Finally! Veteran’s Day is one of those work holidays that I usually detest because the weather has a tendency to be cold and nasty. Not so today!
I took advantage of my day off and really enjoyed not having anything I needed to accomplish or any schedule to keep. I was due to lift weights this morning, so I got up with Pam at 5:00, slowly got ready and headed to the Meyer Center on my bike. Battlefield Road is closed just this side of Highway 65, and we’ve been having to make a big ole’ detour around it that we hate, so I decided to see if it might be passable on foot or bike. When I got to the barriers, I was disappointed to see that it wasn’t going to happen! Given my last escapade with construction, I’ve learned my lesson and turned around to head for the detour. Unfortunately, that added 2 hilly miles to my trip to the fitness center, where I lifted weights, walked for 30 minutes, then sat in the hot tub for another 20 minutes until I had turned into a prune!
Afterwards, I headed home by the same route, giving me just shy of 15 miles by 9:00 this morning. On the way home, I noticed a buzzard sitting on a silo and stopped to take the picture below.
He’s a little hard to see isn’t he? Here, let me crop it down and blow it up…
He’s still not very easy to see, but what was interesting to me is that he (assuming it was a “he”) was just sitting there with his wings spread the whole time I watched him. His back was to the sun, so I’m assuming he was warming his wings in preparation for flying. I’ve never noticed that kind of behavior before, but then I’m not usually in the habit of closely studying buzzards!
After working on some insurance paperwork for an hour or so, I climbed back on the bike and headed over to Sunshine Bike to talk to Josh about ordering a commuting specific bike. More details on that to come in a follow-up post.
While I was there, a pretty lady called to invite me to lunch! Of course, I accepted her offer, so as soon as I finished with Josh, I headed back across town to meet her.
Pam works in the Hulston Cancer Center building across from Cox South, so I had to go into that traffic mess right as the noon-time lunch rush was beginning. I used Fremont Street, which is two lanes the entire distance. By taking the lane and pedaling at a decent clip, I felt really safe in all that traffic and made it from the bike shop to her parking garage in less than 20 minutes.
After a delightful lunch (her treat) and a short sit in the sunshine at the park next door (pictured above), I headed for home via the exact same route I had used earlier. Traffic was still pretty heavy on Primrose, but I just took the lane again and was just fine until I had gotten out of it and headed down toward Sequiota Park.
As I reached the house this time, I noted that I had 32.75 miles on the bike. Not a bad day of commuting around town! That’s about two and a half gallons of gas in my Jeep, and a whole lot of calories burned for me!
I think I deserve a nap!
God bless…
TW
