Fruitcake and had Whiskey

On the eighth of November I wrote that I snuck out of the office at 3:30 and at the station the train was late.  My friend and I talked on the phone. I got the bike went to my friend’s house where I ate brussels sprouts and quinoa until we realized we were late for Bike Party.  

We rode to Showplace Square and AT&T Park but discovered that was not the start location.  So we rode around to Embarcadero where we found Organizers.  Some girl told us she knew who we were because I had posted a ride to Facebook and we were wearing outfits.  We saw acquaintances along the way to Showplace Triangle and when we arrived I saw even more. We passed out flyers to friends and met some new people, which was a breath of fresh air.

The ride went to Heron’s Head Park and I got lost.  I saw more organizers with the tamale lady.  After that I found my friend with the group and we hung out only long enough for the sweep to arrive.  Though I thought I knew a better way, we rode back to Illinois with others and took Chavez to Hampshire.  After we separated I went to Duboce with my friend.

The next day I was up around 7:45 but had wanted to leave at 8:30.  I met my friend and though we contemplated Equator Coffee went to West Oakland and rode up Mandela instead.  We took 40th - which my friend loved - to a clothing shop where we dropped off flyers.  Then we continued up Shafter to Rockridge.  I locked up the bikes while my friend went to order coffee and when I caught up to her again she had found her acquaintance and her family.  A moment later I bumped into another person I knew who told me to give her old work a flyer.

It was about 11 when we rode to Temescal and beyond.  I came to realize that Moraga Boulevard might have been the better route through there.  We stopped at Peet’s and I had coffee.  We watched the cars and rested.  Then we climbed to the path and up to Snake to catch our breath and continued up Shepherd Canyon.  We calculated that we were halfway but we would later learn that this was wrong.

At Banning we rode up the hill and had to quit at Moore.  We stood in front of an empty but palatial home and commiserated over contentious issues.  I remember contemplating my silhouette around then.  We walked to Evergreen and decided to take it easy on our way to Skyline.  We quickly made it to Pinehurst and took a break to catch our breath.

We ate fruitcake and had whiskey.  A bit later we got some people to take our picture before descending to the Horseshoe bend for photos and continued on to Eastport.  We walked up the trail there and I tried to see the power lines but they were occluded.  My friend took a picture of a lot of ladybugs.  We continued on to Canyon Station where we took a picture of the little library.

We rode on past the school and a bunch of cars passed us there but I recall a real moment of bliss there.  We continued through the intersection to San Leandro Creek and after a few cars passed we got on the trail to Moraga.  We passed a few people on our way through the Saint Mary's area and then descended when I started to think about how to get to the reservoir.

We followed School Road to Mount Diablo Boulevard.  I noted that there were a lot of signs as we climbed a crazy trail to the dam where we finished most of the snacks.  We then tried to go beyond the boat house but were turned back by a park employee so we returned to Mount Diablo Boulevard and took Moraga Boulevard and the trail appeared.  We took it through the river park and went to Olympic.  We then headed up Newell and I noted that the mountain on the right was huge.

At Locust we entered Walnut Creek.  I couldn’t find Rivendell and we just went to Pyramid instead.  We found a seat with the bikes out back and I went to the bar for cider.  My friend ordered fries.  I walked the neighborhood after the bartender gave me Golden Gate Cider.  We ate fries and checked the BART schedule before going to Rivendell and on the way to the station.  While we were there some lady discovered that she was on the wrong platform but we never found out what happened to her because the trains arrived at the same time.  

At 12th the bus didn’t have room so we found another bus which had only one berth.  I returned to the previous bus and found room on the next one.  I discovered that I had my friend’s phone in my pocket.  When I got to Santa Clara Avenue we paid my friend’s sister a visit.  The brother-in-law was in the yard and let us in.  His kid was in his swing set in the hall.  I got to play with the cat in the living room then and I went to bed around 1130.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.