December 29, 2011 Up GMR with Fred and the new build

 Newman's Point with the new build.

Fred's Madone at Newman's Point

Close up of the Bianchi at Newman's Point

 Baldy behind Newman's Point

 Up above the shack on GMR

Fred's ride at top of GMR

Finally got off the butt and finished building up the Bianchi frame that I had bought off Ebay numerous years back. Bought all the parts to make up the component group also on Ebay, used, so as to save money. The main reason for buying this stuff was just to see if I had in me the means to build up a bike. I put the entire bike together myself, except the wheels which came off my Scattante when I bought that a few years back and replaced them with better ones. Anyway, with the bike in one piece (or so I was hoping), I headed up GMR for its virgin ride. Fred, whom had gotten a new job about a month back, had the week off for the holidays and came along. Turns out we both had been sick the last few days and neither one of us was in much of a hurry to get up the road very fast. With only a minor rear derailleur adjustment on the way up, things were shifting and the breaks were stopping sort of along the lines I was hoping for. After sitting at the wall above the shack for a while and enjoying the warm sunshine, we headed down. Everything stayed in one piece, and I only need to do a few more minor adjustments to fine tune it all. Just might have tot ry this again with maybe a nicer brand new frame. 

December 20, 2011 Henninger Flats for an over nighter

 Came upon this little guy on the way up.

 Sunset from the campground

The lights come out as the sun goes down. 

 My setup for the night, and it ended up being 

downhill.

The old St. Lukes hospital building. 

Got a later than expected start on a hike up to spend the night at Henninger Flats. Xmas gift buying was at the cause of the delay on my part. We finally started up the toll road about 2:30PM. Had thought when I left Glendora that it might be a cool hike up weather wise, so I wore long pants and long sleeved shirt. While I never really got hot on the way up, I definitely was not cold. Taking our time, we got up to the campground around 4:00 PM. Talked to the ranger guy, got the needed permit for spending the night, and then got some firewood so we could cook something up for dinner. Jim was able to get a roaring fire going inside the stove at our site, and we cooked up dinner, with Jim going all out with steak, while I slummed it with Vegi-burgers.Tasty, but not as much as what Jim was consuming. Seeing how it was cold, and the heat from the fire was managing to stay inside the stove, we had a couple cocktails, made a few drunk dialing phone calls, and called it an early night. Was up before the crack of dawn, watching the sunrise for the first time in a long while.It was peaceful with there being no other people on the lower campground. After heating up quasadias for breakfast, we left just in time to see a party of around 200 students of the senior class from PHS straggle up the road to the entrance. They just kept coming and coming. I made a joke to one of them about being the senior class, and it killed me when he said that was exactly what it was. Dang. After getting down to the cars, we decided to cap off the hike with lunch down at the boat, beer and all. Nice overnighter at a place I hadn't spent the night at in over 25 years at least.