Here and There

Just a few things to catch up on. First, it has been cold. We've dropped down into the teens a few times within the last two weeks. And during one of them times we didn't come out until the next day.

I bought a bike on New Years day to help in my training, It's a Schwinn's 26" man's Cruiser bike from Target, mine is a sort of cream in color I only paid right under a hundred for it, it came off the rack, and only got to do a brief ride on it on New Years day. Just enough to convince myself that, yes, Virginia, I can still ride a bike. But I could tell three things right away.

1.) My technique was off.

2.) My style was sloppy

3. ) The bicycle putter-together-thingy-man didn't tighten down duh.

So, it was to my house to at lease work on the third item.

Then it got cold so I wasn't able to do anything on the first two items, yet.

Well, I got out today and actually did some riding around and rediscovered why I stopped riding bikes in the first place. If you haven't ridden on in a while then try it, and you will quickly discover my discovery too.

But I did ride down College St. onto Railroad St. to Harris St. and visited Dad. Then I rode about 1/2 way back on that same route before I had to dismount and walk the bike. At the top of the hill on College St. at the school, I remounted and coasted down and across the highway, no cars were coming, and to my own driveway on Cameron St. Yep, it'll take me a while to get use to riding again.

The idea behind the bike isn't to replace walking but to use it to ride down these walking trails and mark out the trailheads. One idea is to drive my bike about 20 miles down to a trailhead and leave it chained up while I drive back to the starting trailhead and then I can walk to where the bike is and then ride it back. Remember, time is a crucial factor. I can walk about 2.5 miles an hour and make 20 miles, with a break or two, in 10 hours. I can probably ride at 10 miles an hour and be able to be back within 3 hours. So a twenty mile hike can take up to 13 hours. And I'm still getting actually two sets of cardio work out. Plus not having the "boredom" of walking 10 miles and then turning around and returning those same ten miles.

I know, I'll still be riding over those same miles but with a bike it'll be like it's a different venue.

Denis has been having some trouble with his right ear. He has an abscess, in it where the swelling is forcing the inside surface and the outside surface of the ears apart. I've taken a syringe and lanced it and drew out blood and water. But I'm having to do this about once every other day. And he looks forward to it. He knows I'm trying to help and he sits still for when I insert the needle and draw out the fluid. The Vet has him on some anti-biotics and he's not too happy with them. Glad he knows better then to try and scratch me. But we need to wait and see. But that one ear when deflated is floppy now. I need to get pictures of him. Shoot, I need to get pictures of all the cats, while I'm at it.