Yesterday I classify as a great day. Nothing real special, JUST:

-A 40 mile bike ride in beautiful summer weather
-An afternoon at the beach reading the newspaper and taking the ocassional swim
-Dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant with my wife of 40 years
-Ice cream cone for dessert on the way home (frozen pudding)
-Watching the home team win in HD on a flat screen

Not sure that this would qualify as a great day for many, but I thought is was as good as it gets.

And for dessert - a hot roll in bed with Honey

any day i wake up breathing and on the green side of the grass is a great day. the rest is a bonus.

Sounds good to me. Enjoy it while you can.
We all have a fatal disease. Aging.
Like you, lets maximise the pleasure as we can.
(And be compassionate for the poor folks who get hit by bad fortune. My close friend Gene with Dementia, my best Boss and mentor with Huntington Disease).
I do not want to rain on your parade but have been thinking while I read your post.

Thanks for the question. Off the top I come up with

• Wake before alarm
• Quality time with smart and beautiful wife
• Ride
• NPR
• Newspaper
• Coffee
• A bit of useful work.
• Some tasty food.
• A good book
• Time with friends, colleagues, neighbors
• Maybe another ride if work cut the first one short
• Maybe another try at the work
• Sitting and watching the hummingbirds
• Maybe a swim
• Do a little housework and/or cooking
• More quality time with smart and beautiful wife
• Good night's sleep

Pretty ordinary stuff, this. As Timtruro says, nothing real special, but a good day all the same.

Today, I climbed up to Gypsy Hill Road faster than I ever have before
It's short but pretty intense and, for me, anyway -given my history- is a reall tester.

That's a good day, in my book

Wow!!!
There are so many things that can contribute to a good day for me that I could type an endless list. However to keep it KISS I will say anytime spent doing things with my son and daughter.

I had a good day yesterday. In the middle of a 44 km ride I decided to see how close I could come to Carmichael's 'highly fit' category by riding 3 miles in 8 minutes. I've only been back at this for a couple months so I knew it would be a challenge.

My Cateye is set to km, so I made a calculation and was off. Made it in exactly 8 minutes... later I realized my body was more fit than my brain as I had actually gone only 2.7 miles in those 8 minutes. Still I was satisfied to haul these 61 year old bones along that quickly.

Later in the ride things got better. As I made the turn onto a busy 4 lane arterial I finally had the wind at my back and a flat road that eventually went downhill. Being able to keep up with 35 mile an hour traffic makes vehicular cycling all that much more fun, especially when you come to a sharp curve and are faster than the cars.

If I'd laid off the home made ice cream when I got home, the day would have been perfect.

This ^^

What Do You Call A Great Day

I have often though about what would be a great day, prior to this thread. My composite great day (would be on a Saturday):

-Early morning bike ride of at least fifty miles
-brief nap
-take young daughter for a walk in downtown Boston
-catch up on a few work-related tasks, if pending, to clear them off my mind
-watch a little TV and read the newspaper; maybe some E-mailing
-go out dining and dancing with my wife

Today (Wednesday) is the first day of my vacation and I almost pulled it off, but I only rode 25 miles, and we couldn't get a babysitter for tonight. Perhaps better luck tomorrow; at least I have planned to do 60 miles.

Tim,

Recent day, but all of them are good.

• Up with the alarm, and knew the song in three notes
• Good morning to my dahlin'
• Breakfast of Bob's Red Mill Oatmeal, fresh fruit and coffee
• Sourdough bread set out to rise
• Rode the XC course on my Mtn bike with my Dahlin' on her horse
• Lunch of our tomatoes, our bread, some olives and wine
• Check the score on the "Old Towne Team"
• Practice with my bow
• Turn a Turkey call on the lathe
  \
• Grilled Venison, rice and veggies from the garden (spot of wine)
• Old Towne Team victorious
• Bake bread
• Check credit card bill, find that instead of 4 tickets to Lyle, I have 17! (A story in it self)
• On phone to friends, all but 1 ticket gone, should be a party!

The funny thing about this is... at the end of the day, I thought "No one would believe this"..but you asked.

You can't make this stuff up!

I understand, I lost my boss who was also a friend and mentor on 9/11. He was on the flight from Boston that hit the tower. I was on the same flight with him one week earlier. I have had a much greater appreciation for how precious our time is. I feel lucky and blessed and try to enjoy every minute of everyday.

Any day that I survive is a great day. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

I might have answered differently on Monday.

