Yesterday made my first walnut run of the year. One of the things love doing on my long rides is finding wild things that are good to eat, California is the state of fruits and nuts after all. I know of a tree near the top of one of my favorite loops, that seems to always come ripe a bit early. This year I am running a bit behind with the new baby and all and thought might be a bit late. Those of you that made it up to Ventura earlier this year for the SoCal Rivendel Appreciation ride will recognise some of the views.
The ride starts out on the local river/rail trail for 7 or 8 miles then the rout hooks east for 8 or 9 mile of beautiful but hot dirt climbing. The views are incredible, and the persisting fog this year had cut loose to clear blue skies. Depending on the line of sight you could see the Channel Islands, well past Lake Casitas and haze free views of all the mountains above Ojai. The Roadeo performed fantastically. Around mile 5 of the climb I was taking a water break and thinking how well my berthoud saddle had been breaking in, it was great out of the box, but seemed to be softening up, to the point where I was thinking of playing with the adjusting screw. Closer inspection during the break revealed that the attachment screws were actually working loose. Thankfully had the heavy Alien tool with me and it had the little Allen key required to tighten them. Todays project is locktight. That was the closest thing to a mechanical had all day. As I was climbing and gaining on the tree, could not help but notice how many other types of trees had gone to fruit and already started dropping. I thought for sure I was going to be too late this year. Then, after mile 7, and almost to the point of asking "are we there yet" out loud there it was, fruit still on the tree. It has been a cold year and I was actually a bit early. I was able to gather up about 5 lbs or so of green nuts before I ran out of bag space, walnuts in an Acorn. If you have never had raw walnuts it is a bit of an acquired taste, but they are fantastic, 2 or 3 feel like a satisfying snack, they are tender and more bitter than what you buy at the store, soo good. With the catch in the bags it was time to summit and make the decent. The extra load was noticeable for sure but not as big a problem as my lack of enough water. The summit came soon and then for the best descent in the county, sorry no pictures there I was not stopping to smell the roses, it was time to get the bottle filled. The rest of the ride home was beautiful, I took a new route, for me, along Creek Road, nice but fast traffic. Great ride and a much needed break away from the day to day stuff, next up pomegranates and maybe prickly pear...... Pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rperks1/sets/72157624833772123/ Rob Ventura, Ca -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
