At 5:40 AM I woke up in advance of the "Punky" alarm going off. Tina was up a few minutes earlier and took a quick photo of me and Punky before we got up. Well half of Punky. Well actually, the south half to be more specific. The rest of her was burried under the covers. Oh yeah, she was upside down too.Once up we quickly went through our morning routine, taking the kids out, getting their breakfast, etc., then with the bikes on the car and all our gear, we drove across the street to "Mia's Country Kitchen" for a leisurely breakfast. Tina had Belgian waffles while I had a hot and spicy omelet. They were both very good.
From the restaurant we drove south out of town and up into the hills to the Diamond Valley Lake Marina for a ride around the lake. Hosted by the Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California(http://www.mwdh2o.com/DocSvcsPubs/bike_ride/Bike_ride_flyer5_web.pdf), the ride is almost 22 miles around the lake on an unpaved service road carved out of the side of the mountain. Diamond Valley Lake (http://www.dvlake.com/) is a huge man made reservoir constructed inside a diamond shaped valley and was created with three huge earthen works dams. Completed in 1999, it's primary purpose is an emergency store of water in case of a severe earthquake.
We arrived at the marina around 7:30 AM and parked across from the registration desk. Once we checked in we waited for a while until the majority of riders had arrived then rode over to the trail entrance. After riding up a slight incline, everybody stopped for a group photo then we were off. The route followed the lake shoreline and stayed pretty much at one elevation. Hard packed dirt, rocks and exposed shale with patches of sand made it a little treacherous for me on my road bike but Tina didn't have any problems. We made the entire route with three short stops in three and a half hours, not bat for a roadie. Once back at the car we loaded the car and went down to the Visitor Center where we had a quick lunch of hamburgers and chips, then we toured the Center. Dedicated to the Dam project it is a very nice place for education on water use and conservation.
Leaving the center we drove home to take the kids for a long walk, then it was up to the pool for some R&R, heh, heh!! We spent the afternoon at the pool finally returning to the coach around 5:00 PM for dinner. After eating and cleaning up we spent the rest of the evening watching movies.To see all our photos, click on:
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