Vacation - Part VI

August 10th -

Yesterday I found out about the bike rides. Ben is a biker who plans to do bike rides every day this week. I was sitting near him and his family at dinner and mentioned I would like to go, but didn't have a bike here. His wife, Erica, told me I could use her bike since she was working with the children's program today and wouldn't be riding.

There were six of us who showed up for the ride this morning. Everyone but me was an avid bike rider, so I knew I couldn't keep up with them. Ben took pity on me and sent the other four off on an 8-10 mile ride while he and I headed out for a 3 mile ride. When we finished the 3 miles, we decided to go around the loop again. Part way around we went into the state park thinking there was a short cut back to the road. There wasn't. So we rode back out the way we came and continued the ride. As we neared the end of the ride, we met up with the other four riders. They had ridden the 8 mile route and were just finishing up too. Ben had an odometer on his bike and it turned out that the two of us had gone 7 miles. I felt really good about that since I haven't ridden more than 2 miles in the last 9 months or so. I love bike riding and wish it wasn't so hot in Texas in the summer. I plan to ride more this fall.

Liz got off work at 2:30 and we drove up the coast to Freeport, Maine, and went to the LL Bean store. I just wanted to see it after all these years of looking a their catalogs. I bought a thermos bottle there. On the way back we stopped in Portland and ate dinner at one of Liz's favorite restaurants overlooking the water at a place where the ferry boats pick up passengers to take them to the various islands. We lingered over the meal and had a good amount of time to chat. Then back to Ferry Beach where we went to a get together for staff women who are over 50. Kinf of like the crone get togethers we had a Holden when I was there.