My niece pointed out that I forgot my balloon to mark my place.
Somewhere down there is the lake. We ran up this hill from the swim to the ride.
Oh, look water. Too bad there is no blue sky and sunshine over it. It could be worse, it could be raining, like the last time I did one of these.
I thought of my nephew when I saw this one. He was coming to a sporting event, so he brought his gear. His mother (in the gray sweats) was doing her first triathlon. I also thought of Charlie Brown and his sister Sally on the Christmas special. That nice dog appearantly sat in a car while the man at the other end of the rope did his triathlon. I left my dog and my hockey stick home.
That water is not getting any warmer, in fact the waves are picking up and getting ready to fly in the face of the swimmers on the first leg.
Note the various stages of readiness to enter the water. Some folks even thought to bring a wetsuit, although I heard they did not help much. For some reason I do not have any pictures of the swim. Next time I should bring a waterproof camera. My two best fans arrived after I was off on my bike.
Another ride, another tunnel.
There seems to be a theme to my rides lately, tunnels and bridges.
I am trying to get up to the speed limit. The restricted lane is bikes only today.
At least these tunnels have lights in them.
Another end of the bridge.
Down we go to float on the lake. There were no waves in the water between the bridges. Maybe we should swim there next time.
Don't these people know you can enjoy the scenery better if they walk?
My two biggest fans. It is nice to come around the bend and hear someone calling my name.
Results are at athleteslounge.com, and for the moment, it is the most recent event. You can search by my name to see how I did. The short answer is that it took about an hour and a half, which is what I expected. They seem to think hundredths of a second and places by overall, gender and age group are important too. They also break the whole thing down by how long I spent between each of many trips over their pads that read the chip on my ankle.
That little round thing up there is where I took the first picture of the falls. I was in good company scampering around on the rocks at the base of the falls. I would heed the warnings if the river was running high, but at this time in the summer, they barely have enough water to let any go over the falls at all.
This tree started life on top of a stump which did not prove to be a stable place to live. Adaptation is a good thing.
Of course, the dark is through a tunnel pass named after my boy.
Tunnels are a challenge to photograph, but they are really cool, in more ways than one. This one had a curve in it, which means one cannot see one end from the other. It is typical of the tunnels on this ride.
Of course, some are straight and seethrough, like this one.
The view from the trestles is amazing, it feels like flying.
At the end of the day, the three in the picture above climbed on a bus for a trip to the top of the trail, well almost the top. They rode back through the long dark tunnel a second time. I hopped on my bike and rode all the way back up the hill. They waited as long for the bus as they waited for me at the top. I had a nice ride.
They were expecting her. It is always nice to know that someone knows your name and can spell it correctly.
We caught up on the text messages from her cousin while we waited for the tour.
At last, we found our way to the beach after three days of driving.
Perhaps a pose with a celebrated statue.