Today's ride and thoughts about heat

Mike and I were going to go for a ride around Mercer Island this morning, but I lost my keys and his battery was dead, so that didn't happen.
Weather permitting, we'll try again next Saturday.

I eventually tracked down my keys and went exploring. I found several back roads I had never been down before (that I can remember). One went along a river and was only a foot or two above waterlevel.

Note: One benefit to having such a lousy memory is that I can drive in a circle and enjoy it over and over and over and over...

A deer crossed the road right in front of me.
I saw a rabbit at the Nintendo plant.
I nearly plastered a little yellow bird. I have no idea what it was.
As I was turning onto a dead end road, a local pooch wanted to race me. He gave it his all, but I still beat him. On the way back, I let him win. He seemed quite smug about it.
I saw lots of horses, cows, and sheep... plus a llama or two.
There were purple wild flowers all over the place.

I wandered down to the derelict Weyerhauser plant near Snoqalmie Falls. I had never been there before. They won't let you wander around the place without permission, so I didn't explore. I think I'll see if I can get their "okay" and take Tim in there with his cameras. I'm sure he could take some killer pictures of the place.

I cruised all around the base of Mt. Si. There are a lot of people with a lot of money tucked away out there. Big houses. Lots of acreage.
They try to trick you into leaving them alone by sticking "Dead End" signs on their roads... then the roads go for a couple of miles back into some very nice, very quiet places. Places where there are so few cars there is debris down the middle of the road. I kept expecting somebody to come out with a shotgun and tell me to clear off.
I really like where I live... but I found a couple of places today that I'll definitely consider buying when I win the lottery. Then I'm'a gonna get me one o' them there scatterguns, too.

I totally got stuck at a red light today. I'm going to put some magnets on the bottom of the bike and go back to that light and see if I can trigger it.

This was my second ride with the new Kilimanjaro jacket. I left the liner in on the first ride and nearly cooked myself. Today I took the liner out and it was perfect.

It would be nice if I could take both jackets. I really like the leather one. But they're both bulky, so it's one or t'other... and the Killi has a lot better temperature range than the leather.

Speaking of heat...

Caliente (outside of Bakersfield) averages 96 degrees in September--with a record high of 113. I'm hoping to blow through there and back up into the mountains in an afternoon.

I had hoped to beat the heat by getting to Lake Isabella, but it looks like Lake Isabella is an inferno, too.
California Hot Springs, however, has relatively mild temperatures (about 82) and cools off very fast at night. It's about 180 miles from Ojai, so we can keep the suffering to a minium if we stop somewhere around Ojai for the night and leave out early in the morning.
That will leave us with the afternoon (and possibly the next day) to ride through Giant Sequoia National Monument. I still have some research to do on that...