Bonjour!

It's been way too long since I posted.  Lots has happened in the meanwhile, but basically, I'm in good shape and have kept up with my eating plan and my exercise.  Except for the past two and a half weeks when DH and I caught a Space A flight to Europe.  We spent most of that time in France.  We had a marvelous time.  Really, it was probably our best vacation ever.  We enjoyed French cuisine (crepes, omelets aux champignons, pommes frites, boeuf bourgingnon, and creme brulee, plus generous samples of pain au chocolat and croissants from the local boulangeries) but, generally, we tried to be fairly circumspect with respect to eating.  I didn't do any formal exercise, but I'd guess we walked at least 5 miles per day and climbed a gazillion steps up and down various castle towers, church spires and, yes, the Eifel Tower.  Long story short, I gained 1.2 pounds from the day we left to this morning.  Not bad, or "pas mal" as the French would say.  I'm back to my routine now and hope to whittle off the French pounds plus a few more of their recalcitrant American cousins.

Hurricane Sandy hit this area (metro DC) with a rainy, windy bang yesterday, but we managed to get home safely just before the worst of it hit.  Long story, we got a Space A flight home, too, so decided to accept a ride to Charleston, SC.  We landed at 10:30pm Sunday night, rented a car, and drove through the night (9 hours) to get home.  We were lucky not to lose power and our basement crawl space is dry [whoops, I spoke too soon.  It had about a foot of water in it, so DH has the hose set up to siphon it out]  and our trees are still standing.  We were fortunate.  Others were not so lucky.  Our heart goes out to them.

Some of those steps we climbed were at the end of the 30 minute walk from the parking lot, the climb up to the top of Mt Saint Michel.  Here we are, about half way up.

With hopes of being back on track and posting and catching up with you all much more often!

Tish

Notes from the Road

Hey.  I started this a couple of weeks ago and never finished it.  I'm going to post it anyway to sort of catch you up on things.  Since I wrote this I had a nice 4 day trip to NYC with my mom's 89 yr old sister, and my sister and brother.  Now I'm working hard to get ready for our trip to FRANCE!  We're leaving in 9 days and I have tons to do.  I'm on the 3rd of 5 levels with Rosetta Stone and still think it's a super program.  My favorite sentence:  J'ai envie de manger un chocolate, mais je ne devrais pas.  (I want to eat a chocolate, but I shouldn't).  I may actually rely on that phrasing when we're in France! Still doing well on the weight loss front.  Down about 3 pounds from my last report.  A little hard to get in all my usual exercise during these trips, but I'm surely moving.  Lots of walking.

Hi all!  Long time no post, so I thought I'd snatch a few minutes and try to catch you up with my doings over the past couple of weeks.

When last I wrote, I told you that we'd be taking a small bike-holiday over the Labor Day weekend.  Well, we did, but we didn't go to Maryland's Eastern Shore, as we'd planned.  We decided to avoid likely traffic jams on the bridge, and headed west, instead.  We booked a hotel in Shepherdstown, WV, loaded our luggage and bikes in the car and looked forward to biking on the C&O Canal.  I forgot to pack my camera (grrr!) but managed to get a few pix with my iPad.

This is the Bavarian Inn, noted as one of the best hotels along the C&O Canal.  No camping out by the trail and and roughing it for this girl!  I was taken with the line "jacuzzi hot tub in every room" in the hotel write up and never looked back!  Totally worth it.

The building just right of center was where we were.  Just beyond those buildings is the Potomac River and our balcony looked over the river toward C&O on the other side.

This is the only shot of the C&O, but does capture rather nicely the nature of the trail (flat, covered with loose gravel, and somewhat uneven).  The bower effect of the tree canopy was lovely and makes the C&O several degrees cooler than out from under the trees.  The river was on our right, close enough to see, often, and to hear water noises as we rode.  Even though it was a holiday weekend, our two rides (Saturday before dinner and Monday morning) were not crowded at all, but with enough traffic so that we didn't feel alone in the wilderness.  We both rode our hybrid bikes, which were much better on the gravelly surface.  We did hop over the the parallel, lightly travelled Canal Road, for the last few miles, though to enjoy the paved surface.  We rode 12 miles the first day and 17 the last.  

On Sunday morning we drove our bikes to Antitem NP Battlefield and rode there.  Almost no traffic at all, nice paved rodes, a few hilly spots which challenged me, but which I overcame.  All in all, a fantastic ride.  We rode a couple big loops around and took lots of side roads, including one which took us by a local poultry farm.  We went back on our way home and bought two dozen eggs (brown eggs, still warm because the farmer took them right out of the nest to give to us).  The family was Amish.

I was feeling great and hopped right off my bike and up the stairs to the top of this tower.  Great views.  We seemed to be the only ones in the park that morning, just the way I like it.

Look at the hills in this next picture.  It was so steep that there are parts you can't see.  It actually doesn't look as steep as it was!  I balked at this part and opted to repeat the loop we had already done.  That old law of physics applies--whosoever goes DOWN must come UP later!

The following pix are from our next trip, about a week later.  DH had two conferences in the northeast. One in Connecticut and the other in Boston, Massachusetts.  We were gone from Wednesday morning through Saturday evening, took our bikes along and had a great time.  The following pix are from a place we rode near Groton Conn, Bluff Point State Park.  Gorgeous day.  DH talked me into riding to and from the park despite some fairly impressive hills.  I did it!  The park was beautiful, but the path, although hard packed dirt in some places, was mostly covered with gravel, sometimes as deep as 2 or 3 inches.  NOT FUN to bike in.  And this time I had my road bike with its skinny tires.  Besides the gravel, there were some definite hills, up and down, along the 6 mile trail, and small boulders and tree trunks that posed threatening obstacles and demanded carefull navigation.  A couple near misses, but I returned home mostly unscathed, except for one distinctive set of parallel grease covered cuts which still highlight where my chain came a little too close on one hairy descent on a very gravelly steep down hill part.  Note to self:  Do not rely on reviews in Map My Ride when they report that a ride has "paved trails!"

One of many self portraits with my iPad.  This was my favorite.