Chinese Dumplings And the Leg Burner!

Ah!  The Sunday Morning Leg Burner!  The famous ride that always makes Cece curse....although this time she just moaned and sang Johnny Cash out loud... and then  she sang it in her mind after she could no longer talk because she was breathing so heavy!  But she digresses....
It started out to be a beautiful early morning .....

This ride for Cece is just a "get up the next hill" kind of ride...with "little spitters"as she calls them...short steep hills that kick her butt.  But the route is up, up and more up and just as you think you will die from that climb...another begins.  Cece and Stephanie were rambling through the neighborhoods between the ups and greeted people out for their early morning walk and told people how cute their little "leashed" dogs were. (Last week when they rode, Cece was chased by a mean little dog biting at her heels...of course she was going uphill at the time!).

They smelled the fragrant flowers that lined the rich property in the north east heights and noticed their beauty.  Stephanie stopped to take a pic and Cece was huffing and puffing and knew she needed momentum for the next devilish climb to Piedra Lisa Trail head...so she hissed to Stephanie, "I'm not stopping!" and up she went.  4 or 5 people passed her going up and she did, remarkably,  have enough breath to return their greetings.  WHEW! 

AND YES!  That is the top of the Sandia Mountains that you see in the background!  We rested, had a drink and took a few pics.....and down hill we flew!  On the way down, Cece said, "Yun lives right near here....we should stop in, her dad is in from China!"    Well,  Steph  and Cece were up higher than they realized and made a few false attempts to find Yun's house...but they finally found it and in they rolled.  It was still early.  Yun opened the door and was surprised and happy to see her two friends. "Well come on in" she giggled, "this is just like in China!  People just drop in!"   

As Yun opened the door, there was her dad sitting at her kitchen table.  "Guess what he's doing, she asked,   He is making dumplings!" In they clip clopped in their cleats, sweaty, and with their helmets still on. Clip clop they went over the tiled floors....up the steps to the kitchen,  hugging the dad and bowing a greeting.  In came the boys...more hugs and talk about making a silencer for a spit ball shooter...go figure.

And then,  seconds later the cooking lesson!  Cece washed her hands and sat right down and talked to Yun's Dad...He speaks no English and she no Chinese...so you can  imagine the conversation!  But talk they did imagining that the other understood their every word.  Some was demonstration, but much was talking as if the other understood...perhaps the universal cooking language!

 In case you do not know, folding dumplings is a precise art.  Cece sat and folded dumpling after dumpling and Stephanie and  Yun talked.  Cece was in the zone trying to perfect her folding.She did not even drink her coffee!  Every so often she would show the dumpling to Yun's father and he would comment...and Cece would smile and say that this took a lot of trying to get it right.  Finally Stephanie was ready to continue the ride, but Cece had not perfected the folding yet...even after about 50 dumplings.  So a few more and Yun pronounced that she had received her Level 1 certificate in dumpling folding which allowed her to teach others to fold dumplings!  Much giggling was heard around the kitchen table.  More hugs were to be had...and off they rode into the early morning!

Cece had had enough but Stephanie had planned to extend the  ride to include her beloved Tramway hill. Not Cece.  She is going home to put her body in a hot bath of Epsom salts!