OFR: Andrea's Farewell Ride

"Water Lilly" yarn Zaharah used.

Long time OFR rider Andrea has a new job up in NoCAL and was settling up things around here for the move north. The Thursday Gruppo was having a "farewell ride" for her starting at Bressi Ranch Pizza Port, just down the road near Palomar Airport. Andrea had gone thru some trying times with her recovery from cancer in 2010 and always inspired us with her positive thoughts. I had made up a video of her ride return entitled " Andrea's Peetfest-2010". Troy Buss organized this starting at 8:30, so this gave me time enough to lah-de-dah around for a while.

A while back, Zaharah wanted to make something for Andrea, but didn't know which color was suitable. She finally settled on a "variegated color" approach called "Water Lilly". The finished scarf and hat were neatly wrapped and placed in a nice little red bag for delivery. I also had a few rider goodies (gels, electrolyte tabs, some chain oil caps, etc.) for John Mestemacher, which I would drop off at his work place in Carlsbad later.

Andrea with scarf/hat

I didn't leave home till 0730 and enjoyed a nice leisurely ride over to Bressi Ranch on Palomar Airport Road. Nice group of 21 riders showed up early and had time to chit-chat a while. Andrea was at her car spreading on the sunscreen and talking to Troy. I handed the red bag over to Andrea as Troy took a timely pic. Paul Nevin finally rounded up the riders for a nice pano-shot before we left.

After a mile, I turned off toward Air Products as the group headed to Poinsettia Lane and the coast. Entering the parking lot, I stopped to check out John's Buzz-Box #, so I could ring him at the front door and tell him he had a "package".  Just so happens that he was walking down the hall and noticed me outside! We sat outside for a while and chatted about family stuff and also how we like bib-shorts because they hide the "love handles" better than regular shorts! Also on the agenda was dirt bike talk and possible transfer of some rando routes.

I was there some 30 minutes before heading out and back to San Marcos. Good to sit down and talk to John for a change. Made a loop over to Ralph's store on So. Twin Oaks Rd. to check out some bars and gels on sale. Seem to be awful warm with the wind blowing. Made it home before 1100. Nice little exercise ride this morning.

Andrea's (arrow) Ride: Paul took this pano shot of the assembled riders at Bressi Ranch

-randorides