Sally, Tim and I were headed up to see what kind of damage the heavy rain did to Yikes! today but got diverted by a sign on Garnet advising that the bridge at Greenspot Road was closed.

The old Greenspot Bridge is a narrow, wood and steel relic, built in 1912, that spans the South Fork of the Santa Ana River.  The floods of 1969 undermined one of the abutments but it was repaired and bears heavier traffic today than its designers could have ever visualized.  That same flood took out the newer, bigger Orange Street Bridge and the Alabama Street culverts (both downstream), testimony to the durability of the ancient bridge and the wisdom of its location.

Curious to see why the venerable structure was out of service, we set off over hill and through orange groves, to see for ourselves.  It was hard to imagine that the 6 or 7 inches of rain that fell last week could have wreaked the kind of havoc that it would take to close this bridge (though it has been deemed "structurally deficient" for years), especially in light of the newly erected (about ten years ago) Seven Oaks Dam built just a mile upstream. 

We approached the bridge from the East, descending a steep, rutted, gravel road to the river bed.  We could see no damage, as a matter of fact, the river was absolutely dry.  Since there was very little traffic on the bridge, due to the liar, liar, pants on fire signs posted several miles away, we decided to ride back and forth across the creaky old thing. 

But first we had to scale a rock and concrete wall that was about six feet high.  (You can see it on the far side of the bridge on the left.)  Tim scrambled nimbly to the top and we lifted our bikes up for him to hoist onto the wall.  It was about two or three feet wide on the top, just wide enough for him to lay our bikes down while Sally and I scaled the wall.  Tim isn't a big boy but he's very strong and had no difficulty giving Sally a hand up.  I had watched Tim's technique of using momentum to get his shoulders over the top and then using his arms to lift his body high enough to swing a leg up so I followed his example.  I didn't make it look easy but I made it.

We pedaled merrily down the middle of the normally busy road to a dirt road off to the left that climbed steeply back up the ridge we had descended earlier.  It was a granny gear struggle and I was grateful when I slipped into a small rut, lost momentum and was forced to dismount half way up the hill.  Sally gamely maintained her line and rode all the way to the top. 

Steep climbing is as much about keeping your weight distributed over both wheels as it is about strength.  Tim, being new to mountain biking, is still perfecting the skill and lost traction before he ran out of strength.  When I lamented my lack of stamina he kindly told me, "Don't feel bad, I fell over back there and had to walk too."  How sweet is that?!?

A little farther on Tim found a nearly vertical ramp that motorcyclists had made on a hillside.  Boys will be boys and Tim is no exception.  He saw no reason why he couldn't ride up it with sufficient momentum.  He sprinted valiantly towards the bottom of the ramp, lost speed a third of the way up and caught himself on one foot.  The bike rolled backwards and he got tangled up in it and fell backwards on his butt with the bike on top of him.  He disentangled himself and got up, determined to try again.  I could see that the second attempt wasn't going to be anymore successful than the first so I suggested that he wait a moment for his mom to catch up so she could watch too.

This time he started from farther away and in a bigger gear.  He hit the bottom of the ramp with more speed but with more weight on the front wheel than was propitious.  His bike lost momentum rather abruptly and tossed him neatly over the bars Superman style.  Adding insult to injury, his bike again mounted him, the seat attempting penetration. 

We did a few more grunt climbs and even a hike-a-bike climb just for the views of the valley and the brief pleasure of riding downhill, and then picked up a gentle trail we call Lower Workout.  Running short of time we took a shortcut towards home and came upon a group of guys driving four-wheel drive trucks.  They were at the bottom of a canyon that we wanted to descend into but their vehicles were blocking the trail.  We looked over the edge of one particularly steep trail, debating if the risk was worth the show off value.  It was rideable but so steep that it was going to entail some almost in control speed, and with a truck parked directly in the middle of the roll out, it looked like an uncertain outcome.  The guys below were shouting encouragement but good sense overrode vanity and we opted for a gentler descent.  (A sure sign of old age.)

 

 

It seems there is a renewed interest in the horrors of World War II of late.  Stories of persecution perpetrated by the Nazis, and even by the terrorized citizens of occupied countries, proliferate even after more than sixty years. 

I wonder why people are so fascinated by the tales of heroic struggle to survive.  Or is it the sheer brutality that captures the imagination.  Do other people imagine, like I do, how they would have helped those victims?  Or do they fantasize about plundering the dispossessed and how they would ensure their own survival, no matter what the cost to their neighbors. 

