November 26th is my father's birthday. he would have been 89 years old today. And it's thanksgiving too.
My husband had a goal of 11,111.11 miles for the year. He wanted to ride to toppot donuts and back to buy some maple bars for his avatar on bike journal....
anyway, turns out it rained hard all night, upwards of 1/2" of rain and as it got light this morning, it was still raining and 47 degrees F. And me, all I want to do is sit around in my warm office and paint. But Raleighdon is so excited because not only will he make his goal today, but I will make mine. 2500 miles if i get on my bike. But wait, I don't have my bike. My Davidson is half taken apart to go to the shop and my Raleigh Mixte is IN the shop getting set up so I can ride while the other is being repaired. But that doesn't slow down Raleighdon. He's convinced that I can ride his 1990 Raleigh that he just set up as a winter bike, so we can ride together to go downtown and back so he can buy these dumb donuts. So he adjusts the bike by putting my saddle on it, raising the handlebars, gives me a two minute lesson on bar end shifters, and we're off. We headed down the hill in the rain and it was pretty easy until we got to where we had to take the left lane and turn left. The entire road was covered with water about 2" high. Waves were coming from either direction from the wheels of cars. I was absolutely terrified but i knew the only way out of that one was to pedal straight ahead. The big fat tires on this bike were awesome, and I got to the other side never losing my balance, never slipping. We rode 17 miles round trip.