where's dan kim when ya need him?

i'll get to the reason for the title in a second... so dan kim, sit tight.

so, today was the day i picked to have my bike ride from holland to grand haven. so i drove down to holland, almost all the way to the state park, and then i parked off to the side of the road at one of the beaches (at one 168th)... then i pulled my bike off the back of my car, put my helmet on (of course) and headed down lakeshore ave (which runs all the way to downtown grand haven).

the weather was amazing today... i think i need to say it one more time... it was amazing! not a cloud in sight, but it wasn't really humid or anything, and there was a very nice breeze going on.

the bike path (the pic is part of it that goes over pigeon lake and is really neat) is really nice as well. nice and wide, not attached to the road, and it goes through some incredible neighborhoods... some of these house, well, most of these houses on lakeshore are pretty sweet, and not only do they have lake view, some of them even have tennis courts.

lake view AND tennis court.... deadly combination.

one of the houses was so nice, that i stared at it for a little too long and i went off the path into a large patch of shrubbery... i freaked out but remembered what correcting my mistake did to me last time (remember my good fall in front of my chem teach) so instead, i just rode it out. and thankfully, no one was driving by, although it would have made them chuckle... this girl on a bike knee-high in shrubbery.

and the path has a good variety of little hills, a few long hills, and there is this one really short and steep hill... i pumped and pumped, and about 4/5ths up the hill, i couldn't do it. so i stopped. but to cover up my wimp-out, i happened to conveniently wimp-out right at a for-sale sign. so i pretended to be interested for a second, and then biked off.

so after i arrived in downtown grand haven, i parked my bike in central park and walked on down washington to my favorite little bakery, great harvest company... half a sandwhich and a big cookie... you can't go wrong!

then i decided to walk down to the water, and to my surprise, there were a ton of people. turns out that the coast guard festival is going on! and the BIG coast guard boat was coming in... it's big. so i sat on the grass, and waited for the boat to pass by (which it never did, since it parked about 300 yards down the channel) but as i was just sitting there, two things happened:

first. there were three little boys, about the age of 5 (triplets) and they were playing baseball with a plastic ball... and minus the baseball bat... don't ask.

anyway, they were throwing the ball around, and i just laughed. i looked away to see if the boat was making any progress, when all of the sudden i hear this absolutely devastated cry, and i look to see one of the triplets (named brayden according to those around him) standing at the edge of the boardwalk, looking down into the chanel, and yelling as tears stream down, "IT WENT IN THE WATER!!!! *scream* IT WENT IN THE WATER!" and as his mom consoled him with a meager "we'll buy you another one" he replied with "IT'S NOT THE SAME!! I WANT THAT ONE!! IT'S MY FAVORITE ONE!!!! IT WENT IN THE WATER!!!"

and that's when i thought to myself, where's dan kim when ya need him... had i had his number, i would have called him up and told him the emergency... he's proven successful in the event of a ball going in the water... do the words "catalina" and "volleyball" ring a bell??

poor brayden could have used dan's skills, and poor brayden cried for 10 minutes after that, still uttering in disgust "it won't be the same."
this is a pic of the parked coast guard boat...
second: a boy named jared. as i was sitting on the grass, still waiting for the coast guard boat (which was still parked) i observed how this little boy (maybe 7 years old)kept on trying to tip over this stroller with a little girl in it. he wore all blue, had big glasses (a lot like my bro steven had in his younger years) and a blue denim hat on (matching to the one that his mom was sporting). the little girl was not his little sister, but the daughter of his mom's friend (amazing what you can figure out just by people-watching). jared kept on trying to push the stroller, his mom kept saying no, and eventually the mom's friend put on the brakes on the wheels. then i watched this little boy (who by then i figured out was named "jared" by the constant "no jared"s coming from his mom) try to push the stroller, realize something was different, and then un-brake one of the wheels, try to push again, but not figure out that he had to un-brake both wheels. he tired of this after a couple of minutes, looked up, and saw me sitting on the grass. i smiled, he smiled, then he ran over and sat down right next to me... smiling and squiniting through his big glasses: "hi!" i laughed and responed "hello there." he then points to my backpack... "what's this?"

"that's just my backpack, it carries my stuff."

he points to my empty cup which formerly held my smoothie... "what's this?"

"well, that's my cup."

a momentary pause.

he puts his feet out in front of him, and points: "feet! i have feet."

"why yes you do."

"feet feet feet feet feet."

"uh, yup."

he ran off to go investigate the triplets, but his mom grabbed him and tried to bring him back to the bench... as he passed me and pulled on his mom's arm and sat right down next to me again.

"i want to sit here!"

his mom laughed and said, "okay, go ahead and sit there with your new friend."

all i could do was laugh... it was so much fun.

he sat next to me for the next five minutes, but he didn't say a word... instead he sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his hands propping his head up, and stared at me.

and then he left.

what a charming little boy.

after i realized that the boat was parked, i decided to head back to my bike and get on my way back to holland.

on the way back, there was a different hill that i couldn't get up, but no for-sale sign that i could use as a cover up. but that first hill on the way to grand haven, going down hill on that thing, without pedalling at all, i cruised down and hit a top speed of 27mph.

SWEET!

so, from holland to grand haven and back???

42.5 miles!

the most i've ever done in one day... pretty stinkin sweet!

and i am going to be SO sore tomorrow.

ciao for now my friends!