I rode with the argyle girls....
....otherwise known as BikeGoddess and her awesome Benicia Cycling Club cohort Sarah. 
I was like Cat -- got in the gates and waited an eternity to actually park. But once parked and assembled, I headed over to registration, got my number, went over to line "Z" to find the others, stood there for a minute or so seeing no one familiar, then figured I was too late. Turning to head to my bike, I literally almost bumped into BikeGoddess. Comical! She asked if I had seen anyone else (no), then said she was going to bring her bike over to where I had mine while she looked for Sarah. So, I stood there for a few minutes, eating my banana nonchalantly, then to my amazement, saw her leaving! lol Guess she found Sarah and lost me! Chuckling at the irony and the "needle in a haystack" craziness of even momentarily thinking she could have found me too, I finished my banana and figured I'd catch up with those two at some point.
Yup, sure enough, at the first rest stop, I literally just about bumped into BG again, this time with Sarah and the matching argyles. And there it was - clearly, it was fate that I was going to ride with these two. 
The rest of the ride was alot of fun, wind and all. Actually, each time I ride with BG, she seems to get stronger, and Sarah was just as fun to ride with. You can tell she's a triathlete...she just goes and goes, steady as could be. We made a great trio.
BG had informed us that she had heard wind gusts of 50mph reported earlier at Patterson Pass, so between that and, for myself, some research for a project at work I needed to do after the ride was over, we decided to scrap our initial plans to do the Challenge route. I sortof had tired legs anyway from training hard and racing the past month, so it was a welcome decision.
The food was good, fresh, and plentiful as always, I filled my pockets with animal cookies as I do every year, the Princes were charming, and the horses along the way gorgeous. I was having so much fun, I kept forgetting I had a camera to record it all.
But I did get this one:

Argyles rock. lol
Oh, and saw Velogirl at her 'Girl booth and bought myself some new sunglasses at the expo....I conveniently broke my regular sunglasses sometime after arriving at the hotel friday.
Hope everyone had fun! 
~BikeMomma
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein