Day Off. South Lake Tahoe, CA
So you know something's off in your life when sleeping in and taking it easy means waking up at 10am. The past two day's off have been epic in their enjoyment and today was no different. It started with the prettiest morning sunshine greeting us as we stepped outside. Walked over to the softball field and watched a few innings to start the day. Man that was awesome. Nothing like seeing a bunch of adults get overexcited about sports.
A crew headed over to this local organic food joint to grab breakfast where i was assured that my breakfast burrito was prepared with only free range eggs. Yes, i could taste the cageless quality and tender loving care afforded these chickens, probably by a happily married overall wearing farmer named Henry MacIntyre, but ordering five of them was not too conducive to the price. As in having 3 extra eggs cost 4.50 when the entire burrito costs 7 was a little bit disconcerting.
One smoothie and several conversations with the locals later, Larry, Meryl, Kelly, Julie and I were on our way to Shhh.... "Secret Beach" which was coincidentally located on San Francisco St. Though don't tell anyone i told you that. It was super nice and sandy. Does anyone else love the feeling of grabbing a fistful of sand and having grains flow through slowly? Because its easily a several hours long activity for me whenever i beach it up. Just wanted to do a normality check. Hopefully i passed. Anyway, the water was a great temp and super shallow. You could walk in for half a mile and still not be over your head.
When i say that i did nothing today, i mean it in absolutely the best way. If you had rolled around in the sand for oh say six hours you might begin to understand the glory that was this afternoon. We brought down a New York Times to bask our worldly minds in and were later joined by Jenny, Noah, Kate, Marissa, Paige, and Ryan Farr which only added to the fun. Read an interesting article about how troubled the Post Office is at being expected to turn profit like a private business while still having the ridiculous constraints of a bureaucracy. Did you know... there are 2,000 out of 34,000 total post offices that serve less than 100 people each! (And im pretty sure that about half of those have been along our route)Larry, Doug and I grabbed monstrous burgers at the Bear Beach Cafe, where the manager was kind enough to make one burger free of charge. The service was very hospitable and sincere and they definitely deserve the business of anyone visiting Tahoe in the future. Also, you once again know something's up when a half pound burger and fries fails to fill you up, let alone leaves you hungry.
We topped off the night with some milkshakes from a local joint served by an interesting girl. Guess what her name was. No really try. You wont even believe. You sure? Well it was "Honey". No joke. The two ids she showed us definitely confirmed it. And yes i do take pride in having resisted the temptation to make a lame joke about her name in front of her. She was very adamant in thinking that we wouldn't believe it which was kind of amusing. Though I'm still trying to understand my inordinate happiness at having simply met someone named "Honey".
Noah had made a big point of using tonight's calm to really allow us to reflect properly on what we've accomplished so far, and what we are seeking to get out of these last few days. The whole group walked out to Secret Beach, the last part of which was down with our eyes closed and our hands on our shoulders. As if we weren't cultish enough already.Yea, it gets mushy here. We laid down in a gorgeous field staring at the starry sky in silence and it was nice to have that moment to breathe in which everything was so still and the pressures of constant peddling were not upon us. Dan M, Lara, Coop and I each shared a short story or poem to the group that we found to be relevant to this journey which everyone unanimously enjoyed. The calm stillness was soothing, though i think that understanding the magnitude of what we've accomplished will for each of us take far longer than an hour in a field.
And SURPRISE! Guess who's back! None other than our marvelous Miranda. I had just stumbled outside in the morning when a car pulled up and she began walking towards us from it. It was one of the best feelings of shock on this whole trip and we all had a huge hug session which was great. She looked awesome and had the prettiest green dress on(oh to have a new wardrobe...). Her spirits were of course through the roof and she was her normal super cheery self. She only needs to wear her shoulder sling occasionally and otherwise looks totally normal. Even better news is that she'll be staying with us until San Francisco. She's been so strong to have gone these two weeks alone and its such a pleasure to be a whole group again and not have to keep saying "32, eh, 31 riders"
Lake Tahoe was gorgeous, but seeing Miranda walk towards us was by far the prettiest sight all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment