What March Brings

Yesterday was a bea-u-ti-ful day!!!! Coffee with Mary mid-morning (ok...hers was coffee and cinnamon roll, mine was coffee and 1/2 order of biscuit & gravy!)...but follow that with a few pleasant errands and my day was off to a great start. Before noon I knew it was going to call for a bike ride...an outdoors-fresh-air-type bike ride!

Following my other errands, I came home and decided to clean out a little flower bed. I started raking and cutting and digging and pulling...and pretty soon decided that I should start raking behind and around the pampas grasses that had built up leaves. I wound up with a full polycart of yard trash. Luckily the polycart goes today!

My bike on the trainer had a flat and Mary had supplied me with 3 old tires to choose from, so I changed that tire and got the trainer reset and ready to go for the next cold snap. (Oh, yeah...it's Kansas...there WILL be more cold.)

At 2 Mary arrived and we took off for a bike ride. She had leggings on, I didn't. She had a couple of shirts and a jacket on, I had on a light weight turtleneck and a riding vest with a vented back. We went about 2 blocks and I said, "Think I need to go change clothes." You always get warmer after riding awhile, but there's a point when you just know you're never gonna get there. So we came back and I added leggings, removed the vest and put on a windbreaker jacket. Only thing I didn't do that I should have was to trade my fingerless gloves for full gloves.

We rode up Plum Street to 82nd (a little over 4 miles)...decided along the way that obviously there was water under Plum Street and it was frozen and therefore the hill was swollen. That was more hill that either of us remembered from last year!!! When Mary's cell phone rang and she stopped to answer it, I was grateful for the break.

Also, while we were stopped, Carol rode by coming from the north (opposite direction we were going)...I talked to her later and she wound up with 43 miles for the day!!! That's a REAL biker! She training for a ride out of Tucson, Az. next week so she's been going out pretty much regardless of the weather. What a woman, huh?!?!

Well, Mary and I continued up Plum to 82nd, jogged over to Monroe, went north on Monroe into the Highlands. One lap around the Highlands (oh, bikers: someone has a new Mastiff in the Highlands - beautiful dog - with another shepherd dog. The shepherd is tethered; the Mastiff isn't. But he did stop...maybe they have a buried fence...I hope. BIG DOG!!!) Anyway, we did one lap, decided that would be good for the first real outing of the season and headed back to town. Got back with 17.21 miles on the computer.

Great ride! Great company! Mary and I have known each other and ridden together for so long we are pretty good at determining what the other guy's going to do or needs to do. Plus we're just good friends besides! And we NEVER run out of conversation!

So today is supposed to be even prettier...and we're planning another ride for this afternoon. This retirement thing is ok, ya know!?! Do pretty much what you want, when you want. Life is good. Count your blessings!