Goodbye Foothills

After 20 years of living in the Sierra Nevada foothills, it is time to say goodbye.

Tomorrow a new family moves in. I am sure they will make great memories here, as we did.

The renovation was tough. Really tough. We worked so unbelievably hard, but I am proud of the work we did and the resulting beautiful house. 

I am definitely going to miss the workout room. This is a luxury our new (and much smaller) home will not have.

When you are finishing up a long stretch of renovation, purchasing a new home, selling the old home and moving two decades worth of possessions, it's hard to feel anything but relief. I am sure in the coming weeks there will be many things I miss. But not today.

Later.

WeeFun Chronicles Redux

I have never been afraid of rattlesnakes. I see them all the time here. You've proably seen my pictures. I get quite close when I take those pictures, because they are quite slow as animals go. Rattlers are short and fat and can only strike a short distance compared to other snakes. Nothing to worry about as long as you are aware of your surroundings and watch where you step or ride.

After well over 40 years of being a cyclist, I feel like The Terminator while I am riding. I am constantly scanning the road or trail for dangers great and small. Much of this behavior probably comes from road riding in the old days when our tiny tires seemed to be made of rice paper, and any small, sharp object had the potential to greatly delay a ride because of a puncture. Patching or changing a tube on the side of the road in those days was a long and labor intensive process. I still go into red alert when I see broken glass even though my huge tubeless tires are completely immune to it.

Yesterday Jennifer and I were riding on the bike trail. Jenn isn't quite as aware of her surroundings as I am. She doesn't have as much riding experience, nor has she endured the flat-tire trauma I have. You can't learn to anticipate the gunfire if you've never been shot. Without the PTSD of riding in olden times, she runs over things on occasion, including the odd animal.

We were riding along and going from full sun to shade under some trees. That dappled sunlight that makes light and dark patches is the very situation that many animals' coloration is designed to imitate as camouflage. I was about eight feet behind Jenn and to her right. Up ahead I saw the rattler right in front of her, but I didn't have time to issue a warning. She ran right over it.

The next two seconds slowed down like a movie. I heard the rattling start almost immediately. Hell, the snake probably started rattling right before impact when it realized something very bad was about to happen.

As I kept rolling, a very pissed off and probably injured rattlesnake started looking to defend itself. The nearest threat was me. It struck as I passed to the right of it. I shifted my weight to my right pedal as I also tilted the bike to the right. I lifted my left foot (thank you flat pedals!) up and to the right as the snake's head passed right by my ankle. I could see the wide-open mouth as I passed by. I exclaimed "holy shit!" as I looked back to see the writhing snake on the trail. We both slowed almost to a stop and turned around to see if the snake was OK. By the time we reached the impact point it was gone.

Like the shards of glass in the '80s, I am now the tiniest bit afraid of rattlesnakes. I have added them to my Terminator database. Future scans will pick up rattlers earlier and identify them at a higher threat level than before.

I'll be back.

Later.

Artwork

 I moved some of the important things down to the new house today.

It's important to have art in one's life.

Later.

First of Many

Today we rode from the new house for the first time, a 26.5 miler around the local trails.

These are the same trails we have been on many times before, of course. The big difference now is instead of loading the bikes on the car and making the 25 minute drive, we simply open the garage door and roll away.

Later.

Downhill

 So today we bought this:

I should say we closed escrow today. The process started a few weeks ago, as home purchases typically do.

It all started because Jenn's friend Anna mentioned that her friend was selling a house in Folsom in a neighborhood we might like. During one of our rides in the area, we decided to swing by and check it out. Unfortunately, the house was too close to Folsom Boulevard, making it a very noisy property.

On our way toward the bike trail, however, we noticed another house had a for sale sign. We called our realtor and learned that the property hadn't even been listed yet. We took a look, liked it, made an offer, and that was that.

It's in a great location. We are in a small neighborhood sandwiched between Lake Natoma and Old Folsom. The bike trail is a mere .19 miles from our front door.

Our plan was always to move down the hill upon retirement. We wanted a lifestyle not completely unlike out visits to Monterey: close proximity to dining, breweries and bike trails leading to a mostly car-free lifestyle. Done, done and done.

We won't sell the old house until Jenn turns 55 (and officially retires) in mid June, which will allow us to take advantage of the Prop 19 tax benefits. Until then, we will own both houses. The timeline isn't perfect, but the upside is we will have at least six weeks or more to slowly move furniture and possessions down to the new house.

My son and our baseball exchange student, Brody (it's a long story), will move in immediately. They will be better able to focus on school without the distractions and noise of renovations while also being much closer to Folsom Lake College. Jennifer and I will stay behind in the old house and continue working towards listing in early June.

The renovations to the old house are quite massive, and they have been going on for a while. My job has mostly been demo guy, leaving much of the skill work to the professionals, but I occasionally chip in with some of my own.

It's been a tiring and stressful time, but the finish line is in sight. Time to put it in a big gear, sprint hard and win this thing.

Later.

Koi

Today we saw a huge Koi in the canal hanging out with a carp. Kind of cool.

I have named him Moby.

Hopefully we will see Moby often since we are just about to close escrow on our Folsom house.

Later.

Monochrome Monterey

It's been a month since our son went under the knife. He's self-sufficient now and mostly healed, at least in a general sense (throwing a baseball again isn't happening anytime soon). Anyway, we felt like we could slip out of town for a few days. Monterey. Heard of it? It's a good place. Our happy place.

Walk along the ocean, sip your coffee, ride your bike, eat some food, drink some beer. Rinse. Repeat. What's not to like?

For whatever reason, I felt like shooting in black and white for the better part of the week.

This last one is obviously in color, but it's too good to leave out.

Another great trip in the books. I think we might go back . . .

Later.