Mar 31 - just hanging around

Everyone went somewhere other than me yesterday. Well, that's not quite true -- I did drive 5 miles down the road and back to test something out on the bike GPS.

Sandy had an acupuncture appointment first thing and later she and Carol went for a walk on the beach and then went for another walk on the dog beach with Abby.

Allister did his own walking -- he was the first one out of the house, heading off to golf in Ormond Beach again. He did a lot of walking -- it's a long course and you have to pull a cart.

When Allister got home he didn't realize that I was here, seeing the X5 gone and no action in the house he thought that we were all out. It hadn't really cleared yesterday so we'd abandoned any thoughts of going boating.

Sandy called the Marine Discovery Center regarding the Brazilian Pepper invasive species that we have in the backyard. As I think I mentioned before, they are trying to get this stuff under control ... anyway, the lady ... girl ... came over shortly after noon to take a look. At that point we found out that a) we buy our own herbicide and b) all they really provide is volunteers to help cut it out. She's going to get back to us with potential dates for some volunteers to come over.

After she left I got up some energy and worked for the next two hours making a massive pile of the stuff behind the boat. It's difficult as heck to get out, intertwined as it is with itself and the palms and branches going every which direction, many of which are thicker than 2". At the base those branches are 4-5" thick. I cleared out a couple of small areas in that two hours, perhaps removing 5% of the stuff. There is a lot there to work at.

I was working out the back behind our bedroom when Allister got home but later, when I decided that I'd cut up the pile into smaller pieces and pile it at the road, he gave me a very welcomed hand and we made short work of that.

I'll probably continue to pick away at this until the volunteers come over and lend a hand. Oh, how I wish that I had my 4-wheeler and winch. It would be so much easier. If we paid someone to come in and do this work, that's what they'd be using. Oh well, I guess that it's better exercise doing it manually ... but then so is pounding nails with a hammer and driving screws with a screwdriver and cutting wood with a hand-saw ... hmmm ... I love power tools !

Back to the GPS -- the 705 -- I setup the 600k route yesterday, which took a couple of hours. Like the 400k it covers part of the route twice, most notably after the 2/3 Control point, and so that I won't be confused navigating in the dark and make a wrong turn, I setup the route in two parts. The reason that I did this is because otherwise it crosses itself several times and I'd get to intersections and see the route going straight through as well as cross -- and wouldn't know if I should be turning or not. I don't want bonus miles !

So ... the issue that I was trying to work through is how to start the second "course" without the unit resetting itself. I went onto the online forum and got mixed answers, but one of the experts said that there was no way to do this. I verified that myself with my short trip in the car following two short test routes that I'd setup. Later on I was fiddling with the thing and realized that if instead of setting it up as a "course" (TCX file) I set it up as a "route" (GPX file), I could start the second "route" without it resetting. I went back to the forum and reported this and found that yes, I could use the "route" option for what I am trying to achieve. "Courses" setup with the 705 have additional functions that support training activities that "routes" do not have but I don't need those for what I'm doing. Hopefully this works because otherwise it's hard to track total distance traveled without a lot of mental arithmetic. I'm constantly verifying every turn against the route sheet. That's important because the 705 can sometimes do odd routing ... or at least I'm worried about it doing odd routing.

Verifying against the route sheet is difficult in the dark. Doing mental arithmetic is very difficult after you've been riding many many hours. Yes, I stay "sharp as a tack" ... but it's one of those tacks that a car has run over, you see ... perhaps a blunt tack ??

Based on my look at the Doppler, we'll be able to go boating. Everything in the way of precipitation is north of us, so perhaps we should take a trip south. It's also west-to-east so perhaps the ocean will be calm ? That would be too much to ask for. I'll be monitoring the situation and we'll make a call on that front mid morning, or at least once everyone is up.

Allister and Carol are planning on leaving tomorrow for Hemmingford ... at least that's the plan. They know that they are welcome to stay longer, but I think that they are anxious to get rolling. I know what that's like. Originally they were thinking of leaving today but since there would be many people whose rentals expire on March 31st there is probably a lot of traffic today.

It's April 1 ... we're leaving later in the month ... time will go quickly, especially with those two bike rides in the midst of this.

That's it.