It's a beautiful day.

In spite of left over legs' pain from the last two hikes, we pushed ourselves to ride in our neighborhood.  My left knee was already hurting at the beginning.  So I started slowly.

It was beautiful afternoon, even the plum flower were blooming in our garden.

 




The pain eased down by bicycling for a while, so we decided to ride more.

A little over one hour, 7.8 miles, our longest ride this year.
I want to go on a bike trip soon.  Where will be good I wonder...

 

Napa Valley Vine Trail

Finally I found the trail on which we don't need to worry about speedy cars too much for our bicycling; we drove up to Napa yesterday.   When we left our home, the temperature was going up higher and higher.  But the trail riding was quite comfortable with pretty strong wind blowing.

We started biking from Park and Ride at Redwood Ave, the vine trail is just over there.

 We started riding here towards Yountville.

The Napa Valley Vine Trail from here to Yountville has interesting parts.
Nice straight part.

  
Curvy and bumpy part.

Quite a narrow bridge for me, but it was OK yesterday because no opposite direction cyclist came.)

Double bridge, we love them.

Beautiful single bridge.

But the trail was cut by local roads here and there, so you have to watch out. Luckily an experienced looking cyclist came after us, and we could just follow him at the first crossing road.

Gradually we got used to it.

There is a long crossing.

 There is a nice bench and an outhouse.  "Honey! I need to stop here!"

 This is the Yountville fire station.  Our goal will come soon.

Yes, we reached it.  There is a parking lot. 

 And we U-turned to go back.  (Next time we will figure out how to go farther to get some yummy food. )

 Two cyclists passed us, so I enjoyed following for a while.  They were fast.

 We haven't ridden more than 10 miles for a long time, so we were pleased.


Next day today we noticed our fatigue in the morning.  We will take it easy tomorrow.  And will have another fun ride soon.

Half Moon Bay Coastside Trail

To escape from another heat wave, we left in the morning for Half Moon Bay today.  
When we reached Venice Beach, it was foggy on the sea, on the hills.  We put thin jackets on.

From the parking lot we rode to the South first, and the trail was a very nice beginning so we had fun.
Then a challenging bumpy trail started, but I rode well for a while, 

and I got tired and gave up. 

We turned around and faced to the North. 

Going North was up slope, especially after passing Venice Beach.
We enjoyed all kinds of scenery along the trail.

We ate fish dishes at the Sushi Main Street for our lunch afterwards, which was tasty.  We walked on the street and bought fish and vegetable Sandwich at Fish 'n' Frites for our dinner. And picked some sweets at Moonside Bakery And Cafe.

And we came back happily.

My butt hurts, my hip joints hurt, and my small back hurts now.

So far so good the Ice cream BF

My stomach has never bulged out after meals.  Finally the habit faded away.  I still need to shave off the extra fat here and there from my body somehow.
The weight slightly went down, but it's not big change yet.  So I can't be pleased yet.
But pedaling was a little easier than before.

Recent Breakfast:  Found low sodium vegetable juice!  I take 8 fl.oz of this juice.

 Plus two oranges from our garden squeezed to mix together.

And finish with small cup of coffee and 2 oz vanilla ice cream.

I've never thought that ice cream would be a meal, but I'm full enough and I can work to finish my morning chores.

 

Always clamed in our house on weekend.

It's a sunny and bright gorgeous day on Sunday.  I feel like going somewhere to ride, but not.

Just went riding on our community roads. 
"Oh?! Is that Kanzan cherry tree blossom?"  I stopped my bike, and looked so enviously.😲  

Our small Kanzan tree doesn't have any flowers blooming yet.😣

Anyway we finished a 60 minute ride at relatively slow speed.  Because while I was riding, the back of my right calf got slightly crampy.  When I tried to sit on a chair at home, I noticed that my neck got really stiff.  Now I'm sitting in front of computer, my feet and ankles started getting achy.

But we did it today. That's what counts.

Even over 60 minutes riding got hard?!

Maybe the temperature got too warm or the wind was blowing too much pushing feathery seeds flying in the air?  Or my itchy eyes and nose dragged me down?

Today's 60 minute ride was awfully exhausting.  Afterwards pains came out all over my body.  Shoulders, arms, thighs and back.... 😭

Riding in late afternoon is not good for us.  
So many things I wanted to finish today, and riding was at the end. 
Morning ride might be better, I wonder.😔
 
Warm weather is nice, but hay fever season is not welcome!😱

Luckily it will rain tomorrow.  Hope all the pollen will be washed away.

Spring came!

Even though in the morning and at night are still chilly, the day time temperature went up quite high nowadays.

