I'm going to have to make this quick-ish as it's nearly 10:20 pm as I type, I've spent the entire evening editing, uploading, tagging and (about half of them) captioning photos. I have all the photos from today captioned just because I captioned nearly all of them over on Facebook already, but I won't be writing about that here yet -- I'll do that tomorrow. Today I need to tell you about yesterday, when I went on a bike ride with Dad, Gina and Beth.

And I need to do this quickly. How about I do it in highlight form?

*Because all the others wanted to leave pretty early yesterday morning, Dad and I agreed it was best for me to come down Friday evening and stay two nights this weekend instead of just one. I biked to my bus stop right after work, getting there ten minutes early, only for the Sound Transit weekday commuter express route 592 to arrive fifteen minutes late -- arriving at the same time the next bus was supposed to come. So basically, it was as though the 4:52 bus never showed at all. That was annoying as hell.

And the itinerary had my layover in Lakewood, just south of Tacoma, at only six minutes. I knew it would be a miracle of that actually worked out, and then of course it was moot when my first bus was late. On the plus side -- or so I thought -- it cut the wait for the next bus, scheduled half an hour later, in half. But then? When the first Intercity Transit Express 605 to Seattle pulled up, its two bike slots on its rack were full. I asked the driver, "Does this mean I have to wait for the next one?" She said: "Yes," semi-apologetically. "I'm sorry."

So I still had to wait another half an hour for the next bus. That one had no bikes on it at all -- hardly even any passengers. It left Lakewood at 7:37, and -- silver lining! -- at the very lest it left me enough time to bike up the street to a gas station and use the bathroom. I'd had been in pain having to pee so bad once I reached Olympia without having done that. I also got a "Smokehouse" flavor packet of Blue Diamond almonds, which were extremely delicious.

After mapping it out on Google Maps and realizing it would actually save me at least ten minutes of time, instead of getting off at the Olympia Transit Center as planned, I got off at the Lacey Transit Center instead, and biked the rest of the way to Dad and Sherri's house from there. It was only a 2.8 mile bike ride, and it got me to the house right at about the same time the bus would have pulled up t othe transit center downtown. I also didn't have to ride up that steep hill from there.

I then hung out with Dad and Sherri at their house for the next couple of hours before we all went to bed.

...

Hmm. ...That was a pretty long highlight, wasn't it? Let's try that again!

I woke up yesterday morning at maybe a quarter after 6 am. Beth had suggested we meet at their house at 8:30, which was a lot earlier than I was expecting. It was doable, though, and I still got plenty of sleep.

The hope was for us all to put our bikes on Dad's bike rack, but he didn't like how close the bikes were that way and how much he thought they'd bang against each other. I still think it would have been totally fine, but whatever. It was really more convenient for us all to drive separately anyway, as that way we didn't have to go back to their house first again before heading back home in the afternoon.

We went to the Willapa Hills Trail -- or more specifically, Willapa Hills State Park Trail. That link is to a photo of all of us by the sign, which we had a nearby lady who was picking blackberries take for us. For the full photo set (which, as I write this, is all tagged but none captioned), click here.

This was the second time Dad and I had gone to this trail, the firt having been two years ago, for my Birth Week Bike Ride in 2016. On that ride, we wound up doing the shortest one we'd ever done, as a surprise dead end of construction forced us to turn back after only four and a half miles. They paved a little bit further by this year, though, and we went a couple of miles further even in the packed gravel path after that.

Or at least, Dad and I did. He and I made it to mile marker 8, which means our ride totaled 16 miles -- nearly double the 9 miles we rode the trail in 2016. In 2016 I felt that even though it was short, it was possibly the prettiest ride we had ever done, so it was nice to get to see more of it yesterday -- although, to be honest, all the prettiest senery was still on the stretches we already rode before.

And yesterday, Gina turned back first, happily taking time to pick the masses of blackberries growing along the bike path as we went on, which several other people were also doing. Beth came along with Dad and me for maybe half the rest of the way we went, and she could have left us in the dust -- she does bike commutes to work far longer than mine -- except that she was much more fearful of riding on the gravel than Dad and I were. To be fair, her tires were thinner. But she turned back at about 6.7 miles, and from there Dad and I rode the dirt path up to marker 8 before turning back.

On our way back, we did stop and pick some blackberries ourselves, just for a snack. They were so delicious we had to force ourselves to stop eating and get back on our bikes so we could go meet back up with Gina and Beth. Gina, incidentally, had picked a lot of berries. She intended to make them into jam for Beth's brother, who had once visited and apparently been astonished you could just pick and eat blackberries on the side of the road. (Beth's family is from Iowa. I guess they don't have a lot of wild berries there?)

Oh, I almost forgot this part: after Gina turned back but before Beth did, I got stung by a bee. On my face. I'm not allergic, though, and amazingly, it never even swelled. It sure stung, though, especially the initial sting. I can't remember the last time I got stung. There was a lot of bees out there, but for some reason I was the only one who was special enough to get an actual sting. It got my on the left side of my upper chin, nearly to the cheek. I was asked if I was okay, and I was just like, "I guess we just ... move on." I wasn't going to end the bike ride over it.

It continued to sting pretty much continuously for several hours. Beth asked me to rate the sting on a scale of 1 to 5, and I said 2.5 -- which was probably an exaggeration; I was thinking that on a scale of 1 to 10. As I said to her, "It's not excruciating, it's just annoying because it's constant." In fact, as seems to happen to me when I have an even minor pain that won't go away, it started to give me nausea and a headache. Once I took some Aleve after getting back to the house, I did feel a lot better. By evening the stinging would just come in sporadic waves, and it's just been mostly a faint tingle most of the day today.

Once we all got back to our cars, we decided to go out to lunch at a place called Berry Fields Cafe -- of course -- in Centralia. They made some of the best sandiwches we'd ever had, on some of the most impressively perfectly baked bread you could imagine.

I almost left my helmet on the hood of Dad's car before we headed out there. We thought that was pretty funny, which was why I took the picture of it before retrieving it. But then, guess what I did? When I gathered all my things to put into Dad and Sherri's car this morning for transferring to Shobhit's car at Mason Lake today . . . the one thing I forgot in Dad and Sherri's guest bedroom? My bike helmet. Shit! It also has a headlight affixed to the top of it. I may very well not return there until Christmas, so what choice do I have? Tomorrow after work I'll meet up with Shobhit at Big 5 to get a new one using his employee discount. I may also get a new light, I'm not sure. The one I had was never all that bright anyway.

Anyway! It was a fun day, and we were all back by early-mid afternoon. Dad brought a sandwich to go for Sherri. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just hanging out at Dad's house, reading my library book, visiting, or watching a movie. We watched Blockers, which I figured Dad and Sherri would enjoy, and they seemed to. I will admit it wasn't quite as impressive the second time; some movies work best with just one viewing. I still have a lot of respect for it the same as I did when first seeing it, but there are certain parts that are a little blatantly unrealistic. That's okay, though. It's still funny and the performances are great.

I really need to go to bed now. Here are some video clips from the bike ride yesterday.

[posted 10:54 pm]