Procrastination and Milestones

There have been rumors that Dale fell into a gravel pit in Mongolia, or a giant mutant whale came along and swallowed him, boat and all in the night!

Both rumors are false! I was gently informed yesterday by a good friend that "Its not like you don't have anything to talk about".

How true!! It HAS been an eventful week. My problem is that there has been so much to talk about that its all blended in my mind now!

Its sort of like food. On my other posts, I have concentrated on one particular event or maybe two. Its easy to post about 'ham n eggs' or a 'strawberry milkshake'. But now that I've been a lazy blog poster, I'm sitting here with a giant pot of 'vegetable soup with rice and barley and a handful of exotic spices' and cant figure out where to put the carrots and onions on the same spoon! So, if I tend to ramble here, please bear with me, as rambling seems to be my way of getting sorted.

Big Milestone this week. I think it was last Monday. I met my buddy Lisa and her friend Ken, at a nearby bike path for a ride. Until last Saturday when she and I did the 21 mile ride that involved the flat tire story, (See the "Living and Learning" blog) I had been content, and felt quite accomplished with a ten or fifteen mile series of loops through our local park. But last Monday the three of us pulled off a THIRTY MILE RIDE!!



Here is a pic of the three of us at the halfway mark and the 'end of the trail'. It was a great ride although the weather just had to stick its boogery nose into the whole thing! On the way up we fought a bit of a headwind that to me anyway, made flat ground feel like a mountain!! It WAS however much easier on this trip. The first time I rode up there was on the back half of this route, which amounted to fifteen miles for me. On that particular trip I rode it unaware that I had a brake dragging! Nothing like blissfully pulling 'Dumbo' the elephant in a little red wagon!!

Anyway, back to the headwind story. A general assumption would be, one would think, that if your going one way into a headwind, that one could freely sail back with a tailwind..right? WRONGO!!! The nasty weather gods took a look down at those three crazy bike riders and thought amongst themselfs, "Hey Barney, ya wanna have some fun with these characters? ;)"

So off we go on the return leg and into another HEADWIND!! Trouble was this headwind brought along to play, some rain to include bits and pieces in varying assortments and quantities of FROZEN CHUNKS.

There was some concern for Lisa as she had started the ride not expecting such turns in the weather ( none of us did!) and was dressed for a dry ride. Freezing rain on bare legs is not a good combination. The poor girl was nearly blue when we finished. Afterwards she introduced me to a little Mexican joint, that I always thought of as 'fast food" however it was not, and was actually quite good, where we had a chance to warm up and celebrate our thirty mile milestone!!!

The day before yesterday I was invited up to Kent for another ride with Lisa and some of her friends. Folks I am STILL relishing the great feeling of surrounding myself with normal, fun, non-whining, clean people who do not live in truckstops!!! It almost feels like a re-birth or re-entry from a long extended space trip to Jupiter!

At any rate, Lisa, Stephanie, Gary and myself met and began a wonderful ride ( it was breezy again, BUT sunny and Spring-like!!)

Here we are at the 5 mile mark, where Gary and Stephanie's schedules and time restraints turned them back.

Lisa and I continued on over the bridge and pedaled on another five miles, and part of that route was a new adventure for both of us as she had not been on a section of that trail until that day. Once we got a general idea of how this path worked, and where it was headed, we had some ideas about an eventual farther ride down the road. Its true, just as I was told, King County, Washington has some really KEWL bike trails!!

We escaped that headwind breeze on our return trip and enjoyed a rather leisurely cruise back to complete a twenty mile ride!!

I was mentioning yesterday that I was still trying to figure out who this guy in my mirror was, and if I would end up looking at thirty miles as a 'warm up'. Folks you need to remember that I've only been doing this bicycle stuff for about six weeks or so. When Lisa got me on that first 5 mile ride as a 'dare' the thought of riding a bike 5 miles was a BIG, BIG step. Now I think, 5 miles? Are you serious? Is that ALL?!!

After our ride, we stopped off for dinner at a seafood place nearby. Sounds like food is connected with these rides doesn't it! Hey, let me tell you...burning up all those calories on these rides gets one downright RAVENOUS!

Often Ive found that finding decent 'non-seafood' at a seafood restaurant is challenging at best. (I'm not a big seafood eater) However, this particular place turned out one dang fine bacon cheeseburger!! Yeah I ate it because I CAN!! ;)

The other part of this blog has little to do with bicycles. Well no, I guess it does actually.

As some of you know, I live aboard a 33 foot sailboat on Puget Sound. Storing a bicycle aboard is a dicey situation at best. Hauling it on board and taking it off again every time I wanted a ride was getting to be a pain. Not to mention that the salt air was already beginning to show some rusty consequences, and getting the bike on and off in tight spaces was scuffing up my deck. And where I had it locked up it was blocking some locker hatches that I need to get into. Then I realised that this arrangement was going to be impossible if I felt like going for a sail. So I figure, Glinda needs a home.

This is how bad I have been bitten by the bike bug. Who on earth goes out and buys a TRUCK to house a bicycle!!!!

Yesterday I bought a matching white canopy for it, and I'm trying to devise a permanent way of securing Glinda in the back.

I'll also add that riding a bit higher than in the car, has its rewards. Now I can see out past the cars parked far too close to the intersections that block my view without nosing halfway into the street, and I don't feel like I need an arm extension when reaching up to the ATM drive ups! AND it has a kewl CD player!
Yeah I'm happy now!

More to follow. Be safe.