Bike Rides and Best Friends

God has blessed me with some pretty phenomenal friends in my life. But there have been a few that have stood out above the rest in the last couple years and one of them is my very best friend, Jessica.

I've known Jess for most of her life, we've been good friends for probably about 8 years, and best friends for around 4. She is my polar opposite - quiet, thoughtful, logical, steady. I honestly have no idea why she chooses to hang out with me - I'm reasonably certain I drive her nuts most of the time. But, for whatever reason, our friendship works. I have unforgettable memories of time spent with her camping and backpacking (nothing like sharing a 2-person tent to bond you with someone for life...and yes, we do have matching sleeping bags, but I bought mine first...), trips to the Zoo and Powells Books, eating ice cream or frozen yogurt (or if we're on a health kick, Naked Juice or Bolthouse), or spending long evenings just talking and praying together.

Today, we decided to take advantage of our continuing beautiful weather and take our bikes down to Camp Adair.

Unfortunately we immediatly hit a snag in our plans. Neither of us had a truck we could use. We had to get a little creative but with minimal maneuvering we managed to fit both of our bikes in the back of the Volvo and we were off!!!

What's a bike ride without a little Geocaching along the way? In case you don't know what Geocaching is, allow me to enlighten you. It's pretty much the coolest game ever. Remember when you were a little kid and liked to go on treasure hunts - your parents would hide stuff and give you hints to help you find it? It's like that only for adults. Someone hides a cache (in the form of some type of water resistant container filled with random objects) and posts the latitude and longitude online. You get the coordinates and program them into your GPS and wander off to who knows where with only an arrow pointing the right direction and a rough estimate of how far you have to go. You find the cache, sign the log book and help yourself to whatever cool item someone placed in the cache (naturally if you take something you also have to leave something so the cache doesn't empty out). You play this game with literally thousands of people you don't know. So what do you do for fun? I use mutli-million dollar satellites to find tupperware in the woods. Geocaching: It's what happens when nerds go outside.

So after a couple hours of biking and geocaching we stopped for a picnic which I neglected to take a picture of - but it was good! Apples, peanuts, banana bread, and cheese. So yummy!!! I did, however, take a picture of the bridge right next to where we ate. Photo features the beautiful Jessica, of course...



It was a great evening. Good conversation, lots of laughter, fresh air and exercise, food...oh, did I mention that Camp Adair is overrun with blackberries...mmmmm...so good...and totally worth all the scratches...(note to self, next time wear long pants)...

Now we just pray that neither of us get Poison Oak...there was plenty of that too...