Palm Springs Century Ride

Last weekend we were in Palm Springs for Al's first Century Bike Ride.  You can't take me in the car and drive to Orange County or the IE (Inland Empire) without stopping at Chick Fil A.  Alex got a blue balloon and this picture is to prove that he does in fact have hair.

We stayed at a big house in Palm Springs with a group of people that were also doing the race.  Ross forgot to mention that it was his Ironman coach and the group he usually trains with. These people weren't there to see Palm Springs, try new restaurants, or go shopping like I had in mind.  They were there to TRAIN and when I say train I mean go on a 3 hour bike ride, 1 hour swim, and then maybe a run.  We arrived just in time for Al to go swimming.  Al didn't have his goggles or swimsuit, but when you're staying with a triathlon coach he has extras. Extras as in a Speedo...hahah   Check out those legs on Al and Ross!!

The house was huge.  It had a pool, hot tub, ping pong table, and mini golf.  Alex was daddy's helper.

He is officially walking and he is all over the place.  It's pretty cute.

If you don't know what a Century Bike Ride is, here is the definition = 100 miles.  Sounds awful right?  I think Al was thinking the same thing the night before, but he has an Ironman in 6 months, so this is only 1 portion of that.  They started there ride at 6am and finished around 1:30PM.  Palm Springs is always windy, but there were extra strong winds this day which obviously makes the bike ride that much harder.  Ross was kind enough to take a picture on the course for me.

Since it would be too hard to find Al on the course we met him at the finish line.  

Nicest weather ever and not too windy where we were standing :)

Walk Walk Walk is what Alex likes to do.

Al and the group he rode with finishing the race.

 Scott the coach on the far right won his age group in Ironman Canada last year and Teresa his wife at the back middle won her age group at Ironman Kona last year which is the World Championships.  She is also an amazing cook and these aren't recipes you will find on Pinterest.  She has a book with a ton of yummy recipes designed for healthy eating and obviously triathletes.  These people are amazing, so amazing that some of them went on a run after their 100 mile bike ride.  Seriously?  

Alex's new thing is to put his hands up in pictures, funny boy.

Talk about helmet hair.

After the race Chipotle was giving out free burritos to all the finishers.  We obviously didn't learn our lesson from Yogurtland (see previous post), but we went.  Alex is such a lover these days....he will just kiss you out of the blue and these aren't just kisses.  These are big open mouth kisses...haha

Sometimes he bites so it can get a little scary.

He loves rice and beans.

Just enjoying dinner and chatting about Ironman. It was a very interesting weekend.  I learned a lot about triathlons.  I also got some new recipes from Teresa's book and learned that you should eat like a King for breakfast, a Prince at lunch, and a Pauper at dinner.  As we are all eating 5lb Chipotle burritos in this picture...ha

Palm Springs

We went to Palm Springs for the weekend with some friends. On the way there we stopped at the Redlands temple which I never knew existed until that day.

We got there right as the sun was setting and it was so pretty.

That night we had dinner at P.F. Chang's . You can't really tell but there was a lake behind us.

On Saturday Aaron and Al went golfing and Celia and I got massages. The massage was one of the more interesting/worst massages I've ever had. Before we went in I said these are pregnancy massages right? The lady had me lay on my stomach for like 30 minutes and I wanted to ask her how is this different from a regular massage and BTW this is KILLLING my stomach, but oh wait she didn't speak ANY English. To make mattes worse they didn't have massage tables so my head was craned to the left and the table wasn't heated. The massage got really good at the end when she had me sit up with my washcloth towell covering me and she proceeded to wipe my body off with a hot towell. It was sooooo weird and I couldn't do anything because she didn't speak English. If I can find them on YELP they are in trouble...lol The best part was Celia had a completely different massage and her guy spoke English. WTF?? After our massage we drove around Palm Springs and saw a lot of Rainbow flags and other random things. I was tempted to see what was so GAY-ROOVY at the GAY-RAGE SALE.

After they were done golfing we went to the pool and had lunch. I wanted to go on this water slide so bad, but I decided it probably wouldn't be the smartest thing to do.

Later that night we rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. It's the same one Al took down from his Cactus to Clouds hike. On our way there I spotted Justin Bobby and Audrina.

The most expensive tram ride I've ever been on.
The tram rotated in circles on the way up so it was cool to see all the views of the not so beautiful Palm Springs valley.
Al tried to convince me that it was like being in Utah with the cool air and mountains around us, but it didn't work.

Al rock climbing in his nice shoes.

The view got a little bit better, but it's still nothing like Utah mountains especially in October.Apparently the wind only blows one direction on top of this mountain because there were a lot of trees like this.

Our romantic sunset picture.

That night we had dinner in downtown Palm Springs. There was a biker convention going on so there were bikers everywhere. We got a really good seat on the main road which made for really good people watching.

The best thing about the night was the lady that rolled up this huge stroller with 5 pug dogs in it. She parked it by our table and sat behind us. I thought I was going to lose it because it was so ridiculous.

The best part was all the people that stopped and took pictures andthen they would ask Celia and Aaron are those your dogs?

The lady who owned them acted so bugged that people were taking pictures and going nuts over these dogs, but lets be honest what does she expect when you push 5 dogs around in a stroller? lol

I would say it was a pretty entertaining weekend in Palm Springs