Golf

Golf is a game I love to hate. I call it a game and not a sport, because if you can smoke and drink while your doing it - it's not a sport. I digress...
Back up a few years... we had a windfall at a casino and I decided to get golf clubs. The pro said I was too tall for ladies' clubs, so he hooked me up with senior men's clubs, as they are more flexible than regular men's clubs. I've hacked and hewed at many courses and a few tournaments and hated most of it. Pat says I have golf-induced tourette's syndrome because I curse after just about every stroke.
I'd pretty much given up and hadn't touched my clubs in about three years. My clubs were covered in dust, as were my red patent leather golf shoes (they are beautiful and one reason I should continue the game).
We decided to hit Pruneridge today - a nine hole 30 par course nearby. I wasn't expecting much, in fact, I was expecting nothing but a nice walk outdoors.
Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! We hit a bucket before we started and it sort of came back to me. I did okay, had some nice drives and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I even bogeyed a couple of holes! I had a blast! Maybe there's hope for me yet with golf.

More Bikes

Pat liked my cruiser so much that he bought this bike. We've been having SO much fun on them.
We took our usual 11 1/2 mile spin on the Los Gatos Creek Trail this morning. This afternoon I had the idea to ride our bikes to downtown Campbell for dinner. What a great idea that turned out to be!
Campbell is small city of about 40,000. It has a rich history of fruit processing and drying - in fact, Fruit Cocktail was invented here! I've lived here my whole life and love this little city. I'm a member of the local Chamber of Commerce and my business is here.
Campbell has a great, friendly downtown - just two miles down the bike path from our house. We saddled up and rode there this evening. Had our dinner on an outdoor patio with our bikes right next to us and pedaled home. A round trip of 4 1/3 miles. It was a great evening and we will be doing this again. Soon and frequently!

Bicycles

Here I am on my 8th birthday in 1969 on my brand new bike. It's too bad the picture isn't in color. The bike was stop light green and had a white banana seat - all the rage in the late 60s. I rode that bike to school every day and all over the neighborhood.

Flash forward to when I was 12 or 13... it was now totally uncool to ride a sting ray. My folks got me an orange Schwinn Varsity 10 speed for Christmas when I was in junior high school. I didn't ride it to school, but I put a lot of miles on it until I got my driver's license at 16. I still rode the Varsity in high school, because even though I could drive, I didn't have a car.


Here I am in 1994 with my new Bridgestone MB4. The Varsity still worked fine, but it weighed about 900 pounds.

In the last couple of years we've started riding a lot and I've put about 1000 miles on this bike. It may be 17 years old and some of the technology is outdated, but it's a great bike and I like it very much.

I've been eyeballing beach cruisers every time we go into our local bike shop, Wheel Away Cycle Center. I just thought they looked really cool. Pat has been bugging me to get one - either that or a new mountain bike. My standard response has been "I don't need that" or "I don't want to spend the money on that".

A recent trip to Lake Tahoe changed that answer for good. We were at Squaw Valley, where I took place in the dedication of a statue of Snowshoe Thompson. We spent Saturday night there and had time to kill on Sunday before we went home. We were checking out the shops in the Village and went into a place that rented bikes. Let me back up a bit - we had intended to bring our bikes, even bought a bike rack for my car, but got a late start on Saturday and decided to leave the bikes at home.

So there we were at Squaw Valley rentals and decided to rent a couple of beach cruisers. We rode on the bike path along the Truckee River to Tahoe City, had lunch outdoors with a view of Lake Tahoe and rode back. It was a fairly level path, about seven miles each way, it was beautiful and it was FUN!

I went back to work on Monday and Pat was off. We had a fish taco at one of our favorite places and then to Wheel Away to "check out" their cruisers. Yeah - you guessed it. I bought one and here it is:

An Electra Hawaii Custom. It has three speeds and coaster brakes. I've ordered a wicker basket for the front.

Steve at Wheel Away told us to come back in a couple of hours, as they always service the bikes before they go out the door. We went back that afternoon with the bike rack on the car. I threw my helmet it the car at the last minute. We were on our way to my mom's to pick up our dog, Lucy.

I decided to ride over to Mom's - only about a mile. It was so much fun. Here I was sitting upright and comfy, riding down the streets in my old neighborhood. So what if I'm 49 years old, I felt like the little girl in the black and white picture and it felt GREAT!