My mom's Japanese American friends told her about how their neighbors looted their belongings when they were herded off to internment camps here on the West coast of this country.  A few kind souls held valuables in safe keeping until the owners returned to claim them, but sadly, many were opportunistic thieves.

I wonder if I would be courageous enough to risk my own safety and the safety of my family for my principles.  Or would I do whatever was necessary to live?  I'm not sure anyone can know the answer until they are tested. 

 

There is no better time to ride than a couple of days after a good pounding rain.  The trails are all brand new again with ruts and rocks and sand pools, all in new places, the traction sublime. 

Our group was composed of some old friends and some new friends which made us all ride with renewed enthusiasm as we sorted out our place in the line.  Creed, a new friend who came with old friend, Don, was the strongest, with Don a close second.  Thankfully, they let me set the pace for the first few miles so we rode at a conversational speed.  Steve, another rider new to our group fit right into the middle of the pack with me, Sally and Sally's son, Tim bringing up the rear.

Tim is new to mountain biking but he's young and strong, and therefore knows no fear.  This was his third ride and so he was feeling pretty confident.  He had little trouble keeping up with the boys on the climb as long as the trail wasn't too technical and so when we headed downhill, he jumped in line ahead of me and Sally (that was the order in line, not a grammatical error).  Though we gave him a bit of a head start we were soon riding his rear wheel pretty hard.  I noticed he was having some difficulty negotiating the turns and suggested he slow down a bit.  The distraction of my coaching was all it took to take his mind off the trail and send him sailing over the bars as his bike plunged into a bush.  Luckily the traction was good and I was able to stop before running him over.  His youthful reflexes were so good that he landed on his feet and hit the ground running, no harm done other than to set his confidence back a step. 

Don kindly offered to do some of the video recording so I got to star in this one.  He's pretty darned good with a camera too.

Ya gotta say this for Southern California, it’s never boring when it comes to weather.  After about five years of relentless, punishing drought, we get El Nino!

The folks who didn’t get burned out last summer are now in danger of being washed away in a sea of mud as the fire blackened hillsides turn to liquid in their inexorable journey to the Pacific Ocean.  I don’t know what the official count is to date, but the bucket in the driveway has about six inches of fresh rain water in it and the mountains have cached enough snow to keep the streams flowing for months.

Rita called this morning to ask if I wanted to come up to her house in Yucaipa to play in the snow.  I’m thinking she must be crazy if she thinks I’m going to get on the road with other Southern Californians when there’s snow on the road.  We have trouble keeping it on the pavement when it rains!

 

Mike and I took Grace out to the wash for a walk to see how high the water was.  Grace thought it was the finest thing she had ever seen and smelled.  The river hasn't reached any kind of dramatic proportions yet.  It would take another couple of weeks of this kind of storm activity to make it roar like it did in the winter of 1968-69.  Dang!  That makes me sound really old. 

Babs430 beat me to the punch with posting pictures, but she’s a little farther downstream so her view is just a little different from mine.

My valiant young nectarine tree had committed itself to blossoming before the storms hit.  Its bedraggled blossoms beckon hopelessly to bees who are confined to their hives by the frigid weather.  I can only hope that it holds back a few buds until it warms up again.

 

My compost lies waiting for my gardening pleasure.  And though I'm eager for the spring planting, I'm enjoying the confinement imposed by the winter weather.  Tout vient a son heure pour qui sait attendre.  (That's for Michel)

I have a stack of new books, sent to me by my kindred spirit friend in Oregon.  She's one of those bright, funny women who can always see humor in the most mundane places.   She sent The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which more than meets my demands for "delectable vocabulary".   Barely a third of the way finished, and I've already needed the BIG dictionary ten times.  I'm in heaven!

Butchie steals my chair as soon as I vacate it.  Probably because it's toasty warm from my hot buns.

 

It never ceases to amaze me what gifted friends I manage to collect.  Each one has some special talent that makes them stand out head and shoulders above the average joe.  I suppose everyone feels that way about their friends but mine really are the smartest, wittiest, kindest, most creative people in the world.  But, of course, you knew that from my subscriptions/friends here on Xanga.

Today may have been the best birthday of my 57 years of having birthdays.  Three of the best women mountain bicyclists in the area joined me for a ride on my favorite trail.

Bev, is someone I rarely ride with because she's so much more fit than I am that I can't keep up with her on the climbs.  She probably weighs 98 pounds dripping wet but she can climb with the boys. 

