frustrating to have that issue.  There is no solution for it, either.  Booo to permanent injuries.

Here is the top of the hill:

This is the bike route, but it is a very busy road and I don’t like to ride on it, so we just cross over it (we are at an intersection) and take a left at that light.

It takes us out of the way, but we avoid a hill and the traffic – even though it adds several miles to the trip!  Finally home!

Ride stats:

Miles:  51.8  (thank you Lori forgetting her bike bag… )

Average speed:  13.1 mph

Ride time:  3 hours 50 minutes

Calories burned:  1600

Immediately after we got inside, I made protein recovery drinks for us.  Almond milk, unflavored whey protein, chocolate syrup:

These were good!  John doesn’t do recovery drinks, but I had him drink one this time because of the length of the ride.

I also noted my leg:

Chain grease from when I fell over.  I look like a noob!  LOL

After long rides, we like to walk so as not to stiffen up, so we walked up the street for a couple slices of pizza and did a nice 1 mile recovery walk.  Check out my windburn!

I hope the spring winds settle down soon.  I mentioned to John about how much more I hated riding in wind more than doing hills and his answer was “Well, hills have to end, the wind doesn’t”  – so true!

Biking for pizza!

How was your weekend?  We had a nice weekend.  Still pretty cool around here, but we got on the bikes anyway  😀  On Saturday, the temps got to about 52, so we decided to leave much later in the day so it could get as warm as possible.  We chose to bike for for dinner instead.

It was not too windy, which was nice for a change! First ride where it wasn’t horribly windy this season.  We booked around for 15 miles before we even stopped.  We did a long loop around and ended up on the canal trail.

We hardly ever go over here, which is a shame because it is a nice path.  It’s just not very long and it doesn’t really lead to a destination. This is by the dam.  Logs used to be transported on this – and you do go past a log holding area on the path.

It’s very pretty.

My snack:

I really like this flavor, I have to say.

John is checking our map route here.  After this point is new riding for us.

Still pretty chilly, but I think I got a little sunburned on my face.  Possibly wind burn as the breeze started to pick up.

I am wearing 3 layers.

Around this bend is a new road.

Right after we got going again around this bend, we hit a big hill.  This next section was all new biking territory for us, so we didn’t know quite what to expect.  I had worked out in the morning thinking that we were only doing 30 miles and they were supposed to be fairly flat miles.  Ooops.  That was a tough hill, but we made it up.  Good thing I had the snack right before we started!

One thing I don’t necessarily care for when doing new routes is the not knowing.  For part of this ride, it felt like we were biking to nowhere (not true) and I started to feel some anxiety about that.  I think it was because we were on a road with a more narrow shoulder and I don’t feel as comfortable riding on those kind of roads.

We finally hit a road I knew and then I felt a lot better.  We ended up right by the YMCA – where I used to go before it got to be $50 a month (I pay $99 a year for my current gym).  We found a trail.

It’s a mile loop. Almost thought about biking it, but it wasn’t paved and we didn’t know much about it.  Not having mountain bikes and my tires are quite narrow (25 mm), so not chancing that.  We definitely want to come back and walk around this some time.

It was getting sort of near dinner time, so we decided to head on the way to our scheduled dinner stop.  At mile 26, we hit East End Eatery.  I started with a side salad.

Then meals came!  I got a pizza wrap with hot peppers inside.

John got a stromboli – doesn’t that look good?

Yum!  We haven’t eaten dinner out in a couple weeks.  John only ate half his stromboli.  I ate my whole wrap  :mrgreen:

Then it was 5 miles home with full tummies.

31  – almost 32 miles.  Nice ride!  I will be glad when the weather cooperates and I can get regular rides during the week and not just long rides on the weekend.

Sunday ended up too windy to ride. Booo…  It was sunny and 50, but gusts were into the 20s.  Too windy for me.  We walked for 3 miles and even that was not all that fun into the wind.

So, we did a lot of work around the house.  I got the rest of the windows cleaned (just squeaking those in this month), worked on a kitty barrier for my indoor seedlings:

and grocery shopping/meal idea planning for the week.

Looks so sunny out.  Pretty chilly, though.  Overnight low in the 20s! The weather is going to be warming up now. This week I will be riding!  I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of April.  Need to do my wrap up.

What’s Blooming and more riding!

Friday, thank you!  Although, I will be working this weekend as explained below.

I slept in until about 7, which is pretty good for me.  On Fridays no gym, so I like to let myself sleep later if I can.  So more of a relaxing morning.  I made up some protein waffles topped with apple topping for breakfast.

