Got dreams, unfadeable visions. Got dreams to hold onto. I've got power dreams, to live by. Big, bright, happy dreams with calypso melodies dancing across elaborate partially shaded jungle forest backgrounds, fun dreams twice the size of Texas delivering ten thousand twisters per rapid eye movement. Magnetic dreams that draw all good people towards them, even the worst good folks, fiery, unashamed, modular shareware dreams used to save dying robots in remote galaxies. Toots feels me, inspires me with 400-watts of sub-woofin' amplification.
Riding the 32nd Annual Tour of Napa Valley Sunday with Quintan & my pops this Sunday, 100-miles, 5000' of climbing, it's going to be killer. Starts & ends in Yountville, yum. Shana may meet me there after for some Bistro Jeanty or Ad Hoc. Now my mouth is watering.
Rode the Tour de Max out of Palo Alto last Sunday, also with Quintan & my pops, 75-miles, 7,000' of climbing. Quintan demonstrated extreme team sportmanship by letting me wear his only gloves because I had forgotten mine and am prone to numb hands. He rode gloveless, and both he and my pops took turns letting me draft them such that I felt super-stoked with the teaam feeling of the whole deal, brotherly love, agape, less pain by any other name. Truly surreal climb from the beach at Highway One up Tunitas Creek Road to Skyline. Tunitas Creek Road is a redwood butterfly paradise road frought with potholes that seems like it won't ever end. I had conversations with three cyclists and two butterlies on the way up the steeper section of the creek edge, which almost took my mind off the agony & visions of death. It's a tough 10-miles, but it does end, after which you get to descend the giant laughing devil head of a road know as King's Mountain Road. My dad had said "After King's Mountain Road it's all over but the cheering", his exact words, so I pushed it fierce down that lucipher asphalt, passed a shiny silver BMW that was stuck behind some other cyclists, passed everybody in a skeletal final exertion fit verging on convulsions. We then arrived at the bottom of Sand Hill, and it turned out that it was not actually all over but the cheering. We still had to ride from Woodside to Palo Alto. Many hot, tortured miles ensued, and my face wore that deeply repulsive mask of mega-pain, mainly lower back, right on into the finish line. They had no massage tent at the end, so my poor pops had to hit my back himself, which helped much, thanks Pops. I had forgotten the pain and was feeling like King Dick within about an hour.
I then promptly drove to San Jose to visit my good old friend Jennifer. Our college highlights include seeing AC/DC (what a show) and Neil Young (1991) at the Cow Palace, and I once got a speeding ticket driving her light blue Colt 100-miles an hour coming into Eureka. Her mom had laid out an amazing assortment of snacks, including two kinds of chips with two kinds of dip (carefully covered with Seran wrap), Reese's peanut butter cups, Cheetos, pretzels, and four kinds of cookies, too much. I also availed myself of a 20-oz grape soda and a slightly effervescent mango smoothee. What a sweet mom Jennifer has, although she did not come downstairs to say hi, and what a relaxing pad, complete with a sunken living room covered in orange shag carpet and knick-knacks from the 1970s, including those cool little metal sea gulls on pieces of drift wood that I always liked so much as a kid. We had a great visit, real nice in the San Jose afternoon heat, letting those post-ride endorphins do their shadow thang.
2 comments:
best of luck on the ride today! You are probably already 1/2 way done by now, go team go! great job.
You're sweet. I felt your lucky wishes all over as I flew down Deer Park Road, the best kind of wishes a rider could hope for. Can barely wait to take you there, do some riding, maybe get a swim in, and then share some over-the-top French country cooking.
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