Colleen had ridden 90 miles yesterday on her road bike and showed no evidence of any lingering fatigue today.  She was hit by a car last August, while walking her dog, and was badly injured; but one wouldn't know it by the way this girl rides.

And you all know Sally, my intrepid cycling buddy who will follow me anywhere.

Each of us has our area of skill.  Bev is fast, Colleen is technically skillful, I excel on the steep stuff, and Sally...well, she does it all well.  We had a joyous ride taking turns in the lead and showing off our stuff. 

 

I think I've come up with the solution to the long lines at airport screening stations. 

Arrive at the airport wearing nothing but a microfiber rain coat.  Upon approaching the screener, drop the coat onto the conveyor and step through the portal.  Retrieve your coat, which the security folks have been free to fondle, xray, sniff, etc. then board the plane. 

Sorta takes the fun out of the pat down part, but it would sure speed things up, especially if it was cold in the terminal. 

I admit, this procedure would not be for the squeamish, but there could be an alternative line for the more modest folks and those who prefer not to see average Americans naked. 

I haven't ironed out the details of lost luggage yet.  It might be problematic to arrive in Minneapolis in January with nothing but the light coat on your back.  I'm sure we can work out the details if we put our heads together; help me out here.

 

Sally and I have fallen into a rut in our cycling habits.  Having discovered that we can ride Yikes!, the funnest trail in these here parts, twice in one ride, we have been doing exactly that every week for at least the last four weeks and possibly longer.  While we're getting pretty darned good at riding one of the steepest, most gonzo abusive trails we know, we are clearly getting set in our ways. 

So, today we decided to break out of our rut and ride something different.  Admittedly, the new course included finishing with a Yikes! descent, but it included two trails that we seldom ride because they originate from the Yucaipa side of the ridge. 

Basically, we rode the reverse of the hike Babs and I had done on Christmas day.  A short (15 minute) comfortably steep climb up CHC Yikes brought us to the top of the Switchback Trail.  The plan was to descend the radical hairpin turns down to the Regional Park and then climb to the top of Zanja Peak via the Dump Trail. 

Those of you who ski, surf, bike, etc. are probably familiar with the fact that most people are more comfortable with a left turn than a right.  (Interestingly, even horses prefer their left lead to their right)  The right turn switchback ridden headed downhill may be intimidating but in the uphill direction it is easily navigated simply because coming uphill it's a left turn.

I led the way, carefully navigating the steep turns, reminding myself not to look over the edge but at the line I wanted my tire to follow.  I carved perfect arcs around the left turns but inched my way, skidding the rear tire to steer around the right turns.  As the trail grew steeper and the turns more rutted (from other nervous cyclists skidding their back tires to steer) I grew increasingly anxious.  Anxious is not a good state of mind when riding downhill.

In this state of mind I approached a right hand switchback with an eye catching view over the side of a wickedly steep slope.  I went into the turn, determined to overcome trepidation and ride it but secretly looking for a place to bail out.  In the words of the famous Yogi Berra, 90% of mountain biking is mental and the other half is physical, so going into something half mental is a recipe for disaster.

I had made it around the turn but broke rule number one and looked over the edge where I didn't want to go.  The part of the brain that had been looking for a place to escape screamed "I'm getting off here" and tried to take over the part of the brain that had been controlling the bike.  In the ensuing debate I went over the bars and landed in the sharp decomposed granite, belly side down.  My grand toe suddenly voiced it's discomfort, overriding the pain alarm raised by elbow and shoulder, urgently requesting that it be released from the vice like grip that the handle bars and the top tube had on it. 

As there was no immediate way of extricating the toe, short of brutally ripping it out of the grip of the bike, I took the time (perhaps a millisecond) to register the fact that the only thing keeping my bike from hurtling into the abyss of the canyon was its grip on my toe. 

Now there's one thing I love more than I hate pain, and that is my sweet Intense.  Thank goodness for Sally's quick assessment of the situation!  She leaped off her bike and scrambled to my rescue, straightening the wheel to release my toe and grabbing the bike to arrest it's solo descent.

Stung by the fact that lack of courage had undermined my ability and had resulted in injury, I did what any lady would do.  I sat there and cursed.  And when the pain subsided and I got to my feet and discovered that I had damaged my bike as well, I cursed some more.

Then we got back on and continued the ride (after straightening my handle bars and limping around the next couple of turns).   When we reached the bottom of the Dump Trail the ride became really excruciating because now we had to climb back up.  The approach to the trail head started out granny gear steep and then we got to the trail proper which was just as steep, but narrow with switchbacks.  Sally never made a single accusatory remark about my choice of trails even when she lost traction and had to walk a short section because it was too steep to get back on.  Whatta gal!