I only had 2 of the 4 waffle triangles as I hadn’t done any workout and didn’t need such a big breakfast.  I would eat the other 2 squares later.

Today was such a wonderful sunny day.  Some of the tulips are blooming now.

This is the Ballade tulip.  It is a lily flowering tulip.  Tres elegant!

Golden Parade:

And the Apricot Impression.

You know how the other day I said you needed to get rides in when you can during spring?  Well, the weather looks really rainy for the weekend, but today was 70s and sunny.  Which day sounds better for riding? Yep. Today!  I decided to use the flexibility of my job to ride today and do work on a rainy weekend day.  So, I worked hard for the morning, then I packed a lunch to ride to the lake.  I was quite hungry, so I drank a protein shake before leaving the house for some pre-ride fuel.  Then it was off to the lake!

Gorgeous ride there.  There was not much wind on the way there, which was a nice change (although that didn’t last).  I saw a fair number of bikers on the path, too.  They were the serious ones with uber bikes and snazzy outfits.  Everyone is very friendly.  I think when you see someone decked out on a bike, you tend to feel a kinship with them when you are also dressed that way.

Part of a swamp area:

This will be full of cattails and lily pads in the summer.

At mile 15.5, I arrived at the lake.

So gorgeous today.  It’s starting to get a little more active now preparing for the tourists.  I keep hearing a hollow thumping sound of the installation of new pier studs.  I found a quiet corner in what normally is full of flowers and had my lunch:

I was a happy lady.

After eating, I walked a bit and then got up by the lake and laid down on a bench for a while looking up at the sky.

It was so relaxing!  I texted John when I was ready to go so that he could meet me for froyo on the way home.  The froyo place is about 6 miles from home (or 9 miles from where I was), so I let him know when I was leaving so he could time it and meet me there.  He did great – he got there 1.5 minutes before I did!  Look at all the flavor choices for yogurt or soft serve:

We saw some new flavors on the board like sweet potato (????) My yogurt today?  Carrot cake topped with wet walnuts.

OMG!  This was awesome!  Made even tastier by having biked 24 miles on the day at this point.  I said to John that I was really, really glad to take the afternoon for this ride.  I knew if I didn’t get it in that I would be sitting there with a rainy day tomorrow regretting it.

By this time, the wind had really started to pick up, probably due to the weather change on the way.  It was a tough 6 miles home.

Nice ride for today!

I did get back to work for a little while when I got back, just to get in a full half day. That way I only have to do a half day tomorrow.

I was ready for dinner, too.  This is more of the pork from yesterday on top of a baker with BBQ sauce.

It is such a gorgeous evening, too.  I have my snack planned for later as well.   The remaining 2 waffle triangles from breakfast with blueberry sauce and ricotta cheese.

That sort of is a breakfast, so I guess I am bookending my day with brekkie 😀

Cupcake ride and a little history

I know you were all just waiting for the first cupcake ride of the year, right?  I know I was!  Let’s roll!

Saturday was actually nice temperature wise, but windy.  We decided to go for an afternoon snack right after lunch, so I started to stockpile some calories before going.

Here is our out and back route:

Some nice hills in there.  This was a long ride for early in the season and I didn’t get much in this week except 12 miles on Friday.  Not the ideal way to bump up mileage, but I was willing to pay the price.

We were ready to go!

This particular way we head down to Saratoga is not any of the bike paths, but just along the river and a nice quiet set of roads for 18 miles.  It’s farm land, too.

We live in a very historic area and there are a lot of markers all around.  Ready for a history lesson?

Here is the house of John Mcrae that stands from the 1700s:

His official signage:

John’s sister, Jane, plays an important part of history around here.  And that sign is incorrect (thank you 1938 Dept of Education). Jane was actually not killed by Indians, but by ‘friendly’ fire of Americans.  She was on her way to meet her fiance – a loyalist and being ‘escorted’ by Indians.  Her brother John and Jane’s fiance (David Jones) were friends, but then taking sides separated them between Patriots an Loyalists.  The sad thing is, David Jones never, ever married.  The whole story is quite fascinating.  My mother and I listened to a talk on Jane last fall.

Anyway, back to the ride.  There was quite a stiff wind on the way there.  It was a very tough ride.  Not to mention it is early spring and all the farms laid out the manure fertilizer. Pe-eww!  Plus, the wind was blowing stiff and practically jamming that smell up my nose.  Yuck.  We got through the toughest part of the hills and stopped at mile 11.5 for a break.

