Mill Valley, Salmon and South Africa

Today was a little ride to Mill Valley with the Positive Pedalers. Their AIDS Lifecycle training series started today. Since Jerry and I don't like to cross the Golden Gate Bridge on the tandem, we picked up the ride on the south bridge parking lot. So I'm talking little ride, less than 20 miles. But it was, once again, a nice day for a ride. Sun was shining and not too cold.

We met up with our friends in Mill Valley and it was wonderful to see everyone again after what felt like quite a while. Looking forward to continuing to ride with this group when we are in town, which in the near future, doesn't look like it will be all that often. We are off to New York next week, and a day after we get back we head to San Antonio for a few days.

Our bike rack broke somehow on the way to the ride, so we had to figure out how to get a tandem in a Honda. Thank goodness the back seat folded down and Jerry always has supplies. He pulled rope out the wheel well and we got the frame in sans wheels and back handlebars. We slid it in and drove home carefully.

The ride did have one big climb, or should I say series of climbs. The hill out of Sausalito back to the parking lot does go on and on. But we rode it fairly well. Our average speed was decent and we were happy with the ride.

We were particularly happy because we went out to dinner Saturday night and shared a bottle of wine. There were three of us, so it's not as if we had a huge amount, but any the night before a ride is more than we usually have.

We met Bryan Urbsaitis at Luna Park in the City. Bryan lives in New York and was in town for a couple of days. While I had never met Bryan, we have been Facebook friends for some time because of our love of cycling and our involvement in HIV and AIDS organizations.

Bryan runs AIDS Ride South Africa, a cycling adventure that, in close to three weeks, spans most of South Africa. It has intrigued me but I really wanted to learn more.

And the more I heard the more intrigued, and interested, I became. Because of the expense of getting to South Africa, the ride has been small-- fewer than 10 people-- but it is still a new ride and has the potential to grow. Along with cycling there are stops at animal preserves and a chance to meet local people as well.

While Africa has never been at the top of my "must visit" list, this ride does sound like the ideal way to see it: cycling with a group of like-minded folks who want to raise funds and awareness for the terrible problem of HIV and AIDS in South Africa.

While I have yet to sign on the dotted line, I am seriously thinking of doing this ride, and Jerry is having positive thoughts about it as well. What I will do, ride or not, is try to help Bryan with some PR and possibly see if we can get some bicycles for some young South Africans to accompany us. Mike's Bikes, a northern California bicycle shop, has a program donating bikes to Africa, and I would like to talk to them about the possibility of lending some of those bikes to the ride.

We spent hours at Luna Park, part of which was spent eating. I started with a beet salad, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It was quite low on beets, with more mandarin orange slices than beets. But it was okay. I had salmon as a main course and its surface was deliciously grilled with the inside on the rare side, just the way I like it.

We even had dessert. My fruit crisp with a dollop of ice cream was lovely, though it really did gild the lily.

I had several cups of coffee with dinner, but generally, coffee does not keep me away. And I don't believe it did last night. What did keep me up were thoughts of Africa.