As the last week of being Not Really Quarantined winds down (for now), and most shit opens back up (except my goddamn barber!) this coming Monday, my week was filled with adulting. My outdoor activities were limited to a quick ride on Monday morning, a short walk around the Sylvan Solace with my camera for an hour on Wednesday (while getting eaten alive by mosquitos), and a 25-mile dirt road ride on Saturday afternoon.
Stuffed in between that were two days at the shop, one day of dealing with a handyman we hired to stain the deck and add a railing, and one afternoon of dealing with getting our hot water heater replaced. I’m halfway to dead, and I still don’t feel like an adult. And the mundane tasks that are set before adults each day has left me speechless since my forgettable with enough booze teenage years.
On the bright side of all that, it’s nice to finally be at a point in our lives that a hot water heater going didn’t cause panic and stress about a lack of finances followed by credit card debt. The deck looks great, and my time at the shop allowed me to start working on the Roscoe 8 I picked up. I should be on the trails with it by this time next week. I hope I remember how to ride singletrack, it’s been about a year! I’ll talk more about why I chose the Roscoe, and the mods I’ve made to it, once it’s finished.
Saturday was a perfect day for riding (minus the steady NNW wind), and it was nice to be out on the bike, and riding roads south of town. Of course, I show my lack of fitness and age after each ride I do these days, and 25 miles of fighting the wind, followed by mowing 80% of the vast (not really) estate of the Cul-De-Sac-Shack for the 2nd time this week, had my neck, shoulders, hands, knees and back hurting for the rest of the day. Well, at least until I could self medicate with some lime littered beverages later in the day.
Awesome hump shack on Coe Road.
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Corn to come.
Aside from giving the jerk-off motion to a house that had a disparaging sign about my girl, G.W., and yelling “FUCK TRUMP!” at another home and its car cleaning inhabitants flying THREE Trump 2020 flags (please allow me these childish acts), the highlight of the ride was coming across a couple of sandhill cranes while heading east on Coe Road.
You can see the colt’s head to the far right of the adult.
The couple was crossing the road at a casual pace, with the male going first and into the field to my right. Still, the female decided she was happy enough where she was and just made that loud squawking noises that sandhill cranes always do1.
Note colt just below the adult’s face.
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After a few shots of her, I realized that at her feet was at least one baby crane. Now I felt like shit for interrupting. I backed off to allow her to cross the road, but she was having none of it, so I pedaled on. When I did, she proceeded to run down the road in front of me, leaving her colt2 behind. Not at all what I planned, but I assume this was part of the mothering process, and she thought she was leading me away from her baby. I guess she didn’t see my route map. I knew I should have made that .GPX file public.
I’m hopeful that after darting off into the weeds, she made a U-turn and went back to her baby.
[NOTE: Upon seeing the image files during processing, I was able to see that each crane had a colt with it. Pretty neat.]
Soon after that, it was a left turn back into the wind, and a few more miles of dirt, some of which were freshly brined, before jumping onto the paved bike trail along South Mission Road that would lead me back to the Dirt Road Launching Pad on the CMU campus.
Limes to litter my bevie.
I’m looking forward to the week ahead (not really, not at all), getting my bike finished, and hopefully getting off the roads and into the woods for a bit. If riding dirt roads makes my body hurt, returning to mountain biking should fuck me up real good. Oh well, once again, my well-learned Soiled Guilt-O-Meter tells me I deserve a bit more pain.
Later.
- I really have no idea which one was the female. Apparently, the main difference is height, and I couldn’t tell. For the sake of this post, I’m sticking with the male who went first. For no other reason than I already typed the shit
- I just learned today that I sandhill crane baby is a colt. The more you know….