You shouldn't be able to drive for 9 hours and be in the same state the whole time.

After spending 9 hours in a car on Thursday (plus some time standing on I-5 due to a tire blow out) and 8 hours in a car on Sunday, I was ready for a good workout yesterday.

I did arm weights and went to spin class. Spin felt less like torture that it had been lately; I think because I actually got outdoors on my bike this weekend. I think I can only handle just spinning for so long before I snap and it seems like the worst thing ever. Even though I love my spin instructor.

For weightlifting lately, I've been trying to do mainly free weights instead of weight machines. I think that I'm getting stronger faster, but maybe that's all in my imagination. I've kind of slacked on keeping track of how much I've been lifting, so I need to start that again.

On a different subject:

When you picture California, do you immediately think of this?

Or this?

The fact that I live in Lake Taco and my boyfriend lives in Santa Barbara means that I spend a lot of time driving through the state. While it's perfectly true that California has palm trees, sandy beaches and plenty of "celebrities", California offers so much more.

One of the (many) nice things about spring is the fact that I could do the whole drive in the daylight hours. So here it is, a picture tour of the (non-beachy) parts of California:

Heading out of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Highway 50 is windy, narrow and gorgeous

The American River running along

Now we're into the really gorgeous part of California. The Central Valley.

Psych! The Central Valley is long and pretty boring. I also got to drive through a windstorm next to a CAFO. That was a lovely 15 minutes of driving through wind-blown cow shit.

This is about an hour before I had a blow out doing 75 mph. Scary! Luckily, a nice man named Pedro who barely spoke English stopped an helped me. He pointed to my tire and said, "No es bueno." Even with my limited Spanish skills, I knew what that meant. But he quickly changed my tire and I was on my way again. Yay for Strawberry's full-size spare!

Now that's something that's recognizably Californian - In-n-Out. Sorry about the blurry picture. I was trying to be a little bit safe with my picture taking/driving and didn't really worry about focusing too much.

I'm getting so close! Only two more hours. This is just outside of San Luis Obispo. Some people might think I'm crazy, but I think that SLO is one of the prettiest parts of Cali. My PNW soul just loves the green.

First glimpse of the ocean & palm trees at Pismo Beach.

I'm rocketing down the final stretch of 101. I'm almost there!

What? Back into the hills again. I wanted to drive along the ocean with my windows down, blasting Beach Boys.

Oh well, pretty soon I will be in Santa Barbara sitting on the beach, enjoying the warm sunshine...Oh wait...it's foggy and gross.

I guess June Gloom is here early.

I'm sore

My arms are so sore from lifting yesterday that these letters I'm addressing for work are barely legible. I ran 3.5 miles in 34 minutes yesterday, and my knee felt fine until I hopped on the spin bike. My right knee had a sharp pain on the left side in about the middle of my knee cap. Here:

(This is the transition area of the 3rd Annual Tri It Out Triathlon. I got a flat shortly after this picture)

This is not where it usually hurts. It usually hurts here:

This is what you look like when you go to Hawaii in April when you live in Bellingham. Wear sunscreen. Or you will end up looking like this:

I was miserable. Then you end up looking like this:

If you look closely, you can see my back peeling off.

Well, that was kind of a tangent. Anyway, my knee hurts in a new place. I need to get back on the icing/stretching bandwagon, but I've been focusing on my back, and leg stretching has kind of been ignored.

I threw together dinner last night, and it came out so delicious I thought that I'd share the recipe.

Curry Veggies with Garlic Naan

Ingredients:

• Garlic Naan from Trader Joe's (or you could make your own)
• 1/2 cup non-fat yogurt (I like Fage, but it's kind of pricey)
• 1 tsp curry powder (use more or less depending on preference)
• Garlic powder to taste
• 1 tbsp ginger paste
• 1 cup frozen broccoli
• 1/2 cup frozen artichokes

1. Steam or saute veggies (I used broccoli and artichokes because those were in the front of my freezer) to the point that you like them cooked.
2. Mix yogurt, curry powder, ginger, and garlic in a bowl large enough to hold all of your veggies. Taste it, and adjust spices to taste.
3. Cook frozen Naan bread. I actually just jam it into my toaster and flip halfway through. Not sure if that is in the directions.
4. When your veggies are done, drain and add to the yogurt mixture and stir so the veggies are evenly coated. I put the bowl in the microwave for about 30 seconds, just to make sure it's heated evenly.
5. Enjoy!

I don't have any pictures of this delicious concoction, so here is a picture of some dude's high fashion jeans that we spotted in the Beaver.

Sunshine!

After driving for five hours through a snowstorm and 6 hours through a rain storm, I arrived in Santa Barbara to…more rain.

It rained all day Saturday, so our planned mountain bike did not occur. Instead, we sat on the couch, at a bunch of food, drank cheap beer, and played Street Fighter 4 and Wii Tennis.

I was a little worried that it would rain all weekend, and I wouldn’t get to ride outside, which I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. But I woke up this morning to a perfect Santa Barbara day.

By two or so, it had dried out enough to go on a little ride. It was still too wet to go on the trail we had originally planned, but it was good enough for a ride around Ellwood Park, a preserve that runs along the bluffs above the beach near Dan’s new house.

Beautiful day for a ride in a gorgeous place.

Can you spot Dan in this picture?

Dan contemplates a possible line.

Trying to avoid mud puddles.

Don't fall off the cliff!

Obviously I was prepared for a hard core ride in my t-shirt and cardigan.

A perfect escape from Lake Taco.

Hopefully, we'll get to go on another ride tomorrow before I leave back to the land of ice and snow.

Why do we even need trees?

Sometimes, when it's a beautiful, sunny Saturday and I am inside writing a paper about grazing fees on public land, I want to say, "Screw you, Environment! Manage yourself."