This is not the scene of a crash...

This is Sally, taking a well deserved break.

This is my beeuteeful Intense.

And, since the ride ended with the always thrilling Yikes!, she had forgiven me by the time we slid to a stop at her car which was conveniently parked right at the bottom.

Sally, if you're reading this, you're the best!  Thank you.

 

With our family scattered across the country, Tuesday and family in Michigan, Tamera in Colorado, and Uncle Ted dead, Babs and I were left to amuse ourselves on Christmas day.  So, after a hearty breakfast of French toast with Mike and Mom, we loaded up our hydration packs and headed for the hills. 

The trails that I ride on my bike are great for hiking (they just seem much longer).  We parked Barb's car at the bottom of Yikes!

next to the reservoir and climbed up the Crafton Hills Conservancy trail that switchbacks across Yikes! 

Can you see Barb's tiny car down there?

Then we continued climbing to the top of Zanja peak

and from there we descended The Dump Trail down to the Yucaipa Regional Park.

A fire had swept up this side of the hill earlier this year leaving behind a moonscape of bare canyon walls pocked with critter hiding places.

There were a few hikers at the lower end but nobody looked like they were headed for the top since they had no water.  The park was nicely deserted (at least the tent section was empty). 

Babs topped off her hydration pack bladder at a water fountain and

emptied her own bladder at the restroom before we assaulted the final hill between us and the Rav4. 

The trail is commonly called The Switchback Trail because it employs about a million brutally steep switchbacks to attain the top of the ridge.  By the time we could see the car from the top of Judy's, my knees were not very enthusiastic about another descent.  Sadly, my bike was at home so there was no way off the hill but to put one tired foot in front of the other. 

Days like these always make me wonder what the poor people are doing.

Mom handed me a box of compact discs this morning saying she saw no point in storing them as she never listened to them.  She has her two or three favorites, which she plays rarely, and the rest were ones from Uncle Ted's collection.  It came as a surprise to me that she would cast them off so dispassionately as I remembered walking in on her unexpectedly several months ago, to find her weeping as she listened to one of them.  Maybe that's why she wanted to dispose of them; she's never been one to wallow in sentimentality. 

It's been almost a year now since Uncle Ted died and the jagged hole left in our lives has started to mend.  I can pull the trailer he built out of the shed to go get groceries, without a pang of sadness clouding my trip. 

I can even visit his old place happily, knowing that his friend Tom, who bought it, cherishes his memory as much as we do.  But music is a special window on the heart and when I heard this song from his collection I was hit with a visual image so vivid it could have been only hours old.  Uncle Ted loved music and in his last days it was his only pleasure when he was confined to his bed. 

So here I sit, pondering the ephemeral nature of life which I suppose is fitting as 2009 draws to a close.   

It hasn't been a great year for many people who were unprepared for the collapse of the economy and in that respect I'm fortunate.  Though I've been unemployed for almost two years, I'm still enjoying the freedom.  Sure, a trip to Europe would be great, but a trip to Utah is pretty nice too.  There are probably people in Europe who would choose Utah over Paris any day (one or two mountain bike nuts like me).  Health insurance would be convenient for peace of mind, but again, I've been lucky so far so, no worries, mate.

2009 was a great year for my "nephew" and his wife who had their first baby this year and bought their first house.  The foundering real estate market made home ownership possible for them.  

Even though I hear about people in dire straights, I can't help but wonder if times of hardship don't bring families closer together.  Is it all bad if families are forced to live together?  Are all the nice clothes, sleek cars, beautiful houses filled with picture perfect decorator furniture necessary for contentment?

Meaningful work is definitely essential for happiness but one doesn't need a job to find meaningful work.  I've found ample rewards in volunteer work at the senior center and the Veterans' History Project.  Gardening may not be as exciting as a high powered executive position but let me tell you how my heart swells with pride when I harvest a head of broccoli that takes two hands to carry to the kitchen.  My harvest doesn't come close to paying minimum wage but if you have ever tasted produce this fresh, you know it's priceless.

When it comes down to the bottom line, 2009 was a darn good year in this household.

 

 

This is a slide show of some of my friends, family, and neighbors who enrich my life throughout the year.  I knew just one photo could never cover December so I copied this format from Michel.  Thank you Michel, for this great idea.