Plus some dried pineapple.  Good instant energy. Then it was continuing on. We slogged on through the wind.  Did I mention it was windy?  This spring has been so windy!  I was so ready to be off the bike at mile 23.5.  I actually was wondering how we were going to get all the way back!  With the wind, it took us exactly 2 hours to get there, which is much slower than usual.

I was also so ready for my cuppicake(s)!.  We made a food round up.  First stopped at Bettie’s to pick up the cupcakes.

It was bargain day. First we had $1 off coupon, and then we read Bettie’s facebook page, which states the phrase of the day, which if you are among the first 25 people to say it to them, you get a free mini cupcake.  They call it an ‘A’ cupcake, which I think stands for ‘appetizer’.

Chocolate peanut butter.  We wanted lattes to go with the cuppies, so we headed to Saratoga Coffee Traders and got drinks.  My spread:

It’s nice most places don’t seem to mind if you have other food with you.  I guess as long as you buy something there, it’s fine.  My other cupcake was fluffernutter!  It was a white cupcake with fluff filling and peanut butter icing.   OMG!  Yum!!!!!  You can almost see the edge of John’s cupcake, which was a coconut cream and super good.

After eating, we walked around to let the cupcakes settle and get the legs limbered up.  We walked through the park.

There are going to be baby ducklings soon and cuteness will abound.

Then it was time to start heading back.  It was a little stiff at first, but my legs loosened up some and we had a tailwind!  Yay!  That made riding much faster.  Plus, for whatever reason, I had my usual getting stronger as the ride goes on kind of thing. My sit bones were starting to hurt, though. A wee bit of chafing going on.  😳

I shed my outer jacket at mile 31 and took a picture of John.  He just wanted to be a goober for the picture.

Good thing I love him so much.  My leg was starting to bother me a bit at this  point.  It’s weird that numbness will return to my calf a bit where I used to have it. My knee has always remained a bit numb, but the calf got better.  On long rides, it comes back.  My back was actually doing pretty good.

Mile 35 and another pit stop for dates and pineapple.

We just came from the left there.  As we got closer to home, the wind started to shift a bit and was coming more from the side.  Booo.  At about mile 42, I was really wanting to be home.  Then about 2.5 miles from home, we got stopped by a train!

Not an Amtrak either, but a freight train.  One of those times where I kind of wanted to rest, but was a little unsure about actually stopping because I was afraid it would hurt to get started again.  Not much choice here, though.  :mrgreen:

Made it home. Even up the last 1/2 mile climb, which is a bear after 46.5 miles.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but using my granny gear I did.

Phew!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  47.25

Average speed 12.6 mph

Top speed 33.2 mph

Calories burned: 1400 (probably closer to 1600, but that is the general computer tally).

Interesting note, it took us 2 hours to get down there and 1 hour and 45 minutes to get back. That’s the difference wind makes.

I got inside and fueled up right away with a protein drink of almond milk, unsweetened whey protein, strawberries and cinnamon.

Not hungry, but I needed the calories.  I really could not get myself to eat much after the ride, but then we decided to walk up the street for a cone in the evening.  The walk was good active recovery to help work on the legs and keep them from being too stiff.

My cone? Cake batter with sprinkles!  I couldn’t quite finish all of it, but I did some serious damage to it  :mrgreen:

I slept 8.5 hours Saturday night, too.  I was zonked!

Bikes and bird nests

A long ride on tap for Saturday!  I had gone and did a strength workout in the morning as per usual.  The last B workout of stage 1 (which I will recap tomorrow).

It was quite windy, but 50 degrees, and we couldn’t wait to get out.  We started off with sun and several layers to stay warm.  Here is part of the path:

John shed a layer after about 5 miles, but I kept mine on and thought I would shed a layer at mile 10.

After we got to mile 10, just as we were getting ready to pass an older couple walking on the path, John yells to me “Do you want to take your clothes off now?”  😳 😳

It was windy and a hard ride on the way there.  Who was it that decided to do a lifting workout before riding?  Oh yes, that was me.  I thought for sure I was  going to have to walk up the hill we call The B*tch, but I actually made it with some grunting and yelling “come ON!!”

Down the other side for about 2 miles.

Hills never look as steep in photos. Of course, I took off my jacket here before going down and then I was freezing since I was so sweaty.  Going downhill at 20 miles per hour in a headwind and sweaty = very cold!

We reached the lake and it was gorgeous!

It was even windier here, which is always is at the lake.

