Rusty and I head to Paris tomorrow. I fly out of Spokane first thing in the morning, meeting him in Detroit tomorrow evening. We'll then take an overnight flight from Detroit to Paris, putting us in Paris around mid-day Wednesday. We'll head back March 3rd, which should give us a decent amount of time to explore. It will be very interesting to hear how Ted's solo week with Hitcher goes! I plan to take lots of pictures, so I'll post thme when I get home.

Riding Outdoors and France-bound

The weather has finally turned up, allowing us to get outside for some good rides. Saturday saw 6 of us doing an 80 mile loop from Pullman, down Wawawai grade, and back up the Lewiston grade to Pullman. See photos from that ride below.

Today we got out for 3 hours. It was sunny with blue skies, and I was actually warm on the bike. What a novelty!


Me in my new Bob's Bicycles team kit.


Left to right, front to back: Kris Stanton, Ben Rhodes, Adam Southerland, and Stephen Howard.


A self-portrait of Ted.


Here we have Ben Rhodes, Kris Stanton, Stephen Howard, Adam Southerland, and me.


The river was completely flat.

In other news, Rusty and I are heading to Paris next week. He'll get his official schedule for March in two days, so then we'll know exactly when we're going, and for how long. Most likely, we'll be leaving on the 25th or 26th and coming back in the first couple days of March. It won't be a long trip, but we plan to cram as much in as possible. I have emails out to two of my former French professors, so I'm sure I'll get some good feedback from them. All I know is that I plan to have some wine, cheese, bread, gelato, onion soup, crepes, pastries, chocolate, and on, and on...

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day gave me a good excuse to make tea cakes with buttercream frosting. A four hour ride is also in the plans, so I figure I can eat quite a few of these babies.


Shredding cardboard boxes is so much fun.

Then and now

Then...


and now...






We were able to ride outside in Pullman today! The thaw has finally started, and the up-coming 10 day forecast has temperatures above 40. Spring is finally on the way. Four of us rode today, getting four hours in the saddle. It was windy, but we were all so happy to be outside that we didn't really care. Tired legs are all around now.

Homemade bagels and smelling the flowers

I received flowers last week from Mom and Dad. Ever since, Pazza will not leave them alone.


Homemade bagels are really the way to go. They're so much better than store-bought bagels, they're easy to make, and you can make any flavors you want. Today we have salt bagels, bagels with Italian seasonings and salt, and...


...cheddar bagels, and bagels topped with freshly shaved parmesan.

Fainting Goats

Riding, goodies, and Paris

We capped off our long weekend (thanks to the closure of WSU) with a long outdoor ride. The road to Lewiston has been closed off and on all week, but we were able to drive to Moscow and then cut down. Can you tell that we're desperate to ride outside? Today's ride was far easier than that of last weekend, but we all said we could feel our legs more at the end of today... I guess that big week of training is starting to hit me.

We have several goodies in the house right now and, thanks to today's hours in the saddle, we can enjoy them guilt-free! Fresh cornbread with crumbled bacon, homemade English muffins, and chocolate creme brulee will all be munched on in the coming hours. I love days when you ride enough that you don't even have to worry about what you eat.

With any luck, Rusty and I will be taking a trip to Paris at the end of the month. He's still waiting for the final word on how many days he will have off, but it's looking like it should work. It'll be a relatively short trip (5 or 6 days at the most), but we should be able to pack a lot in. If you have any suggestions of things to do or see, let me know!