I'm Cycled Out!

Well, a couple of days ago I went over to Charlevoix, and biked 18 miles between there and Petoskey. God it was beautiful out there! The leaves are starting to turn, the sun was shining, it was just a great day. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and therefore have no pictures to share. Well worth the trip, but my legs were feeling it the next day. But after I got home from there, I hauled the kayak down to the lake to float around for a bit. There were actually people out on the lake tubing. Which I think was awesome. Granted they weren't out there very long, since the water was freezing, but kudos to them for giving it a go! Overall, it was a great day in the sun!

Yesterday, I worked until 3am. It was one of those days where everything that popped in my head fell right out of my mouth. Does anyone else have these days? The fact that I had too much sugar in my system didn't help! I was rather hyper, too much pepsi for me that day! I could feel my face turn beat red from things that I shouldn't have said. Funny thing was, I didn't even care. I made a couple of great first impressions on some new traveling nurses. And the one traveler that I can barely tolerate, I think he got the hint that I just can't stand him. My permanent co-workers would just shake their heads and laugh, and encourage me. Like I needed encouragement that day! I have a friend who helps me out in situations like these. We have a code word we use when one of us starts digging a hole for ourselves. Where was he when I needed him? It is centipede by the way. Which just makes us bust out laughing when one of us blurts it out. The stories I could tell.....

And today was another gorgeous day. I woke up after having little sleep, but full of energy. So I opted to go give mountain biking a whirl. Real mountain biking. I have a good bike, but have never tried this activity for some unknown reason. So in the beginning, I thought it sucked and contemplated just quitting after not even a quarter a mile. But I made myself stick with the entire 6 mile loop, and ended up loving it. It has a hint of danger in it, when you're flying down some of these hills at a high rate of speed and hitting every root and bump along the way. No, I didn't fall, and no I didn't hurt myself. Although my calves are killing me sitting here typing this. It is a lot harder than I anticipated! All I could envision while I was doing this, was how similiar the trail was to when my brother and I were riding our bikes as kids and he fell and got a concussion. In a sick way, it made me laugh.

Cheers!

The Great Outdoors!

I finally have time to post some pictures from my recent adventures. I took a trip up to Escanaba last week to attend a conference on Forensic Nursing. I talked my co-worker into going up a couple of days early to do some hiking. So we went out to the peninsula at Big Bay De Noc, where there were hundreds of monarch butterflies that were preparing to migrate down to Mexico, and were getting ready to set off across Lake Michigan. Guess I am niave' and didn't think butterflies migrated that far! Anyways, there was an awesome lighthouse at the point. It was built in the late 1800's and is no longer functionary. There was discussions of tearing it down a couple of years ago, but funding was found and it was restored to its current state. You are able to climb up the spiral staircase to the top where you have a 360 degree view. It was pretty cool! We also visited a couple of waterfalls while we were up there. I just love the UP.

Once I got back, I headed back to work for a dreadful 7 day stretch. Overall, it wasn't too bad. I survived.

Since being off, I've been out on the bike quite a bit. I've been riding to my friends house everyday to feed her cat while she is in Ireland. It is only a couple mile trip, but it forces me to get out there. I've also ridden into town a couple of times. I set out to the Pigeon River yesterday and did a rather quick 10 mile hike. There were some pretty dark clouds headed my direction, and it gets dark a lot earlier than I realized, so I didn't have much time to waste, but did snap a couple of pictures while I was out there. I'm hoping to head back in a couple of weeks, when the leaves should be at their peak.

Tomorrow, I'm getting up early to head over to bike along Lake Michigan, between Charlevoix and Harbor Springs. The weather is supposed to be in the upper 60s. Lets just hope it isn't too windy! More later....

A New Bike!

A friend of mine is letting me borrow, with the potential to buy, her road bike. I've found out most people don't know what a road bike is. I currently have a mountain bike, which is awesome for the dirt roads and trails in the area. A road bike, which some people call racing bikes, have super skinny tires are extremely light and are meant only for paved roads. The thing I was most apprehensive about was the clipped shoes, where your shoes lock right to the pedals. This is great because you are able to use all your leg muscles to both push the pedals down and pull them up. It also makes getting off the bike in a hurry, quite tricky. Anyways, since the weather was good today, I took it out for a spin. A long spin. This bike is super fast, and super fun. I went all around the neighborhood, than I rode it to my parents house and back. Altogether, about 20 miles. But a funny thing happened on the way back home. I had a late dinner with them, and didn't leave there until after 8pm, which it now starts to get pretty dark shortly after 8. About half way home, there was a mini-van pulled over on the side of the road. The passenger door was open, and there stood a very old man, probably in his 80s, not only vomiting next to the car, but he also had his pants pulled down to his knees. I'm not sure exactly what was going on there, and I made it a point to keep my eyes on the road. I didn't want to see anymore than I already had. Just a funny, yet disturbing story I had to share. Sorry to anyone who spent anytime visualizing that one.