It finally happened

After almost 2000 miles of biking on the roads of this city, I finally had my first car-bike collision. Oh, don't worry, the car definitely got the worst of it. And the woman who was driving it will probably take a long break from talking on her cell phone while driving. At least I hope so.

It happened during my ride home on a fairly traffic-free four-lane road. I spotted a car pulled over to the side of the road, still with its engine on. One of the things that happens when you bike is that you develop a super-keen sense of awareness of any possible threats to your existence. You can anticipate drivers' moves several seconds before they actually make them, and in doing so, avoid any possible confrontations. This vehicle pulled to the side of the road set off a red flag for me. Since traffic was light, I decided to pull to my left, just in case the car decide to re-enter the driving lane without looking. Sure enough, I had reason to be nervous.

About 40 or 50 feet before I passed the vehicle, it began pulling out in an arc, as though to make a U-turn. Since I was right in the middle of the arc, I really had nowhere to go -- turn left and she runs right into me, stay straight and I run into her, turn right and I hit her back half. So I tried to yell at her to get her attention. Unfortunately, she was on her cell phone looking the other way. I skidded to a stop just as she turned into me, and my right handlebar scraped against her driver's side door, leaving a long black streak on her white paint.

She continued to turn and pulled back to where she started, and I began to let her have it -- after all, I was pretty upset that she would pull an illegal move while talking on her cell phone and facing the opposite direction of oncoming traffic. She seemed genuinely sorry, apologizing profusely and asking me several times if I was OK (my body never made contact with anything), and explaining that she was "lost", "from Utah", and was trying to "find Hotel Circle" or "the Marine base". Eventually, I ended my tirade by telling her that drivers like her made life very dangerous for bikers like me, and encouraged her to pull into a parking lot the next time she needed to make a call while she was lost. Then I politely directed her to her destination and went on my way, setting a personal time record on the way home in process. What a ride!

Finding winter...kind of

This morning, Tracy and I decided to take Toutou for a hike up in the mountains. After an unusually rainy January (particularly on weekends), I wanted to take advantage of a gourgeous weekend to spend some time on the trail, because I do miss it quite dearly and the hikable months are drawing to a close very soon.

We set out for Mount Laguna, about an hour away and, at about 6000 feet, one of the highest points in the county. After a freak cold rainstorm on Thursday, we were not surprised to find some residual snow up there, although after sunny and mild days on Friday and Saturday, it was very patchy and certainly not a hinderance.

Our hike was a relatively flat 7-mile jaunt through the pine forests and open meadows of Cleveland National Forest, and it was quite lovely. Temperatures were warm but not hot, and although it got wet and muddy after a while, it was refreshing to breathe the clean mountain air. As an added bonus, there were several geocaches along the trail, and we went 3-for-3 on the ones we went after, despite the occasionally deep snow. I was also hoping to use the opportunity to get on better terms with Toutou, but unfortunately, made no strides in that department. Here are some pictures from our day (click the slideshow to see bigger images and captions):

She hate me

This past weekend, Tracy and I began a one-month stint as dogsitters for one of her colleague's dogs. Honestly, I have never met a dog that has disliked me so much. Every time I come within about eight feet for her, she begins a soft, low-pitched growl. Even when I'm not even near her, she looks at me and growls. She won't take food out of my hand anymore (initially she would), and in order for me to take her for a walk, Tracy (who is now her friend) has to do the honors of putting the leash on, since she'll avoid me like the plague. She is a humane society dog, and my only guess is that she was abused by a man sometime in her past. I wish I could help out more, but unfortunately, it looks like she's going to be Tracy's responsbility for the foreseeable future!