A few buds on the trees, but still pretty drab around here.  John and I stopped at 2 places for our snack. First up was the Lake George Baking Company

We picked up a couple pastries for each of us and then hit up Cafe Vero for lattes.

First pastry – an almond horn.

I also got a sfogliatelle, which is a shell shaped pastry filled with an orange ricotta cheese mixture – which was fantastic with the latte!

So good.  Burned about 500 calories on the way there and ate 500 for my snack.  See how life balances out?  😀

I felt great on the way home.  Part of that was not riding into a head wind, but  my legs got rested and had a carb boost.  Powered by pastry!  We didn’t even stop on the way home.  I just felt stronger and stronger as we kept going.  Or maybe it was just a biker’s high? Yay!

I am almost ready for our Saratoga rides.

31.5 miles!  Guess I should do strength training before every long ride.  Okay, maybe not… Definitely not.  I will have to adjust my lifting schedule soon.

On Sunday, my family got together for dinner.  Just a few quick pictures.  I made up some macaroon bird’s nests with little malted milk eggs to bring.

Aren’t they cute?

Here is my dinner plate:

Delicious ham, with twice baked mashed potatoes (awesome!) done by my mom.  My sister brought along the asparagus with homemade Hollandaise sauce.   I had seconds of ham and potatoes.

I was a bottomless pit today.  I also ate too much candy.  There were M&Ms a plenty, which I ate more than my share of.  I haven’t had this many sweets in about 6 weeks.

More sweets?  Yes please:

John made a blueberry cobbler.  I wasn’t full even after eating this, but I really just needed to stop eating beacuse I don’t think I will ever feel full. Then it was game time.  Mostly made up games with the nieces.  Don’t you love games like that where the rules are made up as the game goes along??

Now settling in to watch Paris Roubaix.  Can the weekend be over already?

Biking Bonanza

It was the weekend of biking! What a great winter weather weekend.  The calender says winter, but the temps say spring!  I pulled a 3 fer with the rides this weekend.

For St. Patty’s Day, John made up some Irish Soda Bread.  Last minute decision was to soak the raisins in bourbon and it was a very good idea indeed.  This was a beautiful loaf!

Must have portion control on this for sure.

It was such a nice day, definitely raring to go biking.  John was still recovering from a cold (it seems he has been sick since we got back from Disney), so I went out on my own and met him out for a snack.  I biked along the path.  Still looks like winter:

Lots of people on the path today.  I hit my turnaround point (this is an overpass, hence the fence).

Then biked downtown.  It was really, really crowded!  Not only was it St. Patty’s Day, so the bars were open and busy, but the state high school basketballs finals (or whatever) were in town.  Lots and lots of traffic and people.  I met John at Coffee Planet and they had shamrock sugar cookies!

The iced sugar cookie has to be one of my favorite cookies.  Simple and perfect.  I decided I couldn’t handle the people and traffic on the way home, so I decided to chance the bike path being really soggy.  I was surprised that it was quite ride-able, though!

Not spring yet, though.  It was so nice to get outside and riding again!

That was a nice 17 mile ride.  I had also done my lifting workout in the morning, so my thigh was pretty achy last night.

We were thinking it was going to be in the  40s when we got up and could bike to bagels, so we got all bundled up and then happened to check the weather and it was 32 degrees.  Ooops, a bit too cold, even for me.  But, with temps rising fast for the day, we decided on a morning ride after breakfast and grocery shopping.  John was feeling well enough to ride, too. We headed south in the morning into a fair headwind.  One of those times when you really notice the effects of drafting.  We swapped the lead every couple of miles.  After 8 miles, we hit our turn around point.  It was a beautiful day and getting a little warmer all the time.

My buddy for the day.

We cruised on home with a good tailwind.  We took a big steep hill at the end, which I have decided is my mission to work on this summer.  I will bike 5 miles out of my way to avoid this hill, so it is something I am challenging myself with to do hill repeats on by the end of summer (eek).

That was a 16.5 mile morning ride.

Ready for another one?  We went back out in the afternoon for…. wait for it….

The frozen yogurt is back at our ice cream place!  Yay!  I had a pistachio flavor.  It was in the upper 60s and so sunny.  I was pretty sweaty, actually. It felt really nice to sit outside and everyone else had that idea, too.

The line goes all the way back past the bush.  You know what I love?  When the line is that long and then the person gets up to the window and *still* doesn’t know what they want  🙄

We headed back home into the wind, but it seemed less than this morning.  I do have some wind chap on my cheeks and lips, though.  Total miles for the day?

