7/10/09 - STP 2009 friday

Matt and I knew, really back before Christmas ’08 I think, that we were going to do the ride this year, and it went without saying I would ride it again as a fundraiser for breast cancer research. So in May I sent out letters to various people we know who own or run their own business hoping someone might be doing well enough they would be willing to match donations. A few people did donate, but no one was able to match. At least I asked.
Dianne and Gary, our friends from the Italy tandem trip flew up from riverside, ca to join us, and our friend Christa rode along on her single. We knew a few others who were doing the ride, too: Cally from Café Juanita, Ben and Deedee (another tandem couple), Melinda from Microsoft Orchestra, Ron (ok, he was planning on doing it in 1 day and not the 2 like the rest of us), and nick, chef at icon grill. Of all of them we only saw nick and his friend Ben on the ride; right after the start, then at the Kent and Puyallup food stops! Actually, I am rather surprised we saw them, I mean 10,000 people were on that ride!

I’m told cascade bike club auctioned off bib # 10,000 on ebay – I’ll have to look that up! (I tried but never found it)

i was thinking for a while that we really needed to purchase a bike rack for the truck, and i finally saw 1 i really liked, that i thought i'd be be able to attach the bike to on my own if needed. matt agreed we should invest in one finally, too. he was down with the draftmaster choice, and about 5 days before the STP he asks me if it's possible to get one in before the ride. unbelievably i managed to get it done!

on thursday we picked up the bike rack from the store the day our friends arrived from california. luckily the bike shop was less than 2 miles from the airport! Dianne and Gary’s flight landed at 7:15. We had stopped on the way at a bike shop a little bit south of the airport to pick up our new tandem bike rack before meeting them at bag claim. Luckily the flight landed on time and their suitcase was one of the 1^st off the plane. Unlike our bike bag, theirs is about the size of an overstuffed suitcase and it was there waiting for us by the time we got to over sized counter! Yay! So we’re off to dinner at café Juanita. We got there early so we had a drink while we sat for about 10 minutes for our table.
I took the camera but oh well, except for the appy everything was something we’d already had! They had it classed as ‘salad’ but later stashed it under appetizer instead. It really fits better there. Anyway, it’s a turine of pork sliced, panko breaded, and fried. It has a hen’s egg fried on top, everything sits on a bed of some sort of greens, and to finish the plate there are breaded/fried bing cherries! Talk about yum! We also had the seared foie gras, soup, risotto, sablefish, rabbit, quail, and I’m not sure which pasta and of course dessert. Everyone gave a ‘thumbs up’.  [see food blog post 8/7/09 cafe juanita]





Fri 7/10:

friday morning we all got up reasonably early. the plan was for Gary to put together their bike, we’d put together our bike rack, and then take off on an easy ride around lake Sammamish and back by noon to shower. Well, things don’t always go as planned. we’re about to take off and we notice our front wheel is rubbing against the fork. – it’s too tall! I had just picked it up from the shop on wed! so change of plans. Off to the bike shop now, pick up a few things like more goo and get the tire fixed, then home and off on the ride. there was a doe with her fawn, a few osprey, a couple heron, and geez, 14 or 15 eagles! Wow. D&G couldn’t believe it. Eagles were everywhere that morning. And you know what, I took my camera but didn’t think of getting pics of any of them! Oh well. most were sitting in trees right along the road, some were soaring overhead. I guess by the time we had actually returned home it was almost 2, and we were supposed to pick up the pasta for our dinner between 2-4 from chef Ethan at Tavolata. So matt showers 1^st so he can take off, and the rest of us noodle about with the bikes and gear, prep what we can for dinner, pack for the next few days, and of course get in the shower ourselves.

Christa shows up w/out Christopher – apparently there’s some huge horrible thing happening in cyberspace security and he’s really stressing. Kathy gets there, and later, a little after 7 tom shows up. He had taken the train up from Portland so he would be able to drive the truck down and meet us there so we’d have a way to get
home! On and Catherine bailed as they were still getting stuff done for Ron’s 1-day STP. But that’s ok. We polished off all of the potato gnocchi and most of the rigatoni! I had picked up 3 containers of sorbetto/gelato from Poco Caretto (Café Juanita) for dessert and we put a good dent into them as well. Christa and Kathy left shortly after 7, too. After all, except for Kathy, who was coming over anytime after we left on Saturday to look after the house and girl, we all had a very early alarm call.

We lined everything that had to go up along the floor of the kitchen. Didn’t want to be forgetting anything! Dianne said a couple times it was ‘hard to keep things straight packing for 1 night in 1 bag and then the rest of what we’d need into another’. I agree, but I didn’t explain and perhaps I should have mentioned that it was better that way due to not wanting to overload Christopher. He was having a very bad weekend as it happened.