Day 96, August 22nd 2008, beginning and ending in Fresno, California

I woke up at 6:00 to go shopping for some breakfast items. I was going to make chocolate chip pancakes, a personal favorite of both Marge's and mine. I picked up all the stuff I needed and headed back to the house. Marge usually leaves around 8:00, so I wanted to have it ready in plenty of time. We ate my delicious flapjacks and ended up being a few minutes late. Her work was on the way to the park, so we rode with her.

We got to her work in Reedley where she works as a recreation coordinator for the city. We dropped her off, filled up some gas, and were on our way. It would not have been a fun bike ride as we ascended from near sea level to over 8,000 feet into the park. We stopped at a few groves throughout the park playing around in some of the trees.

Once we were about halfway through, we saw a bear cup cross the street. Finally we had seen a damn bear! Sure enough right behind it, here comes momma bear. We watched the mother dig in a beehive while the cub observed. If you look closely you can see the bees flying around it's head. It was getting stung repeatedly, but didn't seem to mind.

After the bears made their way out of sight, we went over to the General Sherman tree, the biggest tree in the world. A few quick stats on the tree is that it is 275′ tall, 52,000 cubic feet, and 2200 years old. It was quite the tree and grows everyday.

After we left the General Sherman area, we were close to the exit, so we left the Generals Highway, and the park.

We headed back towards Reedley. The descent back down into the valley was very long and windy. Once we finally returned to flat ground, Paul nodded off. I got a little hungry while we were driving (plenty more of those), but decided to wait until we got back to eat.

When we returned to Reedley we got more Jamba Juice. Paul also got a sandwich. I checked out an Athlete's Foot for sneakers to no avail again. We left that plaza and headed to a bike shop across town. The shop we stopped at did not have a rim that would fit my bike, and was a pretty bad shop in general. As a final stop, and part of the deal, we took her car to the car wash. I don't think I ever washed my car when I had one, so it had been a while for me. They're fun.

We left there and headed back to Marge's work. She introduced us to some of her co workers, and gave us some pretzels and graham crackers. We juggled the soccer ball while she finished up her work day. When she was done, we hopped in the car, and headed back to Fresno.

When we got back, they showered up, and we went down to Chukchansi stadium, where the Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, play. The game was a good one, we had good seats, and the Grizzlies won, so I got to pretend to be a really devoted, obnoxious fan. Always a good time.

After the game was over, they had fireworks. It was a really impressive showing, maybe even better than the ones we saw on the 4^th.

When the fireworks were over, we went back to Marge's. She was really tired, and fell asleep early. We had talked to a friend who is actually a captain of the Fresno State football team, who called and woke her up. I wanted to see him before we left the next day, so we got Marge in motion and headed over.

We got there and ended up hanging out well past 2:00, probably not what Marge was hoping for. Ike had a really amazing memory as we recounted some things that happened in our short friendship that one fine summer. It was fun catching up, and I'm glad Marge manned up and brought us there. Good luck on the field this year brother.

We went back to Marge's and again went to sleep quickly. I actually did eventually give in to showering before I went to sleep, mostly for Marge's couch's benefit. Tomorrow we would head out of Fresno to see Mike off before his European adventure. It was nice catching up with old friends, but the train keeps on moving.

Life was good.