Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend...the older I get, the more it seems to mean to me.  I'm not referring to the BBQing and getting together with family and friends.  No, just remembering those no longer with us--family, friends, and those who served this country.

As a kid I used to hate going to the cemetery up in Leavenworth (Lansing technically).  Most of Mom's family there were folks I had never met...until I got a bit older, and then some I knew were buried there--my aunt, my uncle, my cousin.  And as I grew older, I began to go up on my own.  I wouldn't take flowers--peonies are pretty but I hate the ants the draw.  Instead I would grab some fries at the McD near by, and head over to Muncie.  Mount Muncie cemetery butts up against part of the Leavenworth VA and military cemetery there.  I'd wander over to the family plot, eat my fries and say "hi" to the dead folks, and enjoy the shade and beauty of the place.  Sometimes I'd wander the grounds, looking at the oldest stones.  There are some interesting ones there--follow the link and you can read about them.

Eventually I would wander over to the military cemetery, and ponder what it all means.  If you've never been to a military cemetery, you should go some time, and look, and think.  Not every one there died in combat, but ALL served in some fashion. (And yes, I consider those spouses buried with their servicemember to have served in their own way too.)  Did you know that the graves of those servicemen who received the Medal of Honor are all marked with a small plaque?  You can wander around, looking for those particular gravesites, and read a small summary of their actions.


Leavenworth National Cemetery

Tomorrow, my husband and my son will go to DFW National Cemetery, with the Scouts, and they will participate in setting flags on all the graves.  I am really happy and proud that our CubScouts will be doing this.

Turns out my husband was ill last night and was not able to attend.  So I went with our son instead.  Here are a few pictures from our efforts to honor those at rest in DFW National.

This year, my mom went up to Muncie, and got some fries, when she went to visit the graves.  She did it, because I couldn't be there myself, living 9hrs away as I do...  Then she went off to the local cemetery, where her husband, my Dad, is buried.  For Dad, she took red roses.  He always liked roses.  Me?  I won't be up there until this fall, but then, maybe I will go visit Dad, and have a french fry sandwich*!  He'd have laughed at that, and probably wanted one too.


Have a happy, and thoughtful Memorial Day Weekend everybody.  I'll be grilling Sunday and Monday, but I won't forget the WHY of this holiday.




* Take an order of fries, 2 slices white bread and some A-1 steak sauce.  Put the fries between the slices of bread, and add some A-1, and salt if you need it.

Wildflowers or Texas Ditchweeds?

This Mother's Day Weekend, found us out at a Cub Scout family campout.  The camp was on Possum Kingdom Lake, at Camp Constantin.  I'd never been out to Possum Kingdom, but folks 'round here always told me it was pretty.  I now believe them, having seen the abrupt ridgelines (sadly many burned to the bare rock last year in the area's devastating wildfires), and the gorgeous rock cliffs on the lakeshore.  Reminded me of paddling in the Apostle Islands...  I really hadn't missed my Dagger Apostle kayak, until this weekend!

Our oldest, aka Monkey1, requested I photograph all the flowers she picked, so with my phone, I complied with her wish.  And I have to admit, some of them were so pretty, I just started taking pictures for myself.  Unfortunately, they're all ditchweeds...yeah, noxious weeds most of them, and those that aren't, are often undesireable plants, like cacti.  Most of what I have pictures of, I can't personally identify--so if you know for certain, feel free to post in the comments.

#1 I think this is a variant of thistle.

#2 A Daisy/Sunflower

#3 No idea on this, but the delicate little flower clusters on the ground vine were beautiful.

#4 The leaves on this look almost sage blue and not all bushes had the berries.

#5 Prickly pear cactus flowers.

I am also posting a link to this for Leontien to enjoy.  Hope y'all like our Texas Ditchweeds!

CCRBENT Ride!

Today was the first CCRBENT social ride.  CC is for Collin County, and RBENT is the Recumbent Bike Enthusiasts of North Texas. RBENT is the "parent" group that we all belong to.  The ride was a chance for some area recumbent riders to get together, have a pleasant ride, and then go eat!

The plan was for a 16mi jaunt out in the county, and bagel sandwiches to follow.  So at 9am we met up in the grocery store lot.  10 folks showed--Jayg, ActionLad, Testersbc & his wife TerriA59, me, TonyW, JimFPU, Jim's friend Betty, Ken and Denman.  The recumbents outnumberd the trikes by only 1, and Jim's friend was on her DF bike.  It was a great turnout for a first-time social ride.  Our goal is to schedule a ride like this once a month.

