Courage and Fun

There is only one word to describe a day I’ve been looking for and terrified of all at the same time:

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Period. Absolutely and completely.

I took today off to take the opportunity to do something I never would have imagined myself doing. Ok, that’s a lie; more like something I’m just scared of doing because it’s new.  But when I’m thrown into things and have no choice to follow and just “do” I try my hardest to do just that!  But first, you gotta fuel up for the adventures, right?

I had to wake up at my regular time to get to where I needed up in the mountains which meant breakfast was eaten at my usual insane hour of the morning, 6am:

Peach, strawberries, (some sort of) honeydew (and I say some sort of because it is both light green and orange like a cantaloupe), TJ’s LF Almond Granola and TJ’s PB.

After a long drive through some insanely winding roads and a heaping increase in elevation I got to my destination and was absolutely taken back by the view.  But here, is where the adventure starts.

Now, I may visit crazy places in different parts of the Everglades, or Texas, or Australia, or New Zealand but something as simple as riding a bicycle down a moderate dirt road of a mountain? 

Scares the crap out of me.  I’m not a woman of speed that isn’t easily controlled…But I did it!!!

I have never been mountain biking in my life and took this opportunity given to me by my coworker to come up to Lake Isabella and do an 18 mile bike ride.  Freak’n crazy intense is how I’ll put it.  I did great until about mile 14 when I didn’t take a U-turn fast enough and crashed into a fence.  Hah!  Luckily no one saw me because they had ridden ahead…no shame peeps. I’m hard core and took it with a grain of salt, or sand really in this case.  I totally ate it.

Here’s a sweet picture of the view from the ride about 1/2 way down the mountain…I hope you can see a better view of it by clicking on it…the panorama is just amazing!

You can bet that even it being a mostly downhill ride, I worked a huge appetite by the time we finished!  We headed down the road a bit to the local pizza parlor where we ordered and shared a Veggie Pizza, half w/o cheese for me. I had three pieces w/o cheese; it tasted so great after that ride!

I knew there wasn’t any protein to keep me satisfied in this meal so I snacked on a handful of nuts and dried fruit before heading out on my next adventure…

Oh, my god.  I have never had such a great workout through such a great experience IN MY LIFE.  Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it was close!

River rafting is down right flipping awesome.  I don’t have any pictures yet and hope to get some in the near future, but this will give a bit of a clue as to what it looked like:

Oh yeah baby, and you’re going to be hearing more about this in the future.  Truthfully, I was scared shitless to put myself into a new situation with new people, but I had such an awesome time and can’t wait to get up there and do it all again!!!  Makes me want to reconsider my life as a field biologist to become a rafting guide.  LOL.  Such a blast!

We had a long drive home after all that action and you can bet I was hungry so I snacked on another handful of nuts and fruit in the car to hold me over until I got home.

With it being such a hot day, even being in the water, all I wanted was a cold dinner and for it to be fresh and refreshing.  I figured I had gotten in some veggies with lunch so it wouldn’t kill me to not make it the base of my dinner (which is usually my logic).

Smoothie in a Bowl

• 2 big handfuls of spinach
• handful of frozen blackberries
• frozen banana
• 3/4C USVAB
• 1T PB
• 1C Kashi H2H

 

Anddddd…with a side of leftover Roasted Butternut Squash and ketchup.  I had to get some extra veggies in.

And at the end of the day, there had to be dessert: Dark Chocolate Covered Edamame.  Oh yeah, we’re back in the game baby.

Now, I’m freak’n exhausted and have work tomorrow.  And we all thought my weekend started early hmmm…nope, just took one day off to substitute for another.  As of 4am I’ll be up tomorrow to do some surveys…joy!

Happy Friday everyone!  I hope you have a great weekend planned!