362-365 days into 2010

I've been to a handful of high places lately. San Pellegrino Pass(o) comes to mind, then a trans-Atlantic flight brings you to high altitudes. Pawtuckaway isn't the Rockies, but it's pleasantly high, and just two days ago I was well atop the world on Caesar's Head where route 276 takes you from South to North Carolina. I think it's somewhere around 2500' after a half hour of climbing so you're not exactly huffing and puffing from altitude sickness, but it's a respectable climb nonetheless.The mountains north of Greenville, SC are spectacular. As are my artistic photography skills.So as you may have guessed - or perhaps read if you read my tweets and such - I'm down in Greenville for a week of fine weather. Fine is of course a relative term and relative to New England right after Christmas I'd say I made the right decision, since the very day I left, temps were in the low teens and wind gusts were reaching 50mph. As a kid growing up in NH, I wanted to ski and play in the snow all winter long, that sounds great. As a cyclist that's terrible.Temperatures here in Greenville mingle in the 30s-60s depending on the time of day and the current weather pattern. Thanks to El Nino or Global Warming or whatever, New England is also undergoing similar weather patterns, coincidentally. But I'm still happy with the decision.Yesterday was the final day of 2010 and a handful of us ushered in the final day of the year with an awesome ride. There were 10 of us in total (and since someone asked, the pro teams represented include Liquigas-Cannondale, Columbia, BMC, Jelly-Belly and/or Cannondale-CyclocrossWorld CX team depending on the time of year, and Colavita).Also as I've mentioned in 140 characters or less, a near 5.5 hour ride is optimized by a brownie stop at a middle-of-NOWHERE gas station.The highlight of the previous day's ride was something of a lowlight, but hilarious to me all the same. We had just pedaled a robust 4 hours and were cruising into town again. We were on a main road, but well off the side as a cyclist rightfully deserves to be. A circa 1998 Chryster minivan procedes to drive up to us, slow down, lower the window, and the driver issued a lengthy and sincere, "BOOOOOOOO" at us! I found it funny as heck so I then let out a mighty cheer. Seriously I think it's great. If professional baseball, basketball, and football players elicit boos from fans, why shouldn't cyclists receive the same fanfare? Plus he the fact that he's slowing down to boo shows he's at least paying attention to us. Right? Right.Booooooo! Happy New Year.