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.

Lion's Club Charity Ride

Marni and I went out on a 46 mile supported ride for the Lion's club. Donations and the ride stipend go to children with physical disabilities or type 1 diabetes, for summer camp and the like. The Lion's club puts on several of these each year and they tend to be the best supported and controlled rides we participate in. They have a lot of experience at doing them and because they have a lot of members who are into the power structure of the towns, they get great support from the C of C, the police and the various civic and business organizations in the area. They are sponsored to the hilt.

Today's ride started at 8 AM and it was about 42 degrees out. Nice and warm for you Yankees and Bo honks but really a shock to our southern acclimated systems. Add to it our wind chill and it really was cold for us. My hands about froze to the handle bars for the first 8 miles. The police presence was fantastic. There must have been 50 of them out to support the ride including two or three who were biking along with us in police bike patrol uniform. More on that later.

There were about 800 riders in all. This is the size ride Marni and I like because it is big enough to get good support and protection and small enough that you don't get caught up in a mob scene at every corner and stoplight. The route was in a part of town that neither of us had ever ridden so we had a great opportunity to sight see as well as enjoy the exercise and the feeling of freedom that comes from long distance riding.

We found another couple who rode at the speed that we felt comfortable at and did about 30 miles of the ride with them, sharing conversation, warning each other about upcoming obstacles and generally just hanging out. Lost them at a rest stop when we stopped for a gear check and a banana and they went on ahead. We'll never know their names but "Thanks for sharing the ride."

The best part from my perspective came near the end of the ride. I know I complain often enough that there's never a cop around when you need one. This time there was. The police did a fabulous job at all the busy intersections making sure that the bikes got through safely. At one major intersection, a cop car blocked off the main road at a stoplight so that a pack of us could get through the intersection from a side road. One car on our road tried to scoot through with us and I ended up grabbing both brakes and throwing my butt off the back of the bike to keep from getting side swiped. This is know as a panic stop and thank God I learned how to do it well. I screamed a blue streak to keep the bikes behind me from running into me or the car. The cop in the patrol car heard and saw what happened. He stayed put in the middle of the intersection until we were all safely across. Then he hauled ass after the offending car. We passed the bad guy about 2 miles down the road with the cop leaning on his door, writing him a ticket. Thanks, Officer!!

We finished the 46 miles in under 3 hours with minimal stops and almost no rest periods. We even plan to go out tomorrow for our normal 25 mile Sunday coffee ride. Not bad for a pair of old grey bikers.

Marni is back!

The title is appropriate for several reasons and I couldn't be gladder..

First, she's back from Florida after spending two weeks helping my Dad recover from a bout with pneumonia. He ended up in the hospital for a week and then was home but needed someone there full time because he was so weak. My sister Sue stayed with him from Christmas till just before New Year and Marni took care of him from New Year's till mid last week. I couldn't leave Texas because of the start of a new project on January 2nd so she stepped right in and took charge. I'm so proud and appreciative for he help.

Second, she's back in the saddle again. She has been forced to stay off her bike since the end of October because of a really nasty biking accident that, among other things, cracked three ribs. Those of you who have had that condition know that it's really debilitating and takes a long time to heal. Last weekend she and I went out for her first bike ride since the accident. It was a reasonably easy 26 mile circuit with a stop at our favorite coffee shop at the half way point. I'm happy to say that she did really well, all things considered. It wasn't the Tour de France and it didn't scale any alps but we did the ride at a respectable 15 mph and she wasn't completely whipped at the end.

Its so great to have her back; back in the house, back in my arms and back as my weekend riding partner.