November 22nd – December 21st, 2007
Gotta love friends like this…
We’ve been friends with Kathy and Gary and Kevin since Kathy and I met while we were enrolling our kids in kindergarten – her Kevin and my Alex. They are now 20, so that’s been a lot of years. They are such good friends that we have survived international moves, cross country moves, and many more life issues. It’s the kind of feeling that, while we may not talk to each for weeks or months, when we do pick up the phone to talk, it’s as though no time has gone by at all.
The family is undergoing its own major adjustment right now – they have just moved back to Santa Ynez after more than 6 years up in Oakhurst, near Yosemite. We dropped in on them while they are in the midst of boxes everywhere, carpet installers that don’t call to install the carpet, trying to shop for furniture so boxes can be unloaded and items put away, and all this with us suddenly here, and Christmas underway. From our perspective, it’s been seriously great to see how the house is coming together, and it’s particularly special, as we know we won’t be seeing them for 4 years or more. Now we at least have a mental picture of how their lives are, while we are so far away.
Bicycles again…
We slept long hours the first week here, along with starting our bike riding again, but we then kicked into gear. We posted both bikes on eBay and Chelsea’s sold right away. We’ve gotten it shipped off, and it ought to be arriving at the new owner’s today or tomorrow. Mine has been posted again, after dropping the price a bit, and I’ve had a lot more interest in it this time. The auction is up this Sunday, and I am really hoping it sells. If you know anyone who is interested, take a look on eBay. It’s the Specialized Dolce Comp.
Chelsea managed to get a short-term loan to buy the Novara Safari she wanted, and she was able to repay it already from the proceeds of her bike sale. Her bike (the Safari) got here from Seattle and she put it together by herself. She’s even transferred her cycle computer over by herself, and took down her Dolce and shipped it. She’s really getting good at this!
Gittin’er done…
We’ve done lots more research – more on bicycles and bicycle components; we’ve finalized our “need to buy list”; we’ve done more research on immunizations we need; we’ve looked at the cell phone issues (I’m opting to go without for now, and buy a cheap one in Mexico, with a prepaid local card); and we’ve looked at different laptops. Check out the Zonbu Notebook (www.zonbu.com) – I am extremely interested in it, and I think we will go for this when we get the money together. At $297 with a two-year plan at $180 a year, it seems like a no-brainer. And it’s 5 lbs! I’ll write more on it later.
We’ve nearly finished creating our names database (a project we’ve been working on for so long I can’t even remember), and we’ve been catching up on blogs, writing the first newsletter, and closing down a number of our US based issues – closing out bank accounts, dropping our Verizon plan, closing several LLCs, and so on. It’s suddenly getting more real that we will really be gone awhile! We’ve also continued updating the website and the photo gallery. It’s just astonishing how much time all this takes!!
Riding in Santa Ynez
We have absolutely loved riding in Santa Ynez. We have some great routes that we ride, with real hills! Compared to our riding in Florida, this is heaven. We have been blessed with awesome weather here, and we were in Santa Barbara and Seattle too. Talk about appreciative of the weather! It’s sure a lot colder, though! Here in Santa Ynez it’s been down in the 20’s and 30’s at night, and ranges from the 60’s to 70’s during the day. We’ve had a chance to try out our new North Face Impulse Hoodies, and we are totally hooked. They are extremely comfortable and practical, and wash and dry easily.
This is Lance Armstrong territory here – the riding is so awesome, that he trained here when he was active on the cycling scene competitively. I can see why he’d love it here. We go out for a ride and, then we stop at the Los Olivos grocery store. When we have a little cash, we share a café mocha and a cheese bagel with cream cheese, and just hang out and talk to people. This is farm and ranch country – we’re talking cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and ads on the coffee shop bulletin boards looking for ranch manager positions. It’s a very wealthy area (think Michael Jackson and Bo Derek) and it’s very sophisticated while being very country and down home at the same time. Everyone is incredibly friendly, and there’s a wide choice of healthy products available. We love it here!!!
Chelsea is now riding her Safari, and it’s taking some adjustments. She’s not used to the trekker handlebars, and she’s not sure she likes them. She’s also having a tough time figuring out the shifting – it’s the twist style in the center front of the handlebars, and is totally different from what she is so used to. Having different sized wheels than mine is also a challenge, and it’s tough for her to keep up with me right now. I am so glad that we are getting this chance to figure things out under calm conditions.
Seeing Alex again
One huge bright spot for us was getting to see Alex again. He came out to San Francisco, and then his dad brought him down this way to see us and his grandparents. We didn’t get to see very much of him – just two afternoons, but it was just heaven. We miss him tremendously – he brings an incredible amount of laughter and love to our lives. This is the longest either Chelsea or I have ever gone without seeing him, and wow, do we ever miss him. He was sporting an amazing new hairdo – a Mohawk – which he kept fairly conservative while here. He has shaved the sides of his head and bleached the center part blonde. You have to check out the photos in the photo gallery. We will plan on seeing him again in a few months when are deep into Mexico. He’s a big city kind of guy, so we’ll wait till we are near a good resort and then have him visit.
Hero of the month
This is a no-brainer – Kathy and Gary and Kevin get our Hero of the Month for being so gracious at keeping us for the last few weeks, and making us feel so welcome despite their current trauma (as if moving and having us here wasn’t enough, Kevin had an emergency appendectomy after midnight one night last week, after being very sick for 5 days…). They are an incredible family, and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to count them as such good friends.
Here we come, Mexico!
Our big news is that we are headed off to Mexico finally. We are going to be dropped off just below Santa Barbara on Friday, and we will start riding from there down to Los Angeles. We’ll be staying at state campgrounds until we reach Santa Monica, and depending on what happens with my bike (the auction is up Sunday) we may hang out at Leo Carrillo State Beach for several days, and then ride to REI to get my bike on the 24th or 26th. I called them today, and they have one Safari in the store, and it’s my size. How cool is that?
We are working late tonight to finish up lots of things, then we will be packing and organizing tomorrow. We’ll take off Friday and do some last minute errands in Santa Barbara, then head for Carpinteria State Beach. We are so excited! It looks like we will be crossing into Mexico on New Year’s Day. That seems very fitting…
Signing off from Santa Ynez CA