Long rambling ride to nowhere

I get every other Friday off and today when I woke up the weather was ideal for bike riding.

• It was cool for Houston; mid seventy's with mix of clouds and sun. This is important because we have had 2 weeks straight of 93 degree plus weather which sucks the energy out of your bones.


• There was little wind which is a huge factor in a pleasant ride here since any wind that is blowing is invariably in your face.


• And finally, it was the last day of school for millions of Texas rug rats so they would be penned up inside while I was outside doing my thing.

So with no plan and some concern about the weatherman adding to that run of high temp days I set out on a ride to see what I could see. The first half of the ride was on familiar routes up to George Bush park where the Bike is king and no cars are allowed. This would get me through the morning commute for those poor souls who had to work on such a nice day.

I stopped on a bridge over the Buffalo Bayou to talk with some other old farts who were also out riding. They bemoaned the fact that there were no rabbits out this morning. I had seen two along side the bike trail but they said that those weren't the right kind. They were looking for 20 something young ladies who looked good in bike shorts and jerseys and were riding in their general direction. I opined as how I at least wasn't greyhound enough to catch those and they agreed but said that it was the race that was important, not the outcome.

I stopped at several garage sales along the way. Why? I have no idea but I have a compulsion to look at other people's junk. This when I have a garage of my own full of perfectly good junk that I haven't yet gotten rid of. I blame it all on the Antiques Road Show on PBS. I'm looking for that Rembrandt or a Tiffany lamp for $5. And I'll find it someday too!

Since I was in the area, I decided to head up to the local bike shop and see what was on their sale rack. I always need new jerseys don't I? Ended up buying nothing but a tube of butt butter (non bikers will have to Google this product to understand how important it is to us long distance bikers). This is the point that I usually turn around and head home since it gives me a nice 35 mile ride and gets me home before noon.

Today I felt strong and there was nothing at home to drag me there, Marni being out on her own LD ride in Indiana by now I guess. So instead of turning right out of the parking lot, I turned left. Immediately across the main thoroughfare, I saw the following sign.


Now there's a nitch market that I would never have thought of. Not only can you wash your car and canine at the same time but you can do that at 3 AM. I guess I didn't know that there were that many insomniac dog owners with dirty cars in Southeast Texas. I would like to know how you get that soaking wet dog home in your newly cleaned car without making a mess of it.

I kept on riding through increasingly less familiar territory until I came to the end of the road.... literally. Cinco Ranch Boulevard is a main road that I have crossed many times at various points but never ridden from end to end. I thought that since it was so major an artery, it would connect to the main highway at some point so that I could get my bearings and plan my next move. Silly me. The road petered out in the middle of a cow pasture that is being turned into a gazillion new huge homes on postage stamp lots.

We're talking 4000 square foot houses on 8000 square foot lots. This is Texas, the biggest state in the Union. (I know about Alaska but Texans say it doesn't count because its got Canada between us and them so its really a foreign country.) Why do they build these huge houses on no land at all when they have so much land that no one is using for anything? Two answers; air conditioning and grass mowing. Until they can air condition the state, no one goes outside between March and October except for us biking nuts. And if the houses had any yard to speak of, you'd have to have it sodded and then have to cut that grass. Grass grows after each rain in Houston. It grows 4 inches after each rain. Over night. I know because it my job to mow it. Small yards are good. Yards paved in concrete are better.

Anyway, I back tracked out of the cow pasture /suburb and finally found my way to familiar roads. I had been looking for new wild flowers to photograph but found that the week after Memorial Day, every municipality in the county decided to mow every ditch and verge on every road. There was nothing but crew cut stubble that would stay that way until the first rain when it would turn into 4" grass and weeds. Not a wild flower to be seen until I found a thistle rose up against a fence post that protected it from the mowing madness. Here's my sole flower photo for the ride.

I took it easy going home since the temp had risen to 91 degrees and the wind was starting to blow, in my face naturally. My final stats for the ride were 51.2 miles at 13.1 mph and six bottles of water and Gatorade. My legs said I could do another 20 miles but the heat headache said time to quit. Sadie, our Corgi pooch got her salt fix by licking my legs when I got home.

Sunday Wandering bike ride

The summer weather is upon us and the bike riding is no longer easy. Today was 92 degrees, 80% humidity and 15 mph winds in my face a lot of the time. I am riding solo since Marni is off Woman's Touring so I was pretty much able to pick my own ride route as well as speed and stopping places. When I'm riding with her, it seems that we are always in training and I find it nice sometimes to just wander and explore with no speed or distance goals in mind.

Today there were a lot of new wild flowers in bloom that I had not seen before, this year at least. I am in the process of taking photos of all the wldflowers we see along the road and may put together a biker's guide to wildflowers in Southeast Texas. The idea is to make is small and light so a road biker could take it along as he / she rides. A selection of my photos for the day are shown below. I haven't determined their names yet but that comes later.

I stopped as usual at our favorite Sunday coffee shop, Fill Your Cup at rt 90A and Rt 356. They are very friendly and genuinely happy to see us. They have good coffee, smoothies and brown sugar scones so what more could a biker want. Here's a picture of the co owner and barrista with a typical big grin.

