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.
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.
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.
Each day, each week, each ride, fall continues to fall upon central Michigan. More and more fields are now bare; crops harvested and carted off to become Doritos, Big Macs, and corn flavored gasoline, leaving the landscape wide open for crisp winds to travel 3,800 miles from the Witch’s tit (located on a small island in the East Siberian Sea) all the way to rural Michigan to turn the nipples on my sagging pecs into glass cutting diamonds as I lumber along dirt roads on my bike.
Thankfully there are still some crops hanging on, and leaves remaining on the trees to keep all that from happening quite yet, but each day we creep a little closer to death, er, I mean winter.
As fall continues falling on Michigan, I continue to try to get as many rides in as I can. I also continue to be lost for words to write. Not sure if any readers would actually think that’s a bad thing given my lack of writing skills, spelling, punctuation, and interesting topics, but it’s a situation that I find odd.
I wouldn’t exactly call it writers block, but in the past I seemed to have no problem writing about crap subjects including the gym locker room, my lunch, bad product reviews, and cheap jeans.
Basically, I think the “problem” is that (for better or worse) I’ve become more interested in photographing things in my life rather than writing about it, and with that I’ve learned to let the pictures do the talking, and save everyone the grief of experiencing my verbal diarrhea.
So let’s look at some pics from three of my rides at the end of last week…
Last week featured a series of wet, foggy rides. Since then the sun has returned and the temperatures seem to have become a bit more moderate. Both welcome events.
Since my last post, I’ve been a bit busy, yet still managing to get some rides in. Three so far to be exact, starting with a short one last Saturday. A ride that I really didn’t feel like doing, but after some encouraging words from B-Man, and knowing that Sunday would be filled with driving down to the Detroit suburbs and back for a soccer game, I figured I’d better roll while I could.
Wednesday and Thursday brought two more dirt road rides. Wednesday’s ride was finally in some sun south of town on the PrOcal, and Thursday’s ride was a muddy slog north of town on the Fatterson in dense fog.
After three days off the bike traveling for B’s soccer, crap weather, busy-ness, and/or general laziness, I found myself back on the bike Tuesday morning for a foggy dirt road ride on the PrOcal.
Despite the some crap weather this week, and being an even crapper cyclist these days, I managed to get out for four rides this week. They weren’t all that long, one in particular being under twenty miles due to an exterminator coming to rid us of a hornet’s nest on the side of the house, but I got out, got some miles in, and the rainy weather gave me that rural photographic doom and gloom that I enjoy so much.
Monday was spent doing all the things that Monday brings, none of which were that fun, or had anything to do with riding my bike. Tuesday however brought some ride time south of town on the PrOcal in cool, fall conditions.