What I did on my summer vacation

After two travel-intensive vacations in June, I took the past week off work and just hung around. Here is what I did:

• Watched the Tour de France[1]
• Rode my bike in the bosque[2]
• Took Nora out for our very first driving practice[3]
• Rode in the Sunshine Spin fund-raising bike ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation
• Watched the Tour de France
• Watched the Tour de France ("Armstrong is down!" "It looks like Ullrich and Hamilton are waiting!" "Armstrong attacks!")
• Rode my bike in the neighborhood
• Took Nora driving
• Rode my bike in the bosque
• Went thrift store shopping with Lissa. Found a nice Hawaiian shirt and my first silk shirt.
• Watched the Tour de France ("It looks like Hamilton will be able to stay away!")
• Rode bikes in the bosque with Lissa
• Updated my libxml tutorial
• Rode real fast in the bosque with Jaime et. al. ("Richard attacks!" "Fleck can't go with him!"
• Watched the Tour de France ("Ullrich is down!")
• Rode my bike in the neighborhood, finding a lovely new east-west route up through the heights.
• Spent hours wandering Lowes hardware and appliance store with Lissa[4]
• Ate lots of pasta
• Saw Pirates of the Caribbean with Lissa ("Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.")
• Rode my bike in the bosque for a very very long time
• Went shopping at Costco with Lissa[4]

[1] Mom and Dad have cable. Watching the Tour has become a family thing
[2] "Bosque" is a Spanish word that translates as "forest" or "woods". We use it here to describe the riparian woods along the Rio Grande. There is an excellent paved bicycle trail that runs about 20 miles from the Albuquerque metro area's north edge to its south.
[3] Nora just finished drivers' ed and has her provisional permit. It has been decided that Dad's temperament is best suited to the complex demands of driving practice.
[4] OK, these prolly sound like odd places to go on a vacation outing. But such is our marriage that Lissa and I love to go do simple things like that together. Shopping at Costco or wandering the aisles of a hardware store, done properly, can be a gas.