Monday, April 19, 2010

The Love/Hate Relationship

I had to tear myself away from my book, Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, but it's time for my nightly ritual of TV watching and blogging so reading will have to wait. It's a really good book though, even though I have at times in the past 400 pages wondered if I loved it or hated it. I'll let you know when it's over...

So Day 1 of Cape Cod relaxation is coming to a close and I find myself about as exhausted as I was last night. Oops.

It started with my plan to bust out a 22 mile bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. It took me close to 2 hours because something was up with my bike chain and I kept stopping to try to fix it. I even stopped at a bike shop and I thought they fixed it, but my bike went back to not switching gears in a few minutes. Oh well, I didn't get stranded 11 miles from my car, so it was a success.

The ride itself was good. It was a bit cold out, and I followed the usual progression of "I love biking" and "I hate biking" throughout the bike ride, but in the end it was a good ride. However, I have to say my knee hurts now, and I think I am going to take a definite hiatus from both running AND biking to see if I can heal my knee once and for all (maybe after my 30 mile Cycle for Autism?). My sister has been telling me that biking is bad on knees forever now, but today was the first time that the pain felt like I had gone for a run (though I have to say it takes 22 miles on a bike for my knee to hurt and less than 2 minutes of running to do the same thing...but still).

Post bike ride Eric and I decided to do what we do best- be touristy. We headed to Sandwich Heritage Museum and Gardens. We've never been before and with 3 museums and lots of gardens, it seemed to have a lot to offer. The first awesome surprise? Teachers get in FREE (saved $12 each!) with our Mass Teacher Card. Amazing. I am the teacher and student discount queen. What's better than fun touristy stuff? FREE fun touristy stuff.

Our first stop inside was at the Automobile Museum. It was basically a giant circular room with tons of antique cars and interesting information about the year they were built, how much they cost, how much the average yearly income was then (usually much less than the cars!) and other interesting facts about each car- some were owned by presidents!

How would you like this "fire truck" to be saving your house?

Eric and I know we both have new cars, but we couldn't resist driving one away...

Hehe.
The two other museums were also cool too, one was a history museum and the other was an art museum. In the history museum we got to do our own rubbing of gravestones...

Interesting, huh?
The highlight of the art museum was the American flag made out of things that washed up on the beach...so cool!!!

I am not a huge art museum girl, but I can appreciate really different, creative things like that.

In between each museums we got to see beautiful gardens, lots of signs of spring...

And we got to see a cool labyrinth...

...which, by the way, is a "maze" except there aren't like dead ends and tricks like a normal maze.

Cool stuff.
Now I'm going to go back to Little People Big World. They are on a European vacation and I am so wishing we were going to Europe instead of Hawaii on our honeymoon...ugh, I knew deciding on a destination for such a big trip was going to be impossible for me!

I'm done.

Oh, and Happy Patriot's Day and Marathon Monday!!!


20 comments:

  1. Happy Monday, girl! I love that art piece of the American Flag... too cool! And way to take advantage of being a teacher! Free food!

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  2. I'm kinda glad to hear someone else say biking is bad for the knees!!! My knees actually hurt the worst after spinning, but I always thought I was crazy for thinking that... My spinning instructor told me that spinning shoes might help but you've already got those...

    Anyways, I think a break could definitely help!

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  3. I felt the exact same way about that book!! I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen...but it didn't happen! Enjoy it :)

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  4. i'm sure it depends on what is wrong with the knees, but even when I had severe knee issues, I found cycling much easier on my knees than running. But swimming was easiest on the knees of them all!

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  5. books? what are those?

    i read (sucked into the vortex of) food blogs :)

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  6. Don't quote me on this and I think it could be all in my head BUT I think that my yoga challenge has REALLY HELPED MY SHIN!

    Weird, right? Why would YOGA help my shin, but I dunno, I ran LONG on Sunday and NO shin pain. I am going to test out my theory on a short run on Wednesday! Maybe your 30-day yoga challenge will heal you :)

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  7. Okay so I didn't quite say that biking was BAD for the knees haha. It is actually SUPPOSED to be better for them. I just meant in my circumstance (and maybe yours too), it's doing more damage than helping.
    Biking is very similar to running in how you should increase your mileage though. You are supposed to start very slow and increase by only 10% a week, even though you may be able to go faster. I know I'm not doing this, and this could be the issue whenever I bike. I'm sure if my knee was stronger and I was cautious about my increase in mileage, stayed away from hills and had a better bike things would be okay.
    Yes I'm aware its 4:38am, sigh.

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  8. You watch that show?? That's funny, I guess a lot of people watch it though because it's been on forever! I shouldn't laugh. I mean I've seen it before.....but the wife kills me. I feel bad for the hubby sometimes! Also, you will NOT regret choosing Hawaii once you are there, I am confident in that.
    Glad you enjoyed your bike ride (well, loved/hated it) and the museum. Like you I am not a huge fan of museums, but sometimes they can really impress me. That flag is SO NEAT!

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  9. Nice job on the long bike ride! You have the garmin too! I am so jealous! Enjoy your relaxing week!

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  10. I think a honeymoon in Hawaii will be fabulous. Europe is great, but a relaxing desetination seems perfect for a Honeymoon. That way you can louge around and not feel like you are missing out on so much. I always feel like I have to pack so much into my days when I am in Europe!!

    Sorry to hear that the biking bugged your knee...

    I did not care for Firefly Lane. Everyone I talk to who has read it really liked it, but there were parts of the book that really pissed me off. I guess I just didn't like one of the main characters and that sort of ruined it for me!

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  11. Yikes, I hope your knee feels better!

    You definitely will NOT regret Hawaii. Our honeymoon was simply amazing!! What island(s) are you going to? We stayed on Kauai and loved every minute. I have hundreds of pictures of the beautiful landscapes on FB if you want to friend me and check them out! I should be searchable under Katie Hodgdon :)

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  12. Sorry about the knee problems :-/ Looks like you are having fun cape time though!

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  13. I think it is awesome you had a great choice between Hawaii and Europe and that either one would be great! For the record, I would have picked Hawaii!

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  14. Hey Kelly! I think my school on FB is SUNY Buffalo, my grad school. If that doesn't work, my email address is katie.hodgdon@gmail.com. You are going to have sooo much fun in Hawaii! If we go again, I definitely want to hit up Maui- I've heard great things!

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  15. Great job on the bike ride! Too bad about the chain issues and knee pain, but at least you made it!

    Enjoy the rest of your time at the cape!

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  16. A bad chain can definitely put a damper on a bike ride!

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  17. I loooove that American Flag! I'm very jealous of your relaxing week at the Cape. I'm hoping to get out there at some point this year or next...haven't been in a super long time!

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  18. ohh you're on cape cod! lovely. (born and raised). I remember loving my field trip to the sandwich heritage muesum, i even remember the cars. I don't remember the flag though. haha i lovee that picture you took of it! so glad you are enjoying yourself

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