|
| This years' bicycle trip is now history. I enjoyed many aspects of it, but I think the one that brought me the most pleasure was anticipation. With a return to work looming Monday morning, I am certainly missing that right now. In over all terms, this was a short trip. As is evident in this photo set, Dave's bicycle is similar to mine, yet quite different. He has a long wheel base, but over the seat steering. For some reason, he rolls faster than I do, which meant that on downhill stretches, I flailed while he coasted, and he still pulled away. |
|
Dave and Symantha showed up here Friday night (May 23) and semi-early the next morning Dave and I departed for Winkleman, where Symantha rescued us and transported up to hill to the pass leading into Globe.
|
|
|
| We rode from there the the Globe turn off, and thence east past Cutter. Symantha again resuced us and transported us to the top of the long hill there. We rode from there to San Carlos and thence south to Coolege Dam (that forms San Carlos Lake). There were some nasty hills between San Carlos and the Dam. Symantha then transported us along the back side of the lake back the the main road near Bylas. We again rode this time from Gernimo to Pima. From there we went south to the Cornoado National Forest where we camped for the night (and ate chicken noodle soup--I had the darnedest time trying to make noodles). While I didn't ride as many days, or cover quite as much distance as last year, having a riding companion (and a phone system with which to communicate while we rode) was a definite improvement. |
|
The next day we drove to Alpine with the intension of riding south to Cliffon. However, the was a wind blowing from the south at 25 to 30 mph, and Dave (and I also, if the truth be known) just could not convince himself that struggling to maintain 9 mph while going down hill was fun. So, we rode north instead, arriving at Eagar in the mid afternoon. After eating with the Ramsays, we continued on to St. Johns before being rescued by Symantha and returned to Eagar for the night. |
|
Day three was probably the hardest of all, and produced less milage than either of the preceeding days. We started at St. Johns, and rode almost to the Petrified Forest. Our tail wind had become a cross wind, and was of little help (and some hinderance). After slightly more than three hours (and just as we made a trun taking us more into the wind) we decided to pack it in, and had Symantha transport us to the DQ in Holbrook, and thence to Taylor where we spent the night with Nathen and Terre.
|
|
|
The third day was the most disappointing (at least in some ways). Symantha had just finsihed transporting us to Show Low for our planned ride to Holbrook (with a strong tail wind) when she received an urgent phone call begging her to cover the remainder of a twelve hour shift at her work. After some consultation, she empied the truck at Nathens and drove to Eager where she worked the remainder of the day. Symantha was a great help and without her, the story of trip would have had an entirely different plot. She displayed a surprising aptitude for packing, and stowed all the gear in a manner that our bicycles could be loadad and unloaded without disturbing the remaining items. |
|
When she went to work, we had no one to bring us back from Holbrook (and being too wimpy to ride uphill against a 30 mph head wind), we rode to Taylor and vegitated the remainder of the day. Symantha returned that evening, and we loaded the truck and departed for home the next morning.
|
|
|
I didn't have to ride behind this for long before I started seeing a somewhat disaproving face. Can you see it? On a long bicycle trip, the wind is probably more important than the grade, and both of these last years wind played a major part in what we decided to attempt. Next year (assuming I am still physically able [and mentally deficient enough] to ride) I think I will plan the trip for the end of summer (perhaps around Labor Day) when the weather tends to be more stable. In total, we covered 188.93 miles in 12 hours, 24 minutes, and 19 seconds of riding, which gave us an average speed of 15.2 mph. Also of note, riding down the hill towards Globe I achieved a new maximum velocity of 43.8 mph. All things considered, this trip was very enjoyable. |
|
| In addition to the communication system, Dave brought me a rear view mirror that attached to the frame of my glasses. It worked quite well (especially after I figured out that I could move my earpiece to the opposite side of my head) and I was quite pleased with that gift. |
|
Unfortunately, the mirror was attached to my glasses when a fully loaded garbage truck ran over them, reducing both to twisted pieces of metal and broken shards of glass and plastic. The only bright side to that story is that the glasses and mirror were not on my head at the time.
|
|
|
Guess where we celebrated a successful trip!
|
|
|
As you know, Jerry Flick is building a house up against "Big Rock." Work has progressed slowly for the past two years, but last month, Jerry's cousin (who owns a construction company in Pennsylvania) brought in a crew for three weeks, and the house is now "dried in" (i.e. the walls are up and the roof is on and covered to the point where it is water tight). |
|
It is an imposing structure, with perhaps three times the floor space of our house. Obviously there is still much work to be done, but at this point there is not doubt that it is a house.
|
|
|
I received the memory card from AJ's camera, and at this point the photos have been downloaded to my computer. In spite of his fears to the contrary, they are safe (assuming I don't experience a hard drive crash between now and the time I get them transferred to a CD). I feel some concern when I see photos of his fingers bleeding all over the table (which, of course, he neglected to mentioned in his letters). |
|
There was a change at church. They released James Sherman as the High Priest Group leader (as well as his assistants [Charles Kincaid and myself]) and replaced us with Rich Wilkenson as Group Leader and Dennis Phipps and Max Parisott as assistants. Cliff Staggs remained as Secretary. Brother Sherman is both a good man and a great leader. Over the years, I very much enjoyed working with him. In some other not-so-good news, Lindsay suffered a miscarriage--an event that brought sadness to them (as well as to Barbara and I). Further, Jon is scheduled for surgery this coming Friday (6 June) to have kidney stones removed. Doesn't that sound like fun?
|