Temecula - after the big drive down

Temecula cowboys, image added by Nikola

Sitting where I was a year back, at Brian’s over looking the Temecula Valley with a setting sun. Magic to catch up with Brian, Lauren and the kids. Great people who have stayed in touch and stayed supportive for the past year. One day back though, to the most spectacular of drives, from Truckee to Temecula.

We drove alongside the Sierra Nevada’s for the first half of the 10 hour trip and could not stop staring at the out the GMC Jimmy’s window at the snow capped mountain postcards. Small towns passed by, stuck in time some fifty years back. We drove past Randsburg, and then through Johannesburg- All ten houses of it.

Passed the highest point of continental America, mt Whitney, beyond passed the outskirts of LA, to Temecula. A long day with long lasting visual impressions of America’s vastness and beauty.

Spent this morning out on the Xterra Temecula bike course with Emma, Brian, and Lauren, scouting the right lines and getting a visual imprint of the layout which is identical to last year’s. I reckon I’m running the right tires, and the right bike. I had to play with my rebound setting on the rear suspensionof my Specialized Epic, as the terrain is very hardpacked and like a roller coaster and I kept feeling flicked up from a too fast suspension and couldnt pedal through as much of the single track as I wanted. Plenty better after slowing it five clicks on the second lap I did. The big talk for the day was the heat, some 100 degrees of it (minus 32 divide by 1.8…) or something to that effect. Nothing like a good summers heat wave back in Worcester, but enough to draw some attention to it. I felt fine out in the windy sun scortched Karoo landscpae, and figure the heat could more to my favour than those coming off a snowy winter. Hopped into the lake with my 2XU wetsuit, stroked them arms a bit, and figure it will be a wetsuit legal swim.

Body is still feeling great and increasingly excited to get the race face on…

We’re about to have some all American chilli, Brian’s version of it at least, which includes a bear, minus one sip…

I cant get my camera connected to this computer, so we’re without visuals for today. I’ll try find an excuse to get to Starbucks in town for some inet and a fruppacino (an iced coffee) which I’m sold on, and upload some visuals from the drive and this wine/horse country.

Thanks so much for all the support in emails. Really appreciated and means a lot to read the ‘good luck’s’ from home.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 5:33 am and is filed under Temecula, Truckee, Xterra, Xterra Temecula, Xterra USA Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.