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Riding uphill, one of the hills that always hurts. And I decided I would whip out my phone to take a picture of something. I just missed it, but I got this one instead, which is probably better.
You don’t often get the warning up ahead. And sometimes the lane ends, improbably, two-thirds of the way up the hill.
The best day to ride hills is the worst day to ride hills. The worst day to ride hills is the best day to ride hills.
I rode 30 miles on my bike today. Just enjoying a few big loops around the neighborhood, really.
I should have carried the cat along with me. She sometimes has extra water …
Also, she did this the other night:
Just 29 seconds of Allie, #TheBlackCat.
(She likes cheese flavors.) pic.twitter.com/MEObpMzlKl
— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) April 30, 2016
She likes cheese flavors.
We went for a ride along the Chattahoochee River on Saturday, a nice 43-mile ride. The river looks like this:
And part of the ride looks like this:
Of course, as we have noted in this space before, we only go over there to ride for the breakfast. When in Columbus, visit the nice people at Plucked Up Chicken and Biscuits. You’ll thank me for it later.
Baseball that night:
And the days turn to nights and the days after, faster and faster.
There are four entries on the marker site for you to check out today. First, there’s The Bottle, which is one of those first curiosities you see in town if you come by a certain route.
Across the street is just a regular convenience store. On the sign you learn there that The Bottle, a place with a great deal of character to it in the old roadside Americana vein, burned in the 1930s. What’s there now is the most Alabama thing you could possibly do with the space. See more about The Bottle here.
See more about ths Rosenwald school here. The schools were named for Julius Rosenwald, president and later chairman of Sears Roebuck & Co., who, along with Booker T. Washington, started the program. There were more than 5,000 Rosenwald schools built nationally and a few hundred of those were established throughout Alabama. This was the first one. To read more about the Alabama version, click here. You can see a slightly better version of the photo in the marker here.
And just down the road from that is the Loachapoka Historic District. It was a railroad boom town, which meant it was also a railroad bust town. There are two markers within a few feet of one another here.
It’s a sleepy little piece of sand now. You can see the markers here. Also, in the local Native American dialect, Muskogee, Loachapoka means “turtle killing place.”
Jeff Price says the Barbecue House is sold and the College Street landmark will be redeveloped. The oldest restaurant in Auburn, Alabama is going away.
He just lost his mother a few years ago. His parents built the business themselves and for most of his life Mr. Price has had his hands in it as well. You could tell that he was getting ready for a new chapter. He still has his health and his family and more happy customers than he could count. People will miss it, but people will understand. That’s the thing about regulars. The employees see you, but you see them, too. You can count plenty of mornings and lunches that he was there.
When I was in undergrad I’d go there for breakfast. And some days I’d just stay there, skip a class, read the paper and then order lunch. I ate there for five years. But then I moved away. Ten years later, when we moved back, Mr. Price asked if I was visiting or if I was back. He remembered me, just another young regular who used to visit his store a decade prior. That’s kind of the place they’ve made at The Barbecue House. That, and the food, will be missed. We’ll have to eat there a lot in the last few weeks.
Everything changes. Everything has changed. It is all different.
At any rate … Nice 2,500 meter swim today.
It only hurt for most of the time.
