Sunday, July 17, 2011

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!

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