Pretty darn close to 29.  I have the distance legs for sure, but not quite the hill legs, yet.   46 miles on the weekend.  For halfway through March – that is really fantastic!

Pixie can’t go outside, but she is enjoying all the sun:

I need to be doing that tomorrow.  Definitely a rest day!  I am roasting up some parsnips and sweet potatoes and we will be grilling out tonight in the gorgeous weather.

Question:  How the weather in your neck of the woods?

Lifting and bowling and biking, oh my!

What a great weekend!  We managed to pack a lot in – including this!

I started off on Saturday with the last 28 Day Shapeover workout!

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Incline Dumbbell Press

Flat Fly

Incline Pushups

 3 set of 15 with 15# DBs

3 set of 15 at with 10# DBs

3 sets of 15

 Chest
Front Lat Pulldown

Low Cable Row

Dumbbell Pullover

 3 sets of 15 at 40#

3 sets of 15 at 30#

3 sets of 15 with 15# DB

 Back
Crunches

Reverse Crunches
Side Jackknife

 3 sets of 15

3 sets of 15
3 sets of 15

 Core

Another tough workout.  The pushups were so hard.  I had to make them all incline pushups since they were the 3rd in a giant set.  I normally do straight up pushups, so that gives me some work to do. Anyway, the shapeover is all finished. I’ll talk a bit more about the wrap up of this program on Monday and my thoughts on it.

John and I went out for lunch and then some bowling!  That was one of my goals this month.  I realize that we had not been bowling at least since I hurt my back  – and that was almost 2 years ago. Eeek!

We do own our own shoes and balls.  Mine is the pink one.

My bowling form really is horrible.  I know it, but whatever 😀

John’s is good.

Ooops:

First game.  Me, not so great.  John had one of his best games.  Go figure!

Second game – I did much better.  Check out the strikes!

At least I was consistent:  Strike/whiff/strike/whiff.  My arm was tired after 2 games.

Saturday was kind of cold in the 30s, but Sunday warmed up to about 55 degrees.  If it is over 50, I am on the bike!  A full month earlier than last year.  I got to wear my new YMX Yellowman long sleeve jersey that I won from Shelley a few months ago:

Love!!!  I need to get a better pic of this.  It’s actually quite … ahem … figure enhancing.

First ride of the season!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!!  We took the long way to downtown GF, swinging by my parents’ house to say hi to my dad on our way by.  Destination? Chocolate Mill for some coffee!

7 miles there.  My legs felt great! Even on the small hills.  All that leg work I have done the last month really helped.  The wind was pretty stiff on the way home, though.  I will say that.  The last 3 miles were tough.  I was just so happy to be on the bike again!  It felt awesome!  Yeah, I can ride the bike on the trainer, but there is just nothing like being on it outside.

Bike computer set to zero and ready to go for the 2012.  First ride: 15 miles!

Yay!  Can you tell I am happy?  😳 The weather looks good this week to sneak in some more rides, hopefully.  Got build up for the 40 mile cuppicake rides.

More biking and holiday decorating.

What a nice relaxing weekend!  We did manage to do a lot, though.  How about a flash recap:

Paying for John’s football meal:

Nice weather on Saturday, warm enough to get out the bikes again!  Yippee!

Yep, still some snow, but the roads are clear.

We headed to Glens Falls and I hit up the Shirt Factory Holiday Open House.

I ordered a new bowl from the potter that is there.  Someone broke my favorite bowl.  I won’t name any names, but it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Pixie.

I like the Shirt Factory.  A violin maker moved in:

No guitars, though  😀

We then biked to buy some Christmas lights.  This was false advertising:

I don’t know where they grow gold Christmas trees.  Maybe in the land of the 1%  🙄

Bicycle and Christmas lights! We each had one on our packs.

 

LED lights and saving gas by biking.  I should change my last name to Green.

We are getting desperate here people.  We resorted to afternoon lattes here:

Actually, the latte was about on par with Starbucks, but much cheaper.  The “baristas” were scary, though.  I asked if they had decaf lattes and they said “No, it’s espresso.”   😯

This weekend, we also hung up the Christmas lights and did up the tree:

Sunday brought more biking, too!

There was a lot of traffic and this ride was a little annoying in that regard.  We stopped in at Sweetie Pie’s to make this a cupcake ride!

I had a butter pecan cupcake:

It was quite good.  The ride was only 17 miles round trip, but I was a little tired from 2 days of biking in a row.  It’s easy to lose the bike legs when you aren’t riding regularly.  I think this was probably the last ride of the season.

