Kim,

It was great riding with you and Ken yesterday. After I left you guys in Watsonville, I went towards Santa Cruz on San Andreas Road. It was such a great day, and I had time to spare, so I stopped in at Manresa State Beach, which is halfway between Sunset and Rio Del Mar.

I hadn't been to this beach before, but it was great. There is a ramp which takes you right down to the sand level so I was able to walk my bike down. There were lots of people and families spread out on the sand and lots of surfers out in the water. I walked a bit on down the beach until I was away from the crowds, then was able to go in skinny dipping. The water was great, warmer than I expected. It was much warmer than the quarry now. The waves were big enough that you could do some body surfing if you wanted, but they weren't so big that you had to worry about being knocked around, they were just right.

I would have liked to spend all day there, but I kept it down to about a half hour because I had to get back. I decided that I still had plenty of time, so I headed for Corralitos and Eureka Canyon instead of going up Soquel-San Jose. I figured that it would be nicer to stay away from all the traffic. I stopped for awhile in Corralitos, then headed up the hill. I found that I had lots of energy so I just cruised the hill. It seemed that my body knew exactly what effort level to do, so I never felt like I was working too hard but just cruised along.

At Summit Store I still felt fine, so I just rode on by. I had all of the energy that I would need to get me back. I decided to go around the back of Lexington Reservoir and then up over St.Joseph's hill. If I was short of time I could have gone down Hwy 17, but my schedule was still looking good.

I had heard that there was a small fire up south of Soda Springs Rd, and when I was going around the reservoir I saw some helicopters going by with big buckets hanging under them. At first I thought that it was just one helicopter, but then I kept seeing more and more. There were at least 3 of them and possibly 5 or 6. It was very impressive to see them fly down, scoop a load of water up out of the reservoir, and then fly off to dump it on the fire.

St Josephs Trail and Jones Trail is a good mountain biking route but was more difficult when done with skinny tires. I took it slow and easy and made it just fine. I got into Los Gatos at a bit after 4:00 PM so my schedule was looking good. I stopped in at Los Gatos High School and my secret water faucet. I rinsed my body off and got all good and clean for volleyball.

I was finally running short of time so I decided to take the quick route over Blosssom Hill instead of coming around on Los Gatos Almaden. I made it back by 4:32 and the others were just arriving so I was just in time.

My totals for the day were 92 miles with about 5800 ft of climbing. I had ridden 93 miles on Saturday. Even though I'd ridden over 90 miles on both days, I still felt like I had lots of energy for volleyball and felt just as fresh as if I had done no riding at all.

Volleyball was good. We had to share the gym this time, as the high school volleyball coach had a few of his students in and they played on one court while we played on another. Then on the last game we all combined and we played one game against them. We came from behind and won.

The volleyball people go out to dinner after, so since Diana was out of town I was able to join them. I didn't get home until 8:15 PM.

It was a great day. And Kim I was very glad that I was able to ride with you for all of that time. I never get tired of doing that and always look forward to the next time.

-Donny