It was a little on the chilly side when we started off in the parking lot at McGuire's this morning, watching to see who showed up in costume. We saw a fat old lady with a dog stuck in her butt crack, a grim reaper & his gruesome assistant, a dead couple, super girl, beer keg man with a dog humping his leg, a couple of punk rockers, a county prisoner, heidi the beer maid, a sailor, a cowgirl, and some others. It was great to see them ride in. There was even one bike that was decorated with tassels pumpkin and a skull.
After ohhhing and awwwwing over all the cool costumes we had the pre-ride brief and lined up under the BART tracks. There were 21 bikes in attendance as we pulled out of the parking lot and made our way through town on surface streets. We zig zagged over to Pleasant Hill Rd and up to Martinez on Alhambra Ave to find our way to Diane Harlan's house for our first stop. We had coffee, several different kinds of quiche (I had to let Diane know that real men don't eat quiche. But I had some anyway, just to make her feel better ;?)several different kinds of muffins, bagels, sausage, did I mention the coffee?, and way too much other food to finish. I almost had to take a siesta before joining the rest of the group on the second leg, but I managed to stay awake with another cup of coffee.
Once we'd gorged ourselves on all that great food, we saddled up and began our trek to Butch & Trinnie's. It had warmed up significantly by the time we were ready to leave and everyone was shedding layers to get comfortable. We rode through Martinez to hook up with Alhambra again, then to Bear Creek, to Camino Pablo. Along the way one of the sweeps was having a mechanical problem. Every time we stopped at the engine would die. The group pulled over and the problem was assessed. It was determined that the fuel tank had been overfilled, causing a problem with the evaporative cannister. The solution was to loosed the gas cap slightly to allow the tank to vent until the excess fuel in the cannister evaporated. This seemed to take care of the problem so we continued on to Moraga, over to St Mary's, to Tice Valley, to Danville Blvd, to Stone Valley, over to Tassajara. We made a short stop here so folks could get a drink and use the facilities, and then we were back under way. We rode down to Highland Rd and crossed along the foot of the hills to Vasco Rd where we turned north and into Brentwood/Antioch where we made a stop to purchase pumpkins for the pumpkin carving contest. We had a little trouble finding the Safeway store at first, but after touring one unsuspecting shopping center and not finding it, we made our way down the street to the 'Safeway' shopping center.
After everyone that wanted to purchased their pumpkins we rode the last few blocks over to Butch & Trinnie's in search of more food. When we went back to the patio area we were greeted to the welcome sight of Rocky, Melanie, Todd and Julie waiting for us to arrive. It was great to see them moving around so well. We were not disappointed with the food either. The theme here was Mexican food, beans, rice, burritos, quesadias, chips-n-salsa, and of course, some cold drinks. We ate and chatted for awhile and then voted on costumes and pumpkins. Once the votes were counted the big winners were, drum roll please, Mike & Kelly Gelbman for best costumes (appliance and cutting board (?) with severed heads) and Laurel Bart for best pumpkin (hamburger. yeah, you gotta see this one). These are too hard to describe accurately, so you'll have to check out the pics when they get posted.
Shortly after the voting we headed for home. It was another great day spent with friends.
