Rode this route this evening:
The Yankee is racing on that tomorrow and I was doing the scouting work. The opening rollers can get you. Your eyes will deceive you. Watch out for that pothole. When you get here shift up. You’ll ride along the top of the hills, so pedal hard.
Gear up when you hit that stop sign. Crush it here. Be careful of that intersection, it feels crazy on the bicycle. Get over your gears on that roller. When you come back in toward the park sprint the last leg. I was breaking 30 through there.
Tomorrow she’ll do her second aquabike, a swim-ride race. Last year, in her first one, she took third place. And now she has another 600-meter swim and a 14-mile ride at John Tanner State Park in Carrollton, Ga. It boasts 28 acres of lakes, the largest sand beach of any Georgia state park and the nicest state park restroom I’ve ever seen. And also really, really cold water in the swimming area.
Things are still unseasonably cool, which feels great in general. But if you have to swim in it at 8 a.m. probably is a different story.
John Tanner was a local business owner who opened and ran the park from 1954 through 1971, when he sold it to the state. Actually it is now a county park. Even better. The state was going to close the park in 2012, but it went back to the locals instead.
The ride felt slow to me, I started cold, I hadn’t eaten enough and I’d gotten right out of the car and on to the bike. But my computer disagreed. It said I had a fairly nice pace for my first time on that route. Nice for me, put still slow, we agreed.
That’s OK, because pasta for dinner! We found our way to a Carrabba’s after noting the local Mellow Mushroom was closed and avoiding the many Captain D’s that seem to populate that part of the world.
They are presently offering a menu that includes seconds. They know their audience, namely, me. Only they brought out both plates at the same time, which didn’t make me look very good I’m sure. Joke’s on them. I still had bike grease and tire dust on my face, apparently.
Badges of honor, I say.
George Jones was nothing less than the greatest country music singer that ever lived.
— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) April 26, 2013
Not much else to say after that. This week’s YouTube Cover Theater features covers of the timeless, brilliant George Jones.
Charlie W. uploaded this video from Belgium today:
Sitting on a porch with crickets buzzing in the background, playing a pretty Gibson Hummingbird and singing about drinking. That’s a George Jones tribute if ever there was one:
Jim Arkus here says he heard the news and sat down on his porch and put this cover of The Door on video:
There are a lot of Jones covers popping up today, and so their traffic is necessarily low. This one has been up for more than a year and I do not understand how it has less than 200 views.
The Opry dedicated their show tonight to Jones, who became a member in 1956:
George Jones had number one singles in four different decades. He marked 26 albums that charted in the top 10 and 72 singles reach such lofty places.
George Jones gets the final word, of course. This was a title track in 1985 and still a fan favorite a decade later, when he performed it in this 1993 concert. It reached number three on the charts as a lament and a criticism and it is even sadder today:
OK, Merle gets the last word, because it is likely the truth:
The world may have lost the greatest country singer that ever lived. twitter.com/merlehaggard/s…
— Merle Haggard (@merlehaggard) April 26, 2013
