Taosday - Last Weekend

Today I'm going to reflect on our bike ride this past weekend.

We drove down to Orange, VA, because I had this (faulty) memory of a great ride I had done down there.

Now, it's not fair to say it's not a great ride. The scenery in the beginning is quite nice. There are a few old churches,

a nice little river,

an old train station,

with an even older caboose,

and, of course, an adorable SigO.

However, this ride is advertised as a ramble. A ramble, in my opinion, doesn't include 16 straight miles of up and down hills. A ramble, should be a nice, somewhat easy, peaceful ride. I know - Taoists don't judge - but who ever said I was taoist? Not me.

Further, while I'm judging, perhaps the guy that wrote the map could put the bong away before reporting to work in the future. I don't know where we were supposed to turn to get on the right road, but as soon as we were on the wrong road, it all flashed back to me.

Yes. I had been on this wrong road before. And it only gets more wrong. Next thing you know, you're riding your bike on a highway, without a shoulder, and drivers who think you're an annoying obstacle to accelerate around -I remembered it all. The last time I was on this ride, I made the exact same turn and ended up in the exact same wrong place. I asked this man who was out mowing his lawn how to get back and he steered me straight. Here's the crazy thing - that same old man was out mowing his lawn again this Saturday. It's a big lawn. I suspect I could go by any weekend and find him out there mowing it. I wonder if he enjoys that? But I digress.

Mind you, this part of the ride wasn't all bad. There were some funny parts...in retrospect...although I think it's going to take a lot longer retrospect before the SigO thinks they're funny. See, I was really tired on this ride. I just didn't have the juice for all these climbs - so when the he pulled ahead, I just told him to keep going until he got to Rte 20. Unfortunately, it was shortly after this conversation that I realized we were on the wrong road and unlikely to ever see Rte 20. More unfortunate - he was cruising too far ahead to hear me screaming - like a banshee - at the top of my lungs - until I was hoarse and out of breath. The more evil side of me (definitely not the non-judgemental side) says "that'll teach him for not checking behind for me from time to time!" By the time the car I sent after him had caught up to him, he'd already climbed up Mt. Kilamanjaro. Now, had I really had my evil face on, when he finally got back to me, I should have said "I had a cramp and just wanted you to come back. Now we can go on!" In fact, I'm laughing a little evil laugh just sitting here thinking about it. But, it didn't occur to me to be that evil at the time. I was probably too hot and tired to think that creatively. So, we headed down hell's highway and were a few miles from our end point when the SigO called for a break and I was so thrilled at the prospect that I didn't bother telling him we were only a few miles out. So, we rested our bikes against a post, and sat here for a few minutes,

me dreading getting back on that damn torture device they call a saddle But, all's well that ends well, and it obviously ended well since I'm here telling you all about it, and, last I checked, the SigO hasn't moved out of the house.