 ActionLad had his big video camera, and shot a lot of nice action scenes.  Boy, he is REALLY FAST on his Catrike 700!  I shot some video too, with the GoPro, but have not edited it yet or put it up on our Youtube channel.   If I got some good shots, I will post them later here.  ActionLad's Youtube channel is "Palm Victory" so you might check there first, for better videos!

Bikewise, it was an interesting assortment.  Bacchetta Ti-Aero, Bacchetta Giro 26, Rans Stratus, Rans Xstream, Cannondale DF, Cattrike 700, Speed & Expedition, Terra Trike, and a Musashi.

This was officially a No Drop ride, so we rode at an easy pace, and if folks got ahead, they waited for others to regroup.  It worked well, despite my being the only one on the ride who knew where we were going!  OOPS!  I didn't think to print out a map for folks--though I had posted the RidewithGPS file on the forum thread where we set up the ride. 

We rode the loop counterclockwise, which was nice for the folks who were tired, as the pretty section is slightly downhill that way, and has a wonderful tree-tunnel over the road.  The shade was welcome too, as it was a bit hot and sunny.  We also encountered a lot of downed trees and limbs across the roads that had not been cleared from last night's storm.  Apparently it blew a lot harder just north of the Monkeyhouse than I realized.  At one point the road was almost totally blocked.  Cars had to squeeze by in the ditch.

I had a great time--I don't get to ride with other folks very often, unless it is a paid ride, and even then, there are not a lot of recumbents at the pay rides.  So this marks the largest recumbent group I have ridden with.  We had no trouble with traffic that I know of, and it seemed like the ride was a popular idea.  So my goal is to try to have a ride like this once a month.  Since winter is typically mild here, we ought to be able to ride year-round without much difficulty.

Another Flower for Leontien

Leontien is a blogger from the Four Leaf Clover Dairy who is fighting cancer.  Friends of hers set up a Flower Posting, to send some cheer her way.

Flowers for Leontien

What to do with a Saturday?

Hmm...what to do with tomorrow? Dave is off to Munchkin Land Muenster TX for the Muenster Germanfest Metric bicycle ride and I will have the Monkeys all day. All I know for sure that I need to do, is to prep the chickens with marinades for Beercan Chicken tomorrow evening on the grill. That shouldn't take too long provided I can clear out enough room in the fridge to keep it all cold, all day long in different marinade bowls.

I've been experimenting with injected marinades like these by Stubbs. I used the Texas Butter one on a pork tenderloin roast, and then soaked it in this one for 3-4hrs for extra flavor. I know it says Chicken Marinade, but it is great on pork too! The pork turned out so tasty, even Monkey3 liked it! Now THAT is a real seal of approval!

But what to do with tomorrow? Perhaps we will go metal detecting. Haven't done that in a long time, and I've had the urge to detect, lately. There are several good parks that I bet have not been hunted anytime recently, and one huge one, that renews itself so rapidly, it doesn't really matter if it gets hunted regularly--there is always something new to dig out of the wood chips! Hunting would give the Monkeys plenty of time to blow off some stink, running around the play parks too. I can think of a couple closer parks to go to, that might yield some goodies, and not take too much gas to get to. I'd love to hit the wooden-structure park in Denton (there are two actually) but they will both be zoos tomorrow, and are too far to drive to, in the Honda.

We might even take Shiloh with us, so to give her more exposure to other people and maybe other dogs. It would do her good, and she is the most peacable of the hounds at home. The boys can hang out, out back in the shade and play Rat-the-Fence with the neighbor dogs!

Ride for the Heroes

Saturday was the Aledo Ride for the Heroes, in Aledo TX. It was a fundraiser ride, to benefit various small community fire departments and police in Parker County. This was the 10th anniversary ride, and I opted to try the 73 mile route. Now there was a disclaimer on the main page, that Parker County has hills, but having lived in the Collin County area for almost 9 years, I didn't believe them to be serious. Hehehe...

The weather forecast, which had been marginal early in the week, had steadily improved, until it was forecast for sunny skies and almost no wind! You don't get better than that in Texas! It was even darned chilly (48deg F) just before the ride started. Most folks were dressed in arm warmers, jackets and tights or leg warmers to be able to strip off layers as the day warmed.

It was projected that there might be upwards of 1100 riders at the start, for routes of varying lengths--8, 23, 35, 44, 62, and 73 miles. Wanting to test myself a little, and log my most miles for the year, and in fact since I don't exactly remember when, I chose 73 miles. The route was fairly narrow for the first 10 or so miles, and crowded with lots and lots of riders. Riding the recumbent, I don't go so fast UP any inclines (aka hills), but I do descend rather faster than most of the DF riders. This created a problem for me, as I was unused to descending in heavy bike traffic on the 'bent, and kept having to brake so as not to run up on someone's back wheel. Plus folks were all over the road, (we had police closing off roads for us to safely occupy the whole road) so it was ill advised to weave through them.

