After two days spent working out indoors for a variety of reasons (weather, time, not giving a shit), I got out for a ride on Wednesday morning. It was a short and sweet 25 miler, with little photo ops along the way, and many of the roads were still muddy messes, but a ride, is a ride, is a ride, is a ride.
Saturday was spent doing three things: eating, driving, and drinking (not all at the same time). Mostly eating foods that I really didn’t want to eat (hastily thrown together ham sandwiches and pretzels for the trip home), driving for over six hours at Cannonball Run speeds, and after 3.5 days finally having some drinks in an attempt to come down from a whirlwind Thanksgiving visit to Pennsylvania and all the angst that comes with. Through all of that I had my eyes on riding Sunday no matter what Ma Nature or life threw at me, and I did.
Wednesday morning the Unit and I took off to the Fatherland (western Pennsylvania) for the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of the next four days would be filled with visiting family, eating, driving, eating, visiting family, arguing, driving, eating, and driving. My hope for Black Friday was to get up at the ass crack of dawn and head out to Walmart to get my hands on one of two 90″ Sonie™ flat screen TVs for $19.99. I’m joking of course, my goal was to sleep off my turkey coma, continue our family visiting, and if I was lucky get a window of opportunity to drive up to the mountains for a hike. Goal accomplished.
Friday and Saturday this week were like night and day. Friday it was 70˚ and I rode 30 miles in shorts and short sleeves under a blue sky and sun. Saturday it was dark and gray, the wind was gusting, and it was blowing rain and snow most of the day.
Tuesday was Deer Day here in Michigan, a legit day off of school for kids, and sort of like Christmas Morning for gun loving, blood thirsty, meat eating adults across the state. Actually I take that back, it is indeed like Christmas Morning for many, but the rest of that made it sound like I have an issue with hunting and hunters when in fact I don’t. I have an issue with me hunting, but not with the act itself. I’ve never fired a gun or launched and arrow in my 45+ years, but I’m pretty, sort of, kinda sure I could kill an animal, cook, and eat it. It’s the everything in between (guts and stuff) that I couldn’t do. I will happily eat any venison that any of my friends want to give me though, especially summer sausage or jerky!
I swear to you, until I moved to Michigan six years ago I had no idea that sugar beets even existed. I knew of red beets only because my grandmother used to pickle and can them, and that I avoided them like the plague. Unbeknownst to me it turns out I’ve probably been eating sugar beets most of my life in the form of sugar. In years past when I saw piles of sugar beets from a distance I assumed they were potatoes or something. Seems I was wrong.
Lumber
verb
lum·ber \ˈləm-bər\
1: to move ponderously [Ponderously, what the hell does that mean?]
Ponderous
adjective
pon·der·ous \ˈpän-d(ə-)rəs\
1: of very great weight [Seems about right]
2: unwieldy or clumsy because of weight and size [Yep, still seems right]
3: oppressively or unpleasantly dull [OK, that seems a bit much, but two out of three wins]
Wednesday night I had one of the best night’s sleep all week. Meaning that I didn’t spend the whole night mouth breathing and dealing with flu-like aches and pains for eight hours. Given that I haven’t done any physical activity since Saturday I knew I needed to do something–anything–outside. I was feeling better, but I also knew that a ride was probably not the best choice just yet, so I found my heavy (but water proof) crap hiking boots, and headed to one of our nearby county parks to lumber around the wet woods for four miles and take some photos.
I didn’t exactly burn four days’ worth of comfort foods and pity alcohol off my Merriam-Webster defined clumsy, oppressive, unpleasantly dull body of great weight and size, but I did get outside, took some photos, and enjoyed the first day of the week that I didn’t just want to sit in a vat of scalding hot chicken soup and pray for the end of days tethered to this planet.
As I mentioned in my last post I was sort of sick, then that turned into balls out sick for a day or so, then by Friday the illness went away, and I was stoked. The snow we got on Wednesday had melted, and I got out for some muddy dirt road rides on Friday and Saturday and felt really good. Then on Sunday we spent the day freezing our asses off in Bay City watching B take part in a one day soccer tournament (they won it, yeah). Then around 3 AM on Monday I woke up with all sorts of sludge in my sinuses, and full on body aches. Oh yeah boy, the illness that had been gone, was now indeed back. There was much mental cussing.
At the end of my last post I mentioned that I was flirting with illness, that a sore throat had developed along with some body aches. Thankfully the sore throat went away, but the aches and joint pain have lingered on, I also bypassed the casual flirting and went right into some Trump-style heavy petting with some coughing and stomach issues. No vomit, and no flappy sphincter, but at times over the past two days I have felt that I was right on the cusp of it, with a taste in my mouth akin to licking the metal handrail of a men’s room handicap stall. As you might imagine, since Monday, there has been no riding.
After a full weekend of traveling downstate to Monroe, Michigan for a soccer tournament I was anxious to get some riding in, and to eat some food that was in no way made for me, but rather by me. Mondays are usually pretty busy for me, but I managed to get a for quick 22 mile dirt road ride from the house.