April 19, 2007

  • Wednesday, May 18

    I went home for lunch to get a little riding in and to see little Mimi who seemed suprised to see me and irritated that I interrupted her nap. Can't a girl get some sleep?? Mr. Poe's Garden was looking especially beautiful in the noonday sun.

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    Pity he so rarely gets to enjoy it because he's always working :( Some of the calla lillies from the garden have found their way to our dining room. Very pretty:

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    After work I headed over to class. I was going to do that Mansell hill today if it took all night. I looked at the map and finally concluded that best way to get to the hill was to go up to McLaren park and go down the hill first. Because every other approach involved either a lot of freeway exchanges or a lot of crackheads. So I took Howard south of market and then Harrison into the Mission. This beautiful mural is on the wall of a shool at Ceasar Chavez and Harrison:

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    I took Alabama up over Bernal hill, which required my granny(easiest) gear and garnered stupified glares from drivers who couldn't believe you could bike up that hill. Here's the view looking south from the top:

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    Then I went to Holly Park and then Saint Mary's Park and then over 280 and up Cambridge into McLaren Park. That last block of Cambridge required the second use of my granny gear for the day. Steep! At the top I went down Mansell which made me nervous because although it has a marked bike lane, I don't think a lot of bikes actually use it and I was worried about cars running stop signs and into me. But I made it down to San Bruno and then turned around and came up the other side, which required my third use of my granny gear for the day. The hill going up mansell is awesome. Block long steps of steepness that level off for the cross street and then go up again. It was totally worth all the work it had taken to get there. At the top, I stopped at my favorite park and took a few pics:

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    And then headed out the park through the Persia exit. Here's an unusual view of downtown taken from the park:

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    I went down Persia which runs into Ocean and then over to city college for my class. We got out a little early and I headed home where my wonderful husband had made me ribwich and oven fries with salad for dinner. AND he went to the grocery store for me that night. How did I get so lucky? I rode 36.5 miles for the day which wasn't a lot of mileage in the big scheme of things but was a whole lot of climbing so I feel like I definitely got my training in.