Two Awesome Rides

Oh man, this day went from great, to AWESOME!

I got to ride on two completely new contraptions and couldn’t have had more fun!  Lets start at breakfast…

I woke up at a decent hour, but still super tired from the night before…as I did end up going out with my coworkers to the nearby biker bar to listen to a band and watch them drink a few many beers.  It was a great time.

I’m finishing off the last of my fruit so you’ll see this exact same breakfast tomorrow, no doubt.

Insert yogurt mix with strawberries, a kiwi, Kashi h2h and pb.  Delicious combination!

And then I was out to accomplish a life list item: take a ride on a motorcycle.

I promise that’s me underneath all the “armor”…

And no…sadly I didn’t actually get to drive it (I wouldn’t even know where to start with it!) but it was fun to pretend I did!

Anyhow, the motorcycle belongs to my boss and I was lucky enough to be treated to a ride…almost all the way down to Key West!  That’s almost 120 miles one way!  But it was totally worth it and amazing to see from a motorcycle versus a car.  So much better!

I had lunch while on the road so I don’t have many pictures of that but we stopped off at a grill and I ordered a salad w/ 4 hard boiled eggs (I ate only the whites; boilded yolks are NAST!), veggies and some balsamic.  There were also some french fries in there too…with ketchup.

On the way home I made the spontaneous decision to try riding in another contraption to take off my life list: a glider!!!

These babies are pulled off the ground by a rope and another plane then slowly sails down to the ground…of course you don’t just glide around though!

My pilot, Angel, was awesome and did some nice U-loops and even a complete roll up in the air! We also had a very unique landing which had us starting off w/ a pummel into the ground but at the last minute an air brake was hit and we shot up, coming back down to land softly and safely on the ground.

I was beaming after getting out of the plane, if you can’t tell from the bounce it looks like I have in my step as I crossed the runway:

Bah haha!!!  Such a great day compared to the one I had yesterday (which btw, thank you for so many of the kind and encouraging words on Twitter and the blog…I’m planning on responding to each one in the comments section asap…).  I couldn’t have asked for a better last Saturday!

Oh, but it doesn’t end there!  Why would you ever think of such a thing!

I came home starving and immediately dug into some foods..including two of these pieces of bread with some naturally more pb, and an orange.

I spent the rest of the afternoon packing and organizing and helping plan the BBQ we had planned for my last night with the crew!  It was one of the greatest meals we’d ever made together (actually, the first we’d made together and for each other!) and every finished with a food coma!

We started off with some homemade guacamole that was perfect in every way…especially for me who normally thinks there is too much salt.  I ate about a dozen small chips with copious amounts of the green stuff!

There were lots of things on the menu including roasted veggies, shrimp, chicken, sausage and more meat…you obviously know what I ate.

I started off with these two skewers, and then went for two more…and a few pieces of VEGETABLE PEAR that sounded new and fun to me!

It looks just like a pear, feels like a pear…except that it’s a lot harder than softer like a pear gets when it ripens.

The inside was a lot different than I thought it would look like though!  I just pitted it, put it one skewer with some olive oil, salt and dried rosemary and threw it on the grill!

It actually came out really well!  I’m super excited for the leftovers I’m sticking in my sandwich for the road tomorrow!

And of course…there was dessert.  I couldn’t leave Florida for the second time without trying KEY LIME PIE…so why not make it! (recipe can be found here)

It was a joint effort of the crew and it came out amazing!  We used fresh key limes we got being sold down the road, made our own graham cracker crust and voila!

As you can tell…EVERYONE LOVED IT!!!  It was really easy to make and I totally suggest it for a nice summer dessert dish!

I definitely ate a small sliver while I was dishing it out…and was completely and utterly stuffed!   

Now I’m off to bed, it’s been a really long day…and today is about to be just as long.  I didn’t get to run long this morning due to the bike ride so I’m planning on getting up early to run my 10 miler, then make the 6+hr drive to Gainesville to spend some time with Lindsey!  I can’t wait!

I hope you’re weekend is going well!