{"id":573888531,"date":"2015-09-07T22:01:52","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T03:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573888531"},"modified":"2015-09-22T01:19:53","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T06:19:53","slug":"an-un-laborious-labor-day-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2015\/09\/07\/an-un-laborious-labor-day-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"An un-laborious Labor Day ride"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I managed to take more wrong turns on my bicycle than you&#8217;d think. You&#8217;re going slower than cars, usually, but you can still get it wrong. It seems, though, like less of a problem on a bike. More pedaling! <\/p>\n<p>Turning around is different. In the car I find that every place I try to turn around is a bad option, in a blind curve or has a squadron of vehicles following me while there are forever cars coming from the other direction. It can be exasperating, but I think that&#8217;s because in the car you&#8217;re always going somewhere. <\/p>\n<p>On the bike, I&#8217;m trying to find somewhere, or I&#8217;m trying to remember where I put myself. Or I&#8217;m simply more comfortable with the idea that there, up there, is going to be in the same spot when I finally do make it. <\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t mind so much when I missed a turn 22 miles into today&#8217;s ride. I got to pass a pickup right after that. First moving vehicle I&#8217;ve overtaken in a while. And after a mile-and-a-half of slow climbing, I found myself with this view:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept05.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d been to this place before. You start to recognize crossroads and signs and ditches, if not the treeline in the distant pasture:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept06.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>So the one road drops me off into another road with more traffic and less light and I found myself at a gas station, which I&#8217;ve visited before. It was the only thing around for miles, except for the sunset:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept07.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And there I called it a ride. My missed turn gave me views I hadn&#8217;t expected, but would have put about 15 more miles onto my trip and I just ran out of time. It is hard to see it, but even the twilight was giving up fast. I called for a ride and did doughnuts in the parking lot of the gas station, where they have appliances on a side porch:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept08.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And I learned what goes on inside old gas pumps:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept09.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And, not for the first time, I&#8217;ve wanted to tour this old co-op. They still do some work out of there. I&#8217;d like to see inside the place.<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/sept15\/sept10.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>So my ride ended early, but it went early, and exactly right, at 33.51 miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I managed to take more wrong turns on my bicycle than you&#8217;d think. You&#8217;re going slower than cars, usually, but you can still get it wrong. It seems, though, like less of a problem on a bike. More pedaling! Turning around is different. In the car I find that every place I try to turn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573888531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-monday","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573888531","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573888531"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573888531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573888534,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573888531\/revisions\/573888534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573888531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573888531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573888531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}