There was also a beautiful sunset:

The weekend went by way too fast!  Not much done in the way of Christmas shopping (never do Black Friday), but I got in a lot of relaxing and some unexpected riding with about 33 miles over the course of 2 days!

Biking season wrap up

Another super nice weekend! There are those times when life is just really good, you know?  This is one of those times  😀

I did, however, have to pay for John’s football meal from week 11.  He decided on Indian food, so we headed down on Saturday to Saratoga to hit up Little India:

I like this place, so I wasn’t complaining all that much!

The happy winner:

We split an order of Pashwari naan, which had coconut, raisins and ground nuts inside.

Here is the inside.  So good!

My entree was paneer makhni, which is cheese cubes (paneer) in a sort of tomato sauce, but it isn’t really a tomato sauce like Italian tomato sauce.  I know that doesn’t make sense if you haven’t eaten Indian food, but it is sooooo good.

John chose a vegetable korma.  Loads of different veggies with potato and paneer in a korma sauce, which is like a ground nut sauce.

We also had a bowl of basmati rice to share.  This meal was delicious!  I wish there were Indian places closer to us, but maybe that is a good thing.

I love how they serve candied fennel seeds to aid digestion:

They are kind of like crunchy Good N Plenties!

Sunday was the day for biking and working outside. It was in the upper 50s and likely the last ride of the season! (boooo…..).  I was happy to get out.  I got the garden ready for winter:

I leave some stuff up for winter interest.

Then it was biking time!

We headed to South Glens Falls for the holiday parade:

This is a really long parade.  Bagpipers:

Dancers:

 

Our next car:

The kazoo band:

Various marching bands:

We didn’t stay for the whole parade because it is really long.  We then headed over to Chocolate Mill for a coffee and a snack!

This was a vanilla malt cookie and a walnut sandy (shortbread).

We headed out home on the bike path.  A little wistful thinking the season is coming to an end.

This is how many miles I put on the bike since we got them outside this spring:

😯 😯   2245 miles!! That is a lot of riding.  Happy riding, other than the million flat tires we had this year.  2011 season was the year of the flat tire.  I need to try to figure out how many flats we had. We are in the double digits.

Anyway, good season!

Temps are now in the 40s, so that probably was the last ride.

Shoes and a nibbling weekend.

A little of this and a little of that this fall weekend. The bittersweet in the neighbor’s bushes are now colored up and shows up now that leaves have dropped:

My foot is feeling better and better every day.  I think it will feel pretty much normal by Monday or Tuesday. My wrist will take longer, but not unexpected there as I have been bothered for a while with that.

What to do on a Saturday when you aren’t doing a long ride?  Go shopping, of course!  We hit the outlet malls.  I only wanted to get 1 thing, which was an 7.5 x 4 loaf pan.  Anything else was bonus, and what a bonus I found!

Shoes!

I got a new pair of the most comfie shoes.  These are for walking.  No laces and on sale at Easy Spirit for $29.

Then super sale on these shoes, which I loved!

This pair was $19!  Leather shoes.  I was a happy camper.  Note to self – trying on shoes with a sprained foot is not really the best idea. 

I also saw a sign for this:

They didn’t look like any waffles I would be having for breakfast.  I wonder how I would make my waffles designer or fashionable…

The weekend also involved too much food!  One of those weekends.

I really need to get that snacking back under control. Candy corn has been on sale and I bought too much!  😯  This really is not the time of year to be letting this slide.  There’s too much to be sliding in!

We went on a bike ride on Sunday.  My foot wasn’t bothered at all by biking, so yay on that! Too bad I can’t just switch back to all biking (thanks to the weather), but of course, that is what is bothering my wrist.

It was a windy ride. Check out the flags:

We stopped here for our ride:

Hmmm…. 12 miles of biking does not really deserve a donut.  That was kind of the weekend in a nutshell.  Refer back to Nibbler up above.  Maintenance is not all sunshine and lollipops.  Sometimes it pisses me off, which is what it is doing right now.

I did manage to make a roasted red pepper and tomato soup base for this week, to be customized like this with some cooked brown rice and lentils.

I will hopefully get this posted this week.

I have another really busy week coming up.  Two more tutoring sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, and that will be done – thank you!  Wonder how long before I get my first learner.

I have my fingers crossed to win football picks this week.  It is a nail biter.  We are down to 1 game.

Question: What was a highlight of your weekend?