Mar 2/3 - riding & visiting

It's been busy ! Busy, that is, for a retiree !

On Monday, Sandy and Marda left for the Orlando airport around 8:30. Marda's flight was due out shortly after noon. Now she's due to fly this morning ... yes, that snowstorm in the northeast eventually closed down her flight after a couple of delays and in rebooking she ended up a day and a half later. I don't know whether it's better or worse to be in the airport looking at your plane at the gate just waiting to accept a load of passengers. She's been amusing herself in Orlando since then.

It was cold ... in the high 30's as I recall ... so I waited as long as possible before going out. Even so, it was only around 45F so I layered up and headed north. The bike venues were lightly attended on the way north, no traffic backups on the road, and I even saw one couple of their bikes with neoprene ski masks. I get cold biking, exposed to the wind, but at least I'm working. They have some shelter, the amount depending on the setup of the bike, but they're not working ... although no doubt they get some heat from the engine.

When I reached my turnaround point, however, I was going to be riding with the wind so I stuffed my jacket into the pocket of my long-sleeved jersey and enjoyed the ride back. By this point it had warmed up into the 50's and the traffic was backing up at the Harley dealership at US 1 & I 95. Further south the biker traffic increased and was pretty much full bore as I went through Daytona. The bikers had come out of the woodwork with the sun and the warmth. It still wasn't as busy as two years ago but that's hard to judge. It wasn't as warm either.

Are you ready for this ... we had steak for dinner. The stock markets plunged again and I commented that perhaps we couldn't afford steak anymore and Sandy rightly pointed out that the Costco boneless rib steaks were 1/2 the price of the fish that we eat all the time. I've been reading about how the beef producers are suffering, selling cattle for $200 less than it costs to fatten them up, so I guess that translates into oversupply and a drop in prices. Even without reduced prices fish is more expensive than steak ... I guess that we'll keep eating fish anyway !

So that was Monday ... onward to Tuesday.

The plan for Tuesday was for me to head off early to Sebastian on my bike while Sandy had a doctor's apppointment and then drove down later. She was to arrive at Bev's around 1pm and I would arrive sometime between 2 and 4, depending on the wind etc. That's pretty much how it worked out. I was a little late leaving -- had intended to leave shortly after 8am -- but fussed with my bike for a while getting the "Hummer" attachments back in place (rack, lights, heavy wheels). I wanted to re-acclimatize myself with the heavier bike since I'll be doing my 400k this weekend.

It all worked out. I arrived a little after 3pm. Sandy and Bev were already out touring the area, with Abby along for the ride, while Bruce stayed home with Paco. Paco is their shaggy little dog who had been driving everyone crazy trying to play with Abby -- bark, bark, bark -- you get the idea. I visited with Bruce, had a shower, and Bev and Sandy returned. Paco eventually settled down ... mostly ... but was constantly being shooed away from Abby because he always had his nose up her butt.

We had some snacks, a glass of wine, and Bruce fired up the barbie and cooked the marinated Salmon that Bev had prepared. Along with the salmon we had baked potatoes, sugar-snap peas and spinach salad. It was all very good ... we did not go hungry. Bev also made creme brulee (sp?) and I have to say that it was the best that I've ever had. I'm not normally a fan of CB, but her recipe was for a "light" version and I quite liked it. She had a little burner for glazing the sugar on top that of course didn't work well so I suggested the propane torch, which Bruce brought out, and a short time later -- very short -- all four deserts were ready. There are not too many intersections between shop tools and kitchen tools, but this is definitely one of them.

We left shortly before 8:30 for our 1 3/4 hour drive home. Just as we were turning onto the I95 on-ramp Sandy's cell phone rang. I had left my cell phone on the counter. I remembered coming in, taking off my helmet, glasses and putting them together with my cell phone on the counter. Later on I moved my helmet and glasses to my bag but didn't notice my phone. Sigh ... this time it wasn't Sandy's purse, it was my phone.

I hate people who back down on-ramps, therefore I did not do it. I would pay my penalty and drive north on I95 to the next turnaround. Well, this time it probably would have been better to back down the on-ramp. There was no traffic ... and as I found out once on I95, the next exit was 17 miles north. That was a long 17 miles -- made longer by the fact that I knew that I was heading in the wrong direction. At 9:25 we were back at Bev's; at 11:05 we were home. I had a fleeting thought as we headed north that perhaps I should have just told Bev to mail it to me ... and if I didn't need it for Saturday's ride, I might have done that.

The ride south was easy. I used the "mainland" route that I'd charted on the bike-gps. Just north of Bev's I had routed through a bunch of city streets and at that point it messed up. The GPS readings clearly didn't agree with reality. I was "off course" and wound my way around eventually finding Bev's. The smarter thing to do in this circumstance is to go to the screen which provides the turn-by-turn directions and look for the street names, but of course that would necessitate putting on my glasses to read.

This was the first time that I've tried following a "course" rather than a "route". In the case of a route, the GPS tries to get you back on-route by sending you to the next defined waypoint. In the case of a course, the course is maintained and you can zoom out and see where you should be. A bit of both would be nice at some point, ie. a function that routes you back to the course ... I'll have to do some more reading. I'm still finding out things about this machine.

When on "course", a different screen pops up as the default showing elapsed time, distance, distance to next turn, time to next turn, distance to end, time to end, and a couple of other things. The mode button cycles you (no pun intended) through a half dozen other screens including the one that you've setup as your normal display. There's a lot to play with !

The other thing that I tried yesterday was cycling with the GPS on charge from the 4xAA battery holder. That worked out very well and it also made it easier to read since while on external power the back light stays on. I'm now set for the ride this weekend, since the internal battery wouldn't last long enough for the ride and I would be constantly turning on the back light button during the night. Now if only it would follow the roadway better !

So ... today no riding. Tomorrow I'll go out for a shorter ride, perhaps 50 miles, take Friday off again and then the Big Day. So far I've been riding distances akin to my longest ever rides. 400km is new territory, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be -- or should I say "butt I'm ready" ... ha.

That's it.