Last Monday on the way to walk around our community with my friend, I took a picture of this beautiful flowering tree, it might be crabapple or crepe murtle.

This afternoon the temperature went up to 80F.  And when we started riding, the wind started blowing. We both were so tired to pedal, and we decided to give up in 45 minutes, but then we both felt better later, continued to finish an over 60 minute ride.

"My saddle got loose", "What!!?"

As usual we started cycling on our residential road, shortly after he told me that his saddle was moving right and left.  So he stopped and tightened the quick release clamp.

When we finished over 60 minutes ride, he noticed the edge of his pedal was broken.  He fixed a different part of the pedal edge long time ago, now another part is broken too.
I said, "Your bicycle was the almost same price as mine, but yours is so crummy!"😁

Luckily a mail from REI has a discount coupon, I hope he will find what he needs for his bicycle to repair tomorrow.😏

Blue sky came out, let's go now!

It was cloudy this morning, and rain started in no time.  Shucks!
Then around Noon, luckily the blue sky and sunlight came out!

So we rode our riding course on residential roads.

Somebody has a beautifully blooming Magnolia.

 And there is a blooming plum tree on the other side.

Because everybody got the same thought, there were quite a number of cars on the road.  Some drivers seemed annoyed at us. One of them sped up to squeeze into the corner in front of me😱, and the other driver was passing by very close to me threateningly.😱
I got mad about it in my mind, and started chasing the car full speed😡.  Luckily grandmother cyclist couldn't speed up too fast, so I was OK.  Max. speed 19.1mph.  But I shouldn't have gotten mad and done such a thing, I thought later😨.

On the way we got some dripping rain for a very short time, but we came back dry from over 60 minutes ride.

Exhausted as usual, but happy we were.

Bike/Walk Trail near Prince Park.

At last we drove out for biking.  Parked at the Prince Park parking lot in Petaluma the same as two years ago when we came the first time in July.  So the view was quite different from the last time.

The plum tree flowers were blooming along the park, standing up to the blue sky so beautifully.

The wind was chilly but sunlight was nice and warm.  People were walking by with their dogs and young men were running on the bike/walk trail comfortably.

I still couldn't do 90 degree sharp turns but I could ride over the wooden bridge of which I was scared and couldn't ride the last time.  It was nice to know what I couldn't do yet biking in a different place.  Yes, it was very nice to see views different from our neighborhood too.  

We managed to bike a little over 60 minutes, even though we only biked 7.7 miles, not 10 miles like the last time, we were satisfied with today's riding.

March will start tomorrow.  Cycling time will finally come soon. 

'Take it easy' is the key of success

I didn't mean the success is real success.  I mean just a good result.
After we did a 60 minute Ride and Walk on one day after another day, we both really got tired with pain, so we couldn't ride or walk yesterday.  We were going to do just light gardening, but our garden was a handful to care for after heavy rain.  We ended up getting another pain from the gardening.  Oh, my goodness.
Luckily the exercise before going to bed which I planned to do was a good idea to help us sleep well.

Unfortunately our fatigue was dragging us down today, but the garden was waiting for us, so we worked again, and got tired again.

But!  But I didn't give up again.  Maybe overeating brings us our  energy at least.  We went out for a ride.
The temperature was chilly, but we continued with whining.

An unusual thing happened.  One resident who lives along our riding course called us to stop, because he wanted to introduce himself.
We did, then he admired us always biking together, not husband riding away to abandon his wife.  Yeah, if he did, I will be somewhere without telling him, no, I didn't tell it to him.
He showed their beautiful garden and introduced his wife who pruned their fruit trees beautifully.
That was nice to meet new people who are living near by.
And we had a nice break.
 
When we left their house, it was colder outside, but I insisted to ride and finish over 60 minutes again.  
My forehead got icy cold as if I ate shaved ice.
But we rode 63 minutes.
Surprisingly the pain from the walking eased up. 

The movie motivated us

So we paid Amazon to watch the movie the first time.

We liked it very much.  I got interested in what they ate during the long distance biking and also, of  course, their mental attitudes.

Watching somebody riding better than us was fun and fascinating.

The end of the film said, 

This silent voice hypnotized me.

Next morning was unexpectedly sunny, so we got excited and went out after 30 minutes TV exercise warm up.

We enjoyed flowers, tree flowers, happy singing birds, and clean air refreshed by the last rain.  Everything was perfect...

until sudden pouring rain!!!  
And it was getting harder and harder.  Just 15 minutes to reach my goal of a 60 minute ride.
So we continued riding miserably, especially me without wearing a jacket,  because it was nice and sunny before.

Then, finally we reached 60 minutes, and came back!!
Feels GOOD.  Thank goodness.