It's a day-pass kind of summer.

Once again, up to Kettle yesterday. Once again, I passed on the blue season trail pass and went for the yellow day-pass instead. It's a day pass kind of summer. I'm very thankful that I'm still healthy, strong, and motivated enough to ride trail at this point, but I'm not committing to the future at all. I'm taking it one day at a time.

11 of us met up at the trailhead for a group ride. At the turnoff for orange, I set off alone. At this point, I really don't want to be an hour's ride away from the car. As most folks did the blue/connector/Emma, and Julie, Jen, and Gerrerd did a double-blue, I logged 18 mi of shorter loops-- purple, orange, and white. (My first time on the new reroute of the orange and man-o-man those switchbacks are soft, off-camber, steep, and hard. Trouble keeping the front wheel down meant I walked some.) Anyway, it was a good call, since I ended up discovering a loose seatpost binder bolt AND a lose cleat bolt about 3 mi in. I rolled back to the car after that first loop with a seat all cocked back and with thanks that I didn't get my cleat stuck in the pedal. And between the short loops I got to sit, and eat a sandwich, and get kicked from the inside (reassuring after riding some bumpy stuff), and enjoy the day. Either way, though I know I was riding slow, I felt strong.

I am very hungry lately, though. Even though we made stops at the General Store, Culver's, AND Taco Bell, I must not have eaten enough. I woke up this morning cranky. My run was better this AM than last week's, but I came home sad and tired. Clearly the solution is more ice cream. It's a good source of calcium, you know.

Saturday, after cheering on teammates at Sherman Park, we toured the hospital, too. It was really a relief- I expected the place to be rather nasty but it is super clean, modern, and nice. The Alternative Birthing Center "suites" are about 3x the size of a normal room and have fridges, microwaves, tubs, big showers, a normal queen size bed instead of the hospital kind... and instead of starving women in labor like most hospitals they actually bring you meals the whole time. And there's no time limit on how long you can labor before they force interventions. As a whole, I think we chose wisely. Then Saturday night we helped replace Audrey's fork. It needed to be faced, so Audrey and I rode the tandem to the LBS. Hence the photo.

I'm wearing a button-down maternity shirt for the first time today. If I didn't mention before, my belly is off-center, bigger on my right. Probably because that's the side I sleep on usually, but who knows. Either way, having this line of buttons down the front makes the asymmetry all to obvious. It's driving me nuts. Freaking Mondays.

Fewer than 100 days to go!