We continued our series of training rides today - the Pinehurst loop from home. It's about 28 miles with a total of maybe 4000 feet of elevation gain. Pepi joined us for the ride. Once again, I forgot my camera. We usually make the loop in clockwise fashion. Today we went counterclockwise. Counterclockwise is somewhat more challenging because the grades are steeper. I enjoy counterclockwise more because we go quickly through the more boring part of the ride, Redwood Road, and more slowly through the most picturesque part, the ascent from Canyon to Skyline on Pinehurst Road. We reached 40 mph coming down Joaquin Miller; that's screaming by my standards though I've heard that professionals will reach 70 in a race on a steep hill!

Fifty-one days to go before departure. It's starting to feel alarmingly close. We talked tonight about which bird book to take with us: Sibley or the National Geographic. We hope to see some birds in Texas and the south that we don't have here.