Pedaled 35.8 miles this morning. And, as I told The Yankee (who beat me home today) I bonked so hard I physically felt it. There I was, struggling along, wondering if it was too early to start trying to count the remaining hills in my head when it felt as if a 10 pound weight had been dropped upon each shoulder.
The last six miles were done in sheer defiance.
But it was a lovely day for a ride. Bright, quiet, few cars on the road as I moved away from town before “rush hour” and stayed in the country for most of the ride.
One of my goals is to pass a moving car. Just getting up from a redlight doesn’t count. Waiting for a safe path to turn doesn’t count. I almost had one in the neighborhood once. He was adhering strictly to the speed limit and if I’d only had a little more juice left in my legs I might have made it a compelling race. Thought I had another one today:
Yes, tractors would count. He turned off just before I caught up to him. Chicken. I’d entertained the notion of following him, but he went down a gravel road. I, too, am a chicken. The fun of it was that, had I not slowed to compose a photograph I might have overtaken him.
Tractors would count.
One of the nice parts about the route we took this morning is that much of it is so far out in the middle of nowhere you can go miles without seeing a car. You also have great scenery:
I love that stuff, and this area is full of fields that used to feature working houses or barns that are now storage or little more than rusty, rotting windbreaks. Occasionally you get to see things you aren’t really sure about:
Maybe it isn’t a mirage. Couldn’t say. This was on a stretch of road I’ve pedaled on once before, notable for the calm, quiet pastureland and that there is no store for miles and miles around. You instinctively nurse your water through here, even on a hot July day, because you don’t know when you’ll find a place with more to sell you.
Near that house:
I’m always on the lookout for a flat field with a lone tree and nothing in the background but horizon. The parts of the world I live in are too hilly and too covered in trees to see it, but somewhere on the great plains this place exists. I don’t know why I look for that setting, but I have an urge to take a photograph of it. I look and I look, and I find neat little places like that. You probably wouldn’t even notice that from a car. I speak from experience, having spent countless hours on sleepy country roads driving from one family dream to another family event.
I thought of this on my ride today. I have a list of questions I’m going to ask should I ever get to speak with someone in Management in Heaven. One question is “How close did I get to walking over buried treasure?” Another is “Was my purpose something small, like not letting someone off the phone so that they could not leave their home and narrowly miss a horrible accident? Or was it bigger, like eating all of the Little Debbie snack cakes?” I have a whole list. And now this: “How much time did I spend on little two lane country roads?” I wouldn’t ask that out of despair, at least not anymore, but out of wonder. There can be a great joy that can be found in getting from here to there, even on paths you’ve taken your entire life.
Or on new paths. Today I found myself at an intersection that featured an old country dining restaurant, a decrepit fireworks stand, a Dollar General, a stand-alone ice dispenser and a random country grocery store. I’m going back with a fistful of dollars.
The Yankee took me to lunch today. She wanted salad, so we visited Panera, where they now give you a pager, ask for your social security number, blood type, mother’s maiden name and the lotto numbers you play. When your food is ready they call your name.
I had a brief chat with the guy at the pickup counter.
Are the pagers broken?
“No … “
And that was it. They don’t use them, his voice trailed off as if he hadn’t considered being asked such a question, as if the local franchise had been unsure, all this time, about how to use those big chunks of black plastic. How does the home office know what is happening in all of the various satellites operating under their signage near and far?
I liked Panera better before the prices went up and the cups got tiny, back when there was a little craft on display in their sandwich making process. Today I had warm soup dipped from a warming vase and a sandwich with cold cuts. This will run you about seven bucks. The cups, though, are the thing that get you. The Panera drink glass is now the size of most people’s water cups. The Panera water cup is a diminutive thimble. As if they have a staff member, the guy who’s on this mysterious “Pager Duty” walking the floor making sure no one ordered a water and pumped in a little carbonated lemonade instead.
Give the place credit, though. This particular Panera actually has seating, a concept which is as foreign in most of their restaurants as the pagers. This is a happy accident. This Panera is in a strip mall and was previously a … my memory and the Internet don’t recall what it was, let’s call it a specialty boutique retail store of indistinct origin or business model. They’ve capitalized on the space, and there are plenty of tabletops. In fact the room segments itself nicely, along the front are the college kids, in the back are the silver foxes.
We try to sit in the middle.
Links and stuff: Students at the University of Alabama put this little video together on life after the April tornado. Do check it out:
There’s plenty still to do around the state in recovery. A lot of that has been done so far by way of social media, and no one has been more prominently centered than James Spann. He’s a humble guy who downplays his role, but if ever a meteorologist was a hero before, during and after a storm, he’s your guy. He’s talking here at the recent TedxRedMountain event.
You want pictures? The Atlantic is running a deep photo essay on World War II. Good stuff.
You want words? Brooks Conrad is a baseball player, the kind you might celebrate because he came up the hard way and made it through grit and perseverance. And then there was the night when his life all but came unglued. You don’t have to be a huge baseball fan or even a Braves fan (I’m neither.) for this story.
When in doubt, blame it on your mother.
