Eventful week – BionicOldGuy

As I mentioned in mine last post, Last Thursday I was out with some friends at my bike club marking the route for the club’s Tierra Bella ride that was taking place on Sunday. Unfortunately it rained quite heavily before Sunday and washed away many of the markings. We warned riders to bring a printout of the cue sheet or load the GPS of the route onto their displays so I don’t think too many get lost. 900 signed up for the ride and 600 actually went on Sunday, where there were showers in the morning but otherwise fine.

I wanted to make the trip but got bad news on Friday. A long-time good friend suffered a severe stroke, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain hemorrhage and was in the intensive care unit. Since then, we have been on call in case his wife, another dear friend, needed us. He died on Tuesday. Doctors believe the cause was head trauma as a result of a recent fall while hiking. Rest in peace, my dear friend Bob. This certainly puts life in perspective. We need to love each other and not worry about the little things. We don’t know how much time we have left.

I was able to take a few short trips over the weekend and keep my phone with me just in case. On Tuesday morning we knew that many more family members had come to help Carrie, so I headed out for my group ride. We started in gloomy and cold conditions, at the tail end of the recent storm.

The sky cleared as we reached Redwood Retreat Road, which can be seen in the next photos.