Meanwhile, back at the ranch

We drove down to Capay to visit Celia's friends at their lovely ranch next to Cache Creek, and to meet their 11-week old Golden Retriever pup. Wouldn't you know it, both the ranch house and the guest bedroom in the cabin have wireless internet, and wouldn't you know it, I brought my laptop along for that very possibility.

Friday I swam in the Sycamore Pool for about 20 minutes. Did two full loops of the pool, once with fins on for the kick-building exercise, and then a couple fast, short lengths. I guess this weekend is the last hurrah of the pool for the season; after Labor Day the city lets it return to regularly scheduled creek level. Still might be enough water in it to swim in the deep end, but I think they want to let the fish have a turn. If I want other "open water" practices I'll have to hunt elsewhere.

Yesterday, Celia and I rode our bikes for 20 minutes up to Horseshoe Lake (unfortunately due to years of lead buckshot from the neighboring gun club it is NOT an open water swimming option), parked our bikes and jogged on the dirt road for about 20 minutes, then rode back. We took a detour through Oroville on our way south to the ranch to stop at Swim / Bike / Run, a little shop that opened a few months ago. The woman who owns it was pleasantly surprised to learn that we came to Oroville just to visit her shop. Celia bought a birthday present for me (that I picked out), a pair of lycra tri-shorts that have a pocket in the back. She speculated that tri-specific clothing is possibly a racket and I can't say I disagree, but we also agreed that having the clothes and other gewgaws of one's sport(s) increases one's motivation and excitement for participation. Celia has been tearing up the road with her running shoes lately. Actually it's the other way around--the soles of her old running shoes are almost worn through. She's hunting for a new pair that was not made by sweatshop labor in China. We've heard that such things exist, but I'm afraid she might be running barefoot before she can find them.

I confess I didn't look to see where my fancy tri-shorts were made. I wonder if the people sewing things like that day after day think, why the heck would people in the USA want to buy this? what is its purpose?

Later in the day we swam in the pool here at the ranch, and our hosts fed us a sumptuous dinner of grilled chicken & veggie kabobs, broiled tomatoes with white beans & rosemary, sliced melon.... It's a hard life but somebody's got to live it.