I purposely routed the end of my ride to go by the Cricket pitch. There are an amazing number of Indians, Pakistanis and a few Brits who play in an 18 team league here in Houston. They even compete with other leagues in Dallas and beyond. Its a bit surreal to see cricket being played in the middle of a cow pasture in cowboy land. See below.

In all I made over 39 miles, got a lot of good pictures, and most important, didn't let myself get overheated, dehydrated or otherwise bonked out. A good ride with lots to see and enough to stretch me out and put a good ache in the leg muscles.

Highland Games - Day 2

I guess that the organizers of the Houston Highland Games had to take the hall for two days or something but the second day was really a bust compared to day 1. They had completed the competitions for field events and music and had almost completed all of the dance competitions. Most of the competitors and performers that came in from outlying areas or even out of state had gone home and not come back for day 2. Only the junior girls were left competing.



Since it was Sunday, almost no one came before 12. After that, there were some visitors but most wandered around for a bit and then left disappointed that there was nothing "Scottish" going on. There were still some real characters including a kilted Goth with rings and piercings everywhere, tattoos, jack boots and a black kilt complete with black sporran.

About 2 pm the organizers realized that there were a lot of disappointed people out there who had paid $15 a head to get in to see very little. They got a group of 2 pipers a tabor and a snare drummer out to put some Scotch back in the day. They went through a lot of different songs and some pipe and some drum solos. They were really good (watch the hands on the Indian drummer) but a little to late to save the day.

I got a lot of spinning done and managed to ply up about 250 yards of brown alpaca and 120 yards of white so it was not a wasted day for me.

Highland games in Houston

As a "find something to do" plan for a long weekend without my riding buddy Marni, I went to the Houston, Texas version of Scots Highland Games. It is being held in a fairground building that is usually scene to bull riding and calf roping. Today there was the sound of bagpipes, the sight of highland fling dance, drum and pipe competitions and the almost surreal sight of Texans in kilts.

I wish that I could have gotten a picture of the one in cowboy boots, a McCloud dress tartan, a leather vest and a ten gallon hat. What a cultural statement. I did however get a picture of the most ethnically diversified set of Scots that I have ever seen. Look at the picture below.

Close examination shows that the two drummers in the last row are a Korean and a Japanese, the drummer in the middle is black and the piper ahead of him is from India. The rest of the band was just as varied. I went and listened to them in the band competition and they sounded really good for a junior High school band.

I ended up getting into more than I planned. Contemporary Hand weavers of Houston (CHH) one of our spinning and weaving guilds, was doing a demonstration of Scots tartan weaving and they were short a spinner. I volunteered and ended up demonstrating wool spinning for over 6 hours. I'm going back tomorrow to do more spinning. We didn't have a lot of people stop by to watch but there were always several coming around to ask questions, mostly good questions. It was fun and I hope to enjoy it again tomorrow.

USS Drum

USS Drum - A WWII Gato Class Submarine with an impressive war record.
While in Mobile, Alabama to see my wife off on her adventure to Canada, I had a lot of time on my hands while the women met and planned their ride. I went over to the Battleship Alabama museum since it was the only thing in the area close by. When I got there I found that they also had a WWII submarine on display, the Drum (SS-228). My father sailed in a sister ship to this one, the USS Tunny during the war, participating in several war patrols in the Pacific and the Sea of Japan.

I've seen several battleships (Massachussetts, North Carolina, and Texas) but never a restored Gato class sub so I passed on the BB and headed straight for the Drum. The interior of the boat has been lovingly preserved and it gives a vivid picture of the conditions that my father and his fellow submariners served under during the war.

While wandering around, I ran into Tom Bowser, a retired Machinist Mate with service in several Nuclear Submarines. He has taken on the task of almost single handedly restoring the Drum. Evidently the battleship upkeep and maintenance eats up all of the funds for the museum and the Drum was left slowly rusting away with no one to look after her. Tom is a member of the Mobile submariner's association and his military specialty gives him the training to take on the task of keeping the Drum from rusting away.

After talking with Tom for some time, he took me on a tour of the areas that the visitors never see, showing me the work he has in progress and the areas that he plans to work on next. He has a lot to do since the damage that several recent hurricanes have done to the boat have let in enough water to cause severe rust problems on most of the hull. The aft torpedo doors are almost completely gone as are several plates in the bow. The fuel tanks are pitted and holed in many places. Still, Tom has done a wonderful job of fixing what he can, buying much of the steel and paint himself from his social security checks.

Anyone who cares for saving this important relic of the silent service could contact Tom at his email address, tmb105@juno.com.

Forward torpedo room - USS Drum

Tom Bowser in front of his labor of love, restoration of the USS Drum.

Batching it

My DW is off on her adventure riding her bike from Mobile, Alabama to Ontario, Canada. The ride is run by Womans' Tours so absolutely NO MEN ALLOWED. In fact, there was only one other husband who even came to see them off. He and I talked a bit about the things that men talk about when they are strangers and will, in all likelyhood never see each other again. The $64 dollar question both of us asked was, 'What are you going to do for the next 6 weeks while the wife is away?" My answer was, "... feed the animals and clean out the cat box." Aside from work, that about sums it up.

I drove the 8 hours home to a house full of worried animals. The cat box is overflowing. Six weeks. Sigh

This is the whole group. The lady on the right in blue is the head turtle herder.

There they go headed north to Canada. This picture sort of sums up how I feel right now.