{"id":573886118,"date":"2014-03-14T22:13:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-15T03:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573886118"},"modified":"2014-03-19T14:17:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T19:17:16","slug":"this-season-the-bridge-is-out-and-the-creek-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2014\/03\/14\/this-season-the-bridge-is-out-and-the-creek-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"This season the bridge is out and the creek is in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What a lovely evening for a bike ride. I have a ride scheduled for triathlon training &#8212; a schedule I am poor at keeping, but here&#8217;s a chance to ride &#8212; and this is a beautiful day and we&#8217;re just that much closer to spring:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/mar14\/mar44.jpg\" alt=\"spring\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>But those aren&#8217;t the only signs we&#8217;ll see:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/mar14\/mar45.jpg\" alt=\"closed\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>No problem. This is probably a bridge. There&#8217;s one down there. And I&#8217;ve gotten over bridges on closed roads before. Besides, going around means another five or 10 miles. While I&#8217;m not concerned about the miles, I am on a schedule, and the sun is growing weary in the western sky, so press on &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/mar14\/mar46.jpg\" alt=\"machinery\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>OK then, they&#8217;ve adequately sealed off the road with heavy machinery, as is the style here. This particular piece of awesome construction power fills the entire road. I&#8217;ll just walk my bike around on the shoulder, then, and ease over the old (or new) creek bridge. This is going to be a problem. There&#8217;s no road there:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/mar14\/mar47.jpg\" alt=\"bridgeout\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>How big of a problem? Can&#8217;t jump that distance:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/mar14\/mar48.jpg\" alt=\"bridgeout\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s be honest. I&#8217;m not jumping any distance. <\/p>\n<p>The problem became that I had to get from this side to that side. And while getting down to the creek bed from myside wasn&#8217;t difficult, getting back up to the road was a challenge. On one side the opposite back was vertical, and covered in underbrush. On the other side it was almost vertical, and covered in pumpkin-sized erosion rocks. <\/p>\n<p>The thing is I usually, for better or worse, come to a conclusion about things very quickly. I sat there on the side of the road for a long few minutes trying to figure this out. I had to get down, over and back up, carrying my bike. I&#8217;m as much a cyclocross rider as I am a jumper, which is to say not at all. Ultimately I went up the near-vertical side with large rocks, pulling myself and 17 pounds of aluminum and carbon with me. Suddenly, spandex didn&#8217;t seem that cool and cycling shoes didn&#8217;t seem that practical.<\/p>\n<p>But I made it. Didn&#8217;t hurt myself. Managed to get scratched by a tree limb and got a dusty knee. Slowed me down enough that I ended up racing the sun home, which was not my intention. And I missed the start of the baseball game. But I got in 30 miles. And Auburn beat Texas A&#038;M <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.auburntigers.com\/sports\/m-basebl\/recaps\/031414aaa.html\">4-0 to start SEC play<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even when the roads are closed you can have a good day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a lovely evening for a bike ride. I have a ride scheduled for triathlon training &#8212; a schedule I am poor at keeping, but here&#8217;s a chance to ride &#8212; and this is a beautiful day and we&#8217;re just that much closer to spring: But those aren&#8217;t the only signs we&#8217;ll see: No problem. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,42,40,14,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573886118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auburn","category-baseball","category-cycling","category-friday","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573886118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573886118"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573886118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573886124,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573886118\/revisions\/573886124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573886118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573886118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573886118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}