Things thinned out quite a bit as routes peeled off, and folks stopped at the first couple SAG stops. The SAGS were well-supported with Portables at each stop, typical ride chow, and the neat thing, enough volunteers who would offer to hold your bike upright (no kickstands) while you took care of business! I kinda like the idea of Bike Valets!

After SAG 2, I became concerned over my speed and time (I am not speedy going up hill, and it turns out Texas isn't flat! I have been thoroughly disabused of the idea that Texas is flat! In fact, the Garmin says I climbed some 4000+ feet Saturday! YIKES! No wonder I was pushing to make 12mph avg... Anyway, after SAG 2, I skipped past the next couple SAGs, and lost count of which one was next. So when I did stop for some food and liquids to refill with, I asked what SAG it was, and it turned out I was at SAG 6! I had expected it to be #5, so I was actually encouraged. I knew the cutoff for the 62mi route was just ahead. When I left the SAG, I decided to continue with the plan of the 73 mile route, as I got to the cutoff before they closed the 73mi loop.

As other folks will tell you, if you find their ride reports, there were some "interesting" hills on the north part of the route. In particular, I liked the downhills, as I was able to make up some lost time. I may not climb well, but I descend like a bat outta hell! Unfortunately, after every nice downhill, we were forced to climb right back out of the valleys, slogging up all the hills, and hills, and more hills. "Please, God, enough with the hills already!" I do recall saying that more than once on this ride!

The ride ended with a long, 1-mile slog up a hill to the I-20 overpass. Some kind soul even wrote in chalk at the bottom "Last Hill" for all to see. Then it was downhill to the High School, some nice food, and the van to drive home. The ride organizers were even prepared enough to keep good food on hand for those of us out on the 73mi route who were slow. I did NOT finish last, nor was I the last recumbent on the route! I did 73mi in 6:06 ride time, or approx 6:45 total time from the starting bell at 8:30. So I spent less than an hour stopped, which is a lot better than I thought I was doing. Next time I do this ride, I will know better than to think Texas is flat. But at least at the end of the day, the only thing I felt, was TIRED! Here's what my ride data looks like from the Garmin. Aledo RFH by monkeywrangler22 at Garmin Connect - Details

Musings on bike shops...

So yesterday was Packet Pick Up for the Aledo Ride for the Heroes. I had to drive down to RBM for this. Now RBM is the largest bike shop in the Metromess, and certainly the largest I've ever been in. It's the shop that first sponsored Lance--yes, THAT Lance! It is sort of stunning when you first walk into the Mothership and see that many, high end road bikes filling the building. There must be several million dollars worth of built bikes on racks, on the sales floor, hanging from the ceiling...

When I pulled into the parking lot, I was initially surprised to see so many cyclists milling around. But then I realized it must be one of their evening ride groups. Still, there were 60+ riders there, all on $$$bikes. Suddenly I was acutely aware that I had a recumbent sticker on the back of the car. I looked around carefully--nary a 'bent in sight! Why, I only saw TWO Aerobellies in the whole bunch! I realized sadly, that I no longer felt like I fit in with such a crowd--not because I am older, nor because I was wearing Birkenstocks (heck that should've made me fit in!). Not even because I was on foot (after all I do ride a fair bit nowadays), or because I was slower than them when riding. It was because I ride a recumbent--like this one in particular. Never before had I felt like the red-headed stepchild, in a crowd of cyclists. It was an odd experience.

I bear no ill thoughts toward roadies--if it were not for the arthritis in my hands, I would still have and ride my Masi Gran Corsa, well spec'd out with Campy parts. It would have been 'old school' in that crowd, but would have fit right in, and I'd have still been too slow to hang with them. But I would've fit in...

I guess although the 'bent has been instrumental in my weightloss, and overall health improvements, and has gotten me out riding again (YAY!), it has also changed how I feel I am viewed by a majority of roadies. Motorcyclists seem friendlier on the road, than most roadies. (Note: I said most, not all).

I guess I will just stick with my RBENT crowd, and be in like-minded company...trying to organize some small group rides for us 'benters in the north part of the Metromess. BTW, all riders are welcome to show up for any RBENT rides I offer up--trikes, MTB's, DF's, velos...you name it, if you pedal it, I'll try and ride with you! And remember, once you get 'bent, the only thing you are at the end of a long ride, is TIRED!