Dec 6 - just cruisin'

It was a relatively slow day. Cool to start, perhaps I should have done my 200k but am planning on doing that today. Sandy spent most of the day cleaning the place; I helped somewhat by doing some vacuuming and tidy-up.

I ran a mini-errand -- perfect for the Harley -- out to Home Depot (I cannot use HD as an abbreviation any more since it would also be Harley Davidson) picking up some of those electrical socket plugs to make the place safer for Emma.

Sandy was still working in the house and not interested in riding -- don't blame her it was cool -- so I went for a cruise. West on SR44 past I95 and then north at Venetian Bay golf club, I followed that road for many miles through beautiful neighborhoods that should have been on the water somewhere, not inland. Following my sometimes good sense of direction, I backtracked south on that road and went east on Pioneer Trail, making my way back to US 1 and then home. Somewhere in there my gas light came on as I was approaching 100 miles on the trip-meter and I filled it up. I now have about 350 miles on the bike.

While traveling west on 44 a truck came to a quick stop in front of me and I hard braked front and back. It's becoming automatic ... that's good. I seem to have gotten over 3-wheeler / 4-wheeler confusion (no clutch); bicycle confusion (brakes on two hands and reversed); what-gear-am-I-in confusion (getting used to engine sound vs speed); more bicycle confusion (no turn signals on a bicycle) and just general handling. Make no mistake though, I'm a cautious rider and plan to stay that way. I mostly stay in the right-hand lane, leave a good gap, double check over my shoulders when lane changing ... all the right stuff. I'm cruising -- not in a hurry. I'll pull off if someone is following me too closely. It doesn't matter who is at fault in an accident -- I lose.

I think that we're getting light rain right now. It's warm -- mid 60's -- and damp. I'm hoping to get riding shortly but may wait for 7am because by then the rain is supposed to be through and the Doppler bears that out. It will probably mean riding on wet roads though for a bit.

I just fed Abby and put her out. Yes, it is raining lightly. Rain, rain, go away, come again another day (when we're not here).

Jeffrey, Sara and Emma arrive tonight. The current plan is that Sandy will pick them up. I'll be back from biking but there's no point in having a packed car. She'll take the X5.

The upcoming week is delivery week. We have stuff coming in from:

-- Excel Sports (bicycle stuff)
-- Barnes & Noble (gift books)
-- Amazon (another gift)
-- someplace-I-forget (gift for Meagan)
-- a motorbike shop (windshield)
-- another motorbike shop (visitor helmets + a gift, way less expensive than the HD-branded stuff)
-- biking gels, which I've been out of since getting down here (call this food)
-- Performance Bike -- (bicycle helmet for Sandy) -- we discovered that hers had basically disintegrated, the retention straps falling apart. I guess that we could have used a tie-down to hold it on her head or a large elastic band ... but that probably wouldn't be comfortable or safe :).

Some of this might come USPS, but most will likely come via UPS and Fedex. I think that at least one package is signature-required, so we may have to put a sticky on the front door if we're not here.

Last night was our last quiet day & evening for this stint. Jeffrey et al will be here through next Monday; Tuesday will be packing and we're going to have dinner with Norm and Patti; Wednesday we leave. Whew.

That's it ... oh, Sandy does have some degree of trepidation about all this traveling that we're doing over Christmas. We've done a lot of driving, but never this much all at once. It will be an adventure for sure. We'll just have to approach it the same way that I responded to David vis-a-vis regarding Rogers Pass ... well, if it's closed, we'll stay put until it opens. Abby won't even know that plans have changed !

Onward !