You Got to Learn How to Fall, Before You Learn to Fly.

It was a beautiful day here yesterday in Iowa. They have this cool little garden outside my office by the fire escape, and I try to go there on my afternoon breaks to read. No one else is ever there, so it's like my own, secret reading garden. How cool is that?

It's just a damn good thing I got all that yard work and house work done on Wednesday, because last night we spent the whole evening playing on mountain bikes in Cedar Rapids.

John is doing a race on these trails on Sunday and he wanted to get familiar with them before that. I was just in it for the fun. I love riding trails. It's like being 10 years old and riding with my older brother and the neighbor boys.

I'm also getting better and faster at it. The nice easy, flowy sections are my favorite and those are the parts of the trails that I'm improving on. The more technical stuff? Like that pile of logs in the above photo? Yeah. I still don't have the guts to ride over that stuff. We'll see if I ever do...

As John as I were riding the trails, I heard someone calling my name. It was one of our teammates. He is really funny and we love hanging out with him. We waited for him to catch-up and then he and John took-off.

John is great about waiting for me on the trails. If we're on trails that I know, then we both ride at our own speeds and meet at the end and go on to the next system. Since these trails are pretty new to us, we had to stay together a little more, so I don't get lost. Once our teammate caught up with us, they took off a little faster. Which was fine. I was laughing to myself that throughout my childhood, I was always trying to keep up with my brother and the neighborhood boys. It felt so comfortable and familiar and it has always made me work harder. I did lose them for a little bit when I took a wrong turn, but that was cool too, because I ran into 3 young deer and I stopped, so we could stand on the trail, staring at each other. They had no idea that a human with wheels for legs even existed.

We met another one of our teammates in the parking lot and ended up talking longer in the parking lot than we meant to. By the time we got back to Iowa City and made it to Short's for dinner, the kitchen was closing in 10 minutes. Oops! I hate to be one of THOSE people who orders food right as the kitchen is closing, but we had no choice.

Obligatory Friday cat photo.

We didn't get home until almost 10 o'clock. Needless to say, the cats were pissed. We promised them that tonight, after a little run, we will lavish them with attention, out on the porch. Who knows? Maybe we'll get a little crazy and get them high on catnip. It IS Friday after all.