Busy but relaxing weekend

Whew! What a weekend! Started off by having dinner and spending the night at dad's Friday. Got up early to drop off Rich in Ferndale where he was meeting his boss for breakfast. Charlie (the boss) flew in from Denver to be part of the customer appreciation day at Holiday Market in Royal Oak. I went back to my mom's house to nap and hang out. Got an e-mail from my friend Karen in Salt Lake City. She's currently in Alaska and spotted an article in the latest Outside Magazine on "The 18 best places to live". I stopped by Border's to pick it up on my way to have "lunch" at Holiday market and to pick up Rich. Rich got good news from his breakfast. He told Charlie about our plans and inquired as to the possibility of us doing work on the road. Turns out there's more than enough work to do. Charlie was excited because he's planning on doing something similar in about 4 years, but down in South America. Although we'll have enough money when we start to last 1-2 years, it'll be nice to have extra money for little luxuries.

After I picked Rich up, we headed up to my mom's cottage where we were to celebrate my brother's and mom's b-days. My brother's ex-wife didn't deliver the kids to him, as she's supposed to, nor does he know where she is. He was feeling crappy, so he didn't come up. That was a disappointment. We did have a big family dinner though with family and neighbors. My mom made a big plate of paella. Yum! Today Rich did a 21 mile bike ride, but I was feeling lazy and not too motivated to ride in the heat & humidity. We got home around 5:30pm., had dinner and are now doing the exciting task of laundry & surfing the internet.

Oh my gosh! How could I have forgotten? I gave NOTICE at work on Friday. My last day at the office will be Aug. 12, but I'll use up vacation time to extend my official employment date to keep my insurance (company pays it weekly) active through the end of the month. I was giddy the whole day! I hope to never have an office job again.

Waiting for start of the LATE ride 

Rich along the Lakeshore bike path 

No offer yet, but a L.A.T.E. ride

No offer yet on the house. All we know is that the guy is back in California, waiting for his wife to heal from surgery before coming back. Could be a week or more before we know anything. That's ok. As long as they're still interested and want to buy, we can wait.

In other news we went to Chicago this weekend for the LATE ride. For those that don't know, the LATE ride is a 22 mile ride through Chicago, starting at around 2a.m. and ending, around the time the sun comes up along Lake Michigan. Here's a link: www.lateride.org

Before the ride, we took a 30 mile ride along the Lakeshore path, which is a very nice, flat path that goes for about 20 miles along the lake. It was a warm day, so we put on sunscreen. We never got real hot because it wasn't so humid, but we were ready for dinner when we finished around 6pm. We had an awesome japanese dinner at Oysy Sushi on Michigan Ave. about a block from our Best Western hotel. Then it was back to the hotel for a nap before the ride.

We got up around 12a.m., got dressed and got our rider packets. Took them back to the hotel room to get changed into bike clothes. The ride took about 3 hours because there was a lot of people going reallll slow (around 7-8mph). Between the two rides totalling 53 miles, and 5 hours in the saddle, my parts were a little tired. I was glad to be off the bike. The ride did finish with a snack breakfast at Buckingham fountain, then a 1/2 mile ride back to the hotel. We were exhausted! I haven't stayed up all night since college.