Big adventure starts tomorrow

Tomorrow after work I fly back to Orlando for a packed week of moving. Get in around midnight, pick up the truck 8am then go go go til the movers show up Monday morning. Hope to get a little time to watch the time trial 2nd to last day of the tour de france Saturday morning. Then we're on the road, me, Ruth, and Bear, with the truck and car in tow, one night in Florida, next one around Houston, then one way the heck out west texas around columbus to el paso somewhere, then we should get in to Phoenix late Thursday night. Movers unloading Friday morning at the new house in Ahwatukee. Believe it or not this is my best riding year to date ever, over 2200 miles so far and will make 300 for July in spite of missing 14 days in Orlando and the trip. Really looking forward to getting this done and it's the last trip back to Orlando! Wierd as that seems. House hasn't sold, but the realtor is going to lease and manage it for us until next year or the year after. We're going to rent out here anyway, the market here is still going down for another year or two. Got pack, see you around!

Last lonely Sunday in the one bedroom apartment!

This pic is in front of the Tempe Arts Center along Tempe Beach Lake Park. Right behind me is the nice pedestrian/bike bridge going across the Rio Solado river, which is dammed right there to make the lake you see. That's downtown Tempe ahead, the mountain is the one looking over sun devil stadium, they always show that on the football games, ASU is the heart of downtown Tempe, it's a big school and plenty going on there!
So it really is my last Sunday night eating dinner alone and it kind of snuck up on me! So I celebrated early with nachos, beer, and coconut crème pie, but as I look at what needs to be cleared from the Frig by Friday morning, I decided to stir fry the remaining veggies in the wok and have some golden quinoa to go with it, so dinner and a few lunches from that this week. I got out earlier this morning and rode to the rail station to go downtown to the library. It was packed with people (filling up the bike car with no bikes, but they moved when I not so subtly barged in with "excuse me") the bike rakes are vertical so you have to swing it up into them and it looks like mayhem is about to happen... hey, what do you want for sitting in the bike car? As usual they ask about the bike, the s&s couplings, is it a breakdown bike, is it a custom and I tell them about my life-change from car driver to bike commuter. The kids are especially impressed about taking it to France and Canada and the freedome of riding all over the place exporing new places. They are from Utah, just down for the weekend/ballgame, and they get off at the ballpark, just a couple more stops to the library… which doesn’t open til 1:00 on Sunday! Ugh, where to hang for 2 hours, with a little errand list to go.


So I had the wind and decided to take it easy and ride out to Thomas Rd & 36th where there’s a wal-mart, home depot, and Walgreens, then go to Fry’s grocery if I couldn’t get NA beer at Wal-Mart. They had it, although it’s Busch and is no where near Old Milwaukee NA for taste, they also had the moving boxes I would have gotten at Home Depot next door, but with about 30 day-laborers hanging around in the lot I definitely did not want to leave my bike out there with the beaters they all have, not one with a computer, light, or panniers... I should be more trusting maybe.... but... maybe someday I'll learn to be, today is not it. So all loaded up with the moving boxes strapped on and all else in the large panniers I brought, I pedaled the 5 miles home, with 14 in for the early session and the sun straight overhead, plenty hot, made me feel the sunscreen I forgot (for the first time here) on the back of the legs. After lunch and a little rest, I got back to the library at 3, heat of the day starting. Riding the train back home, with 6 westerns and a movie making the bags heavy, the early leavers from the ballpark were jumping back on, Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers 4-1, pitcher hit a home run for the Dbacks.

Now it’s crunch time, the move is happening starting 2 pm Friday when I zoom out of here. Still, despite 2 trips to florida and missing 14 days of riding, I already have 230 miles for the month, should make my always 300 a month (10 a day) goal with regular rides to work the next 4 days and then I’ll have 2 weekend days after we move in the 29th to finish it in style. This could be my best year ever, 2300 already even with all the turmoil of moving, guests, trips back, and the like.

May not get a chance to post again before the end of the month but thanks for reading along!

July already!

So much has happened since I last posted. We DID find a place to rent for a year, in Ahwatukee, about 7 miles south from work on a bus line the gets me pretty close, and also it's close enough to bike. I'm getting acclimated to the heat, it's only 100 today with now clouds but low humidity and I rode 20 miles and wanted to do more, but that little voice in my 55 yr old head said "get out of the sun and rest before you overdo it"! So that's what I'm doing now. Nice little lunch of salad, wheat pasta, old milwaukee NA, and sara lee strawberry cheese cake now it's nap time then maybe go out for another little ride when the sun goes down a little.

I have purchased my ticket back to Orlando, the last trip! I snuck in for the weekend of the 4th that was nice, it's  just too hard to be away from my little sweetie so long, now it's only 2 more weeks we'll have our Saturday nights together again. We usually go out to dinner or lunch each day and make one outing. While in Orlando we went to Ethos for dinner Saturday night, and took a pita pit sandwich out to Baldwin Park to the connector between lakes Susanah and Baldwin, one of our favorite spots sitting there on the bench watching the birds and the clouds.

I've also purchased Marian and Graces tickets to leave Orlando the 25th. I come in the 22nd midnight and rent a truck in the morning. Monday we'll have a move crew to load up and me and Ruth are driving the truck, towing the car, and taking the pets with us for a 4 day adventure filled trip over the 2100 miles or whatever it ends up being. Rented from Penske I used to use them commercially they had good gear, pray we don't have a breakdown. Setting up movers here for the 29th to move into our new place and I'll have to move out of the apartment the 31st. Marian and Grace will stay here the 25th-29th. Lots of orchestration hope everything works out!

We had a crazy dust storm Tuesday night... you can look up pics on you tube it was like a white-out blizzard you couldn't see and you couldn't breath. In the morning it looked like a 1/4 inch of dirt on top of everything and it took about 2 days for the air to clear up. It's still filthy here.

On 

the bike trail through Papago Park, right in the city but you think you are out in the desert.
Job is going well, miss my ole friends at Glatting AECOM and was sad to hear of Ken Kauffman's passing, he was only 53 and such a nice person. Haven't heard from too many others but Pegge, Bruce, and Carol and a few folks are connected on facebook, which I am even worse about keeping up with than blogging. I try to look at it once a week but my daughters and everyone else posts so many things I never know how much I've missed! I like it when people send private messages that way I can catch up without feeling like the whole world is in all my business.

Talk to you soon, oh i've passed 2000 miles for the year headed for 4,000 will be in my top 3 of the past 7 I kept track. Can't wait to get my camping gear here and check out that ponderosa pine forest and mountains for a bike camping tour!

The path home through Papago park is an awesome way to get back from the grocery store

A big cup of ice water will be totally gone in 2 mins when it's 110

After the dust storm... filthy!