Momentary Lapse of Rational Thinking

Laura and I made another trip to Brunswick, NE today. I helped Laura's Grandpa with some minor drawer details to our "Captain's Bed" that we are building and then we planed some boards that will eventually be the headboard for the bed. There will be a much longer post on this when it is done and delivered, but for now, the teaser is that the drawer fronts and the headboard are all "native" wood. The boards have been ripped down and planed from a couple of ash trees that were cut down in Brunswick. It's been amazing to me watching a "tree" become a "board". Yeah, I know...it's the simple things that entertain simple people.

On to my lapse in thinking/ability to do math. Laura was late getting back into Brunswick and after we loaded up a cedar chest and said our goodbyes, it was already getting late. I had the bike with and I really wanted to get a ride in. So, I started doing fuzzy math/logic in my head: "If you drop me off in Laurel, I'll have a bit of a tail wind and cross wind and should be able to make it home before sunset". Sounded reasonable, after all, it was only 6:15 or so when I said it. Problem was, we had 45 minutes of driving before Laurel.

By the time I got out and dressed at the Gas Station in Laurel, got the bike tires pumped up, chain lubed, and got rolling it was 7:22 (okay 7:21:59 according to my Garmin). Oh yeah, from that station to my house is 35.72 miles. I took off at a good pace, and quickly started redoing math and realizing that it was time to go into race mode. Whatever you got, it's time to use it up.

The stretch from Laurel to Hwy 12 has decent rolls in it, but with a tail wind of around 10mph, I made pretty decent work of those. Hwy 12, turning back slightly SE, I went back into the wind a bit and really had to push because NOW it was getting dark fast. Luck was on my side, because on this road with NO shoulder (white line IS the shoulder) I was passed only by one car in that stretch. A few oncoming, but overall pretty quiet.

As soon as I turned south towards Vermillion, I had to take my sunglasses off, even with the orange lenses in them. It was getting THAT dark. I got passed shortly before the Missouri River bridge and I went as fast as I could so I would not get passed on the bridge. When I turned off on Dakota Street heading towards the airport, my cell phone rings: "Where are you at?". Luckily I was in coming-in-for-landing mode because the Mrs. was in worry-mode. She's usually pretty calm about my riding but this time she was justifiable in her fears.

Oh well, I made it. I'm alive. Now I have one more story to tell over beers with the biking buddies.

Dear cycling class...tomorrow may be a pretty easy day for you all. I'm sensing parts of my body that may not be happy with me.