Is it Christmas Break Yet?

What a wonderful four days! Food, Family, Food, Riding...did I mention food? Turkey day started off with a great mountain bike ride with Mike Mahoney. We rode Chumash in Simi Valley which was a blast. From there I headed to my mother in-laws and got ready for the feast! Usually they say that we are going to eat at 1 and ends up being more like 4 or 5! This year we were face first at 1:05! Stuffing, ham, stuffing, Kristen's amazing creamed corn, stuffing, turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, corn bread cakes, stuffing, gravy, and I think some more stuffing! One of the doctors that Kristen's mom works for kicked down a mega expensive bottle of Cabernet that was amazing! I am not really supposed to drink red wine for reasons that I will not tell(let's just say that there is something in red wine that makes me blackout) but one glass is usually OK. The one glass I had was very enjoyable.
We had a couple drinks and played some games as the day passed. I even beat my high score on Wii bowling!
Friday brought another cool and very windy morning. As the ladies went out at the butt-crack of dawn to shop, I stayed at home asleep with my four little heaters cuddled around me!(My pups) I ate a nice breakfast and went out on a mountain bike ride in Chesebro Canyon. This decided to do a few hours of climbing and rode for about 3 hours in the wind! I learned that when there are 60 mph wind gusts, you should ride as far away from the edge of the cliff as possible! I came around a couple of exposed corners that the wind literally blew me over a foot or two! All in all I had a great ride! Then it was just an afternoon and evening of eating and relaxing!
Saturday I awoke to the smell of smoke and just as all had feared there was another fire raging in Malibu! This one was a little closer to home. As I headed down my street on a road ride I could see the flames at the top of the hill! They were HUGE. I had planned on riding up that range of hills but decided for more weekday road route. Other than the wind, the ride was great. I dropped about 4 minutes off of my time on this 30 mile route. I was impressed with this as the wind really slowed me down for a majority of the ride. Then it was off to the bike shop where we watched the fire rage all day as we worked. I think I have said this before but working at the shop on Saturdays is really fun for me.
Sunday morning was time for a group ride and I was excited to ride with some new people. One of our long time customers at the shop started working with us on Saturday. Drew is a CRAZY fixed gear talented rider in all arenas of cycling. He is part of a cool fixed gear group that holds impromptu races in town. He is also part of the Midnight Ridazz which is a really cool group of cyclists that hold these late night rides through Los Angeles and the surrounding cities. Drew has a Jesus style beard, a complete tattoo sleeve on one of his legs and showed up to the road ride in a pair of Dickies cut-offs and a Vegas t-shirt! The only thing out of place on this guy is his super nice S-Works road shoes! He wanted to try to ride Rockstore on his fixed gear but bailed out when his buddy did. He brought a geared bike and hit the road with myself, Kim, Danny Luphold and his girl Dee. As we headed out Mulholland to Rockstore we saw the fire helicopters picking up water in Malibu Lake! This was about 50 yards from us! It was amazing to watch as they had to drop into a very tight space to pick up the water. Once we got up near the top of the mountains we had one of those HUGE water dropping DC-10's fly over us! That was a sight. Only along the top of the ridge did the smoke become an issue as the wind was blowing it away from us at every other point. I had a blast on this ride as well! Once back to the house I took a great nap with my dogs and then relaxed for the rest of the day! Then, just like that, my four days of paradise were over!
Back at work on Monday I found out that one of our employee's lost their home in the fire and our owner almost lost his. Poor guy lost everything.
Monday was a rest day and I hope to get in a ride this afternoon if I can sneak out of work early! We will see!
Peace,
Lucas