In this post, I will start with Santa Catharina and end with Great Pizza Search #36.
At the lowest point of my life, I met Santa Catharina. The luckiest day of my life, she asked me to dance! As they (who’s they?) say, “the rest is history.”
Other guys say that they have a saint for a wife. They need to get behind me in line. My wife is more than a saint, she’s an arch angel!
So, what makes her Santa Catharina? As you know, last month, I acquired a new Bianchi XR4 (previously post, Mia Bianchi in La Bicicletta #2). Her response when I asked if I could get Mia, “If you get a new bike, I want new wheels (for her bike).” She’s a really good cyclist and wanted to get faster! As a man, and a cyclist, I really couldn’t ask for a more perfect answer!
As one might expect, after 31 years, there are many stories. It’s best to start near our beginning – our wedding.
Before we met, I had already started my obsessive hunt to make it to Kona for the Ironman Hawaii. She readily accepted this lifestyle, even agreeing to visit Kona and bike the circumference of the Big Island!
When we first met, she said that she wouldn’t run and was into the aerobics boom of the 80’s (big hair and all!).
But, after a tri race trip to New Orleans with some of my friends (many, many, many stories from this trip!), she started to run.
Soon, she became part of a running group at work and began to race, AND WIN! She won the last race she ever raced. Soon after that race we found that she was pregnant (with T) and had raced while pregnant!
In any event, leading to our wedding day, I had been training hard for a marathon that I had planned for when we returned from our honeymoon. On the morning of our wedding, I met my buddy Rapid Robert on the Erie (Barge) Canal trail on a long run.
I ended up doing 22 miles of running, then immediately got dressed and went to the ceremony, then pictures, then riding around, then to the reception….you know the drill. But, I don’t remember eating, or especially drinking anything until we eventually ate at the reception…NOT GOOD.
About 15 minutes after eating, I grabbed Santa Catharina by the hand and asked her to follow me to the parking lot. I’m not sure if she thought if I had something special planned…..well, it was “special” as I “called for RALPH (see next blog post) between the cars in the lot!
One can’t argue that she wasn’t forewarned because it wasn’t the first time she’d observed a post workout piece of ground hamburger for a husband, even before our wedding day…OOPS!
I’d guess the good news, I PR’d the marathon after our honeymoon return!
GPS #36 – Ciccino’s, Waterloo, NY!
Great Pizza Search #36 was a ride to Ciccino’s in Waterloo, NY. Unfortunately, this has been my last ride in the past two weeks 😦 as I hurt my back (or periformis or psosas) on this ride (Strava Link).
I’m guessing this injury had been building but ignored the symptoms. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
My ride took me first to the PO in the town of Gorham, NY. Gorham’s location was tough to get to on normal rides. It’s in between Canandaigua and Seneca Lakes and far enough south of Canandaigua and Geneva that I’d not been there before.
BTW – notice the 100F on the building above. I’ve not noticed that before. Funny thing is, there was another building across the street from Ciccino’s with 100F!
100F IS ACTUALLY IOOF, Independent Order of Oddfellows (Wikipedia Link) (Wikipedia Link, to the Oddfellows organization). Along with never noticing IOOF, I’d never heard of the Oddfellows.
These organizations have a very interesting history and well worth the Wikipedia read and further investigation on the web. There’s also a list of Oddfellows Buildings (more bike trips?!).
Given that Waterloo was instrumental in Women’s Suffrage movement (there’s another historic Suffragette building up the street), I’m wondering, given the IOOF/OF histories, if there’s a connection….
Getting back to the PIZZA…I chose Ciccino’s for several reasons:
- Their “About Us” on their website was interesting
- Although Ciccino’s has two other locations, I don’t consider Ciccino’s to be a chain/local chain because they don’t do commercials like other larger local chains.
- I’d been to Waterloo before and think it’s village is cool and historic (beyond what I’ve mentioned above!)
- Part of the village is on an island (Oak Island (link)) in the Cayuga-Seneca Canal (Wikipedia Link) extension of the Erie Canal. Oak Island claims that Memorial Day was initiated there after the Civil War! SOMETIMES MY INVESTIGATION AFTER THE RIDE IS MORE FUN THAN THE RIDE!!! I can’t wait to get back to Waterloo and look around again!
Ambiance and Presentation – MEH
Although Ciccino’s was in a cool town and cool building, the place was not a joint. It was more of a bar and restaurant. Also, the pizza was presented in a cheap paper board box without branding.
Dough and Crust – MEH
There was massive amount of tip sag. It took a serious fold to hold it together. There was some char on the bottom and crunch, BUT THE CRUST WAS STILL DOUGHY ADJACENT TO THE CHEESE….UNDERCOOKED. THIS WAS ON ALL 3 OF OUR SLICES.
Sauce – Good
There was lots of sauce and had a nice tomato taste, though there was little spiciness.
Cheese – Good
There was lots of cheese and had a nice bite and saltiness from the parmesan.
Overall Rating – MEH, if you have two or more MEH’s, it’s MEH!
Would I Go Back – likely, no
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