Bike ride with Tristan - walk at Pacifica with Jon

 30 May, 2022

Lafayette

I couldn't wait to meet Tristan again. I wanted us to do the same exact bike ride that we did 3 years ago. Up to Inspiration Point, through Orinda to Lafayette.

Amazing view on the way up

 

I was really looking forward to this ride since last time I was here and we biked this, I had a heavy Giant mountain bike. Finally, I could ride equally lightly to Tristan, who already back then owned a road bike. We stopped once again at Inspiration point to take a picture, though nature is covering more and more of the view that could be so inspiring.

Tristan and I, Inspiration Point

 

Nevertheless, you get here after about 400m climb, so stopping here for a short while is something you just long to do here anyway. I was also making the last of the arrangments about my friend, Csabi's trip as he was coming to Oakland in two days! After that, we kept going. I was trying not to rush it too much, it was my off day anyway but following some downhill sections, the man got wild! Wow, he started hitting speed gaining a mild advantage from the downhill and I could not keep up with him (neither wanted to, since my race was getting closer and it was still my off day). Later we checked, I stopped trying to reach him at 62km/h. Wicked! He told me he was not in a good shape!! Well, at least good enough to do short sprints like this! Wow!

From Orinda to Lafayette somewhere

 At the end of the ride, we sat in some nice café and had our rewarding lunch as we were going to BART it back. We managed to finally do a proper catch-up. I asked him about his work, if he managed to find a new job to his liking. He told me he was still looking and that it was not that easy to find something that he truly would enjoy doing. I admire his persistence in the search and not taking the first so-so job. Then I told him my story of switching roles, how I was no a longer a project assistant but a process designer for my Hungarian T-mobile team. Also about the unexpected offer to work for GE until T-mobile ended up making an offer for another position to keep me working for them.

Around 3 pm, we rode to BART and went back to Berkeley. It was great to be able to meet him and ride together again.

Pacifica

Jon offered to take me to Pacifica for a walk, telling me about how beautiful that place was down there.  

The view from the freeway

It sounded really good, especially that we planned to go to a hot tub after that. The walk along the beach was nice but super windy, luckily he could offer me a wind jacket and that way I didn't freeze. Those waves, boy! I am so happy that the race is taking place at the other side of the Bay. Holy crap! 

Looking back from the endpoint of our walk

After the walk, we went to the well-deserved hot tub. The place also turned out to have a sauna, separate for men and women. I didn't really want to go in alone and neither got the system, so I first went in to a lukewarm sauna. Then I figured it out that there was a strange timer outside (like the one you would normally see on a microwave) to heat it up for a certain amount of time. Oh well, by then I had gone in and fallen asleep for a short while, lukewarm also did it for me. No expectations - just enjoy what you get.