Coyotes and Farthings

So this week featured dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant, a coyote sighting, the high wheel (penny farthing) race and my first ride home from work. Penny Farthing is not a common term in the US - they like to call them High Wheels.

My working adventure is not panning out as planned. Having trouble getting access to the system so with no computer, no work. Dogs are happy cause I'm home until they get it sorted. Deb's work mates are happy to as I have cooked some cakes this week while I was home. But I was able to ride home from the city after work one day. Took me 90 mins for about 25k. It took about 25mins to get through the city due to heaps of traffic lights to stop at. The bikers here ride through red lights all the time, while they avoid traffic, they just ride through lights anyway. It was a long slight incline all the way home so it was quite hard work, especially on the mtb. I was close to home and as usual, a group of deer were on the front lawn nearby - gave me a fright but they were not phased.

I was walking the dogs the other day and they were running together in the forest as usual. I keep an eye on them and when I glanced over, I noticed another dog running up behind them. It was a coyote, looked just like the one in the picture. I called for the dogs as they had not seen it - the coyote rang away thankfully. I had been told there were some coyote in the forest park so I wasn't as scared as I thought. The website said they are unlikely to attack and to keep a distance from them. I worry though that the dogs would run up to it to play and a fight might start. Hopefully we won't see one anymore. They usually come out at night so not sure why it was out during the day.

Friends from home gave us a voucher for a lovely Italian restaurant as a farewell gift. We went with our two good friends and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The food was excellent, the service was spot on and we really enjoyed the night out. We took some food porn pics to show our friends at home. Deb had a lamb rack and I had slow braised beef ravioli. We had entrees and dessert and were totally stuffed at the end. 

Next week is restaurant week here in DC. It happens twice a year. Restaurants offer 3 course dinner and/or lunch for around $35 and it's a great way to check out a restaurant for a great price. I'm not sure we'll get out this week but we'll see. 

And I discovered Root Beer is NOT ginger beer. My mate B tried to convince me it was made from ginger root. I said no, I don’t think so. Anyway, I bought a dozen in a pack (it was only $1.99 so what does that tell you!!) and tried some. Nope, it’s definitely not ginger. It’s actually sarsaparilla favoured as I suspected. I like sars but this is a bit blah tasting - cough mixture is a great taste match I reckon. So I now have 11 cans of root beer in the basement waiting for some aussie sucker to come and drink it. But I did taste a better bottle of root beer at the Frederick bike race and it was more pleasant to drink. So I must have bought the home brand version at Safeway or something. 

We went to a town called Frederick again, we were there about a month or so ago. We took our friends as they had not been and also it was the annual high wheel (penny farthing) race. It was a stinking bloody hot day - high 30's or over 100 on the old scale. We were just dripping with sweat and exploring all the air-conditioned shops. The high wheel race was awesome, I loved it. Those big bikes are just such a strange design. I've never really looked at one and watching the people ride them was so interesting. Despite the heat, many riders were dressed in period costume which was heavy and hot., some of the pants were wool. They had some riders from London competing and I would really love to ride this little event next year. I will make some enquiries about it but I would need to borrow a bike. I don't want to buy one. They only had about 4 women racing so it would good to add to the numbers. Deb has visions of us packing this big-wheeled bike in our removal in 3 years time !!  I couldn't help get my moustache painted on and Batman made an appearance.  Check out the short video in the blog post before this one for a quick look.

We've been watching some Olympics. The Aussies haven't done too well in the pool but well done the girls in those non-traditional sports. Great to see. 

I had my first session with the PT at the gym today. Was fairly good, but will see how the body responds tomorrow. 

Quiet finish to the weekend. Hot again and a week of temps in the 30s again. We walked the dogs this morning and both were hot and stuffed. Poor Macey had a lay down so took the chance to capture the moment.