My wife and I went to our cabin in Western Pa for a long weekend with one of my riding buddies and his wife. My wife and I left on Monday evening to return home. At 11:00 PM we were around 6 miles from home when a car went through a stop sign and pulled out in front of us while we were traveling at 55mph. Boy do seat belts and air bags work! Fortunately the 4 young men in the other car were unhurt, mainly because my car hit their front wheel area and spun the car around like a top. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if my car hit them about 6' back on the doors. Both my wife and I are really sore from the impact but OK. Our little 5lb dog was on the rear seat and is OK also, my wife was holding her until about 5 minutes before the crash. Our 1 year old 4 Runner is totaled, so now I have to deal with two of the three kinds of people I hate to work with, insurance people and car salesman. My Roubaix Expert and my wife's hybrid were both undamaged, however the 2" hitch rack is bent.

I took an easy ride tonight just to get the body working again and hopefully get rid of the soreness in my chest. While riding and reviewing the past two days I realized that this evening was the perfect day.

Scary, Allegheny. I'm glad no one was seriously hurt.

Today was real good; tomorrow will be great!!!

So glad you are all ok. When you think of how quickly that happened you realize that you have to cherish each minute.

I had a pretty good day yesterday, and one that I'll enjoy for the whole year to come. I canned 30 pounds of fresh albacore tuna that was caught off of the Oregon Coast.

Take it easy, Allegheny.

What Do You Call A Great Day

Thanks for asking. On Saturday, 9/5 the weather was perfect:

-did a 72 mile bike ride out from Kenmore Square to Upton and back
-one hour nap
-walked daughter on Newbury St and through the Pru (Prudential Building shopping mall)
-no work to catch up on
-did some E-mailing, watched a little TV
-went dancing and we got a round of applause for the Disco Hustle
-take out dinner from our favorite deli when we got home

Perfect weather.
No wind.
66 mile ride ocean side.
A little nap.
Email and BF surfing.
A nice dinner with a nice glass of wine.
A sunset tandem ride with my honey to Starbucks.

I would say all of that qualifies as great ..............

Allegheny,
so glad to hear that you and wife are okay.
It can happen so fast you just never know. Again ,I am glad that you are okay and so are the others as well. Man that is scary

Yesterday was good. It was kind of a surprise.

I took the bus downtown hoping to get another video from the library for viewing on Labor Day. I was also going to treat myself to a pizza at my favorite pizza place. The last bus of the day would leave in 3 hours, so I planned to cruise around a little in downtown and then ride the bus back.

I got off the bus and took my bike off the front. Its an old Hard Rock, modified for street use. I did a little riding around the River Market and over to the bluffs of the river below the Clinton Library. That was nice because it was quiet, and I paused to get some water underneath the Rock Island Bridge. Its supposed to be converted from a railroad bridge to a bicycle pedestrian bridge, but the Clinton Library has been dragging it's feet on following through on it's obligations.

I pedaled by the River Market and saw that they were preparing for a large C&W concert called Boot Fest and thought if I might listen to a bit later on.

Well, turns out the library was closed despite the published hours indicating that they should be open, and my favorite pizza place was mobbed. The concert was still too far away to wait for. I decided to just wander and take the River Trail on the North Little Rock side home.

I climbed up and down the steps of the Junction Bridge and pedaled across. I decided to check into the local bicycle rental shop on the shore as I understood that they were putting in a cafe. The cafe was unfinished, but I got a water and used the facilities. I got talking with the owner and it turned out that we both shared a deep interest in computer graphics.

Then I set off down the River Trail. I rode into Burns Park and on impulse, veered off on a pebble trail I had never noticed before and it took me up near the old iron quarry and across a bizarre curved concrete bridge that can't be seen from the trail below but offers a nice view of the river and the Little Rock shore. I flushed a hawk who flew away rapidly in shock of being so surprised.

I then enjoyed a slow ramble down the length of the River Trail and was almost to the Big Dam Bridge when I made a 90 degree turn onto a small dirt trail on the side of the River Trail. Suddenly, I was doing some single track. No steep hills, more like a muddy path through the trees. I followed it for almost two miles and surprised two groups of deer. I'd stop and they didn't know what to do, so after looking at them through the trees for a little while, I'd ride on to let them know what to do.

I rode some more through the back trails of Burns Park, encountering an armadillo busily digging a tunnel at the side of the road and eventually wound back to the Big Dam Bridge and crossed the river. At the base, I met the fellow who had recently rebuilt the Hard Rock, so he was happy to see me enjoying it and we ended up talking for a little while.

I rode on along the shore and reached River Mountain Road. It's a straight 300 foot climb, tough but doable. I climbed and thought I was doing so well, only to be passed by someone else just before I reached the top.

After I got home, I had to do some grocery shopping so I swapped my backpack for my panniers and rode off to Kroger and back.

The rest of the day was nice and it was quiet. I ended it watching "The Narrow Margin", a 50's era Film Noir. The day was better than I had expected.

Today was pretty good, no riding but I did have fun with the family, (wife and 17 yr old daughter), it was raining and I wimped out of a ride. So I stayed home, read (about a retired couple riding across Canada), and played guitar. In the evening continued guitar and drank some fine Irish Whiskey.

Paul.