Day Fifty Three...

THE TWENTY SECOND OF TWENTY EIGHT THINGS I SEE BETWEEN MY HOUSE AND THE HIGHWAY...in no particular order...

Well, when I said there were no real traffic issues on my way to and from Austin yesterday, I really did not give you the whole story, AND I did a good deed while I was stuck behind masses of segregated male and female spandex covered butts on bikes. As I was driving from the house to the highway, once I hit FM 972 I started noticing an extraordinarily heavy amount of vehicular traffic (more than three cars) and many of them had bikes on the back. Also, I noticed two SUV's in the St. Peter Lutheran Church parking lot. So, being the super sleuth that I am, I figured there was going to be a bike ride in the area, but I had no idea where they were planning to start, where they would end or what the ride was. I went on into town and forgot about it. While I was coming home on the Interstate, I started seeing cars/bike heading in to Austin and started thinking about it again.

All was clear on FM 972, so I figured it must be over, but once I hit FM 1105 there they were. They were not all en masse, but divided into categories by sex. The first group I got stuck behind (and finally passed) were women (the Women's CAT 5 is what the SAG vehicle said). About five miles up the road were the men (Men's Cat 5), and they were in a much larger group. Did I mention that a cold front was coming through at the time? It was not particularly cold, but the winds were pretty high, most likely about 30-35 miles per hour, gusting much higher. I had practically been blown away on the Interstate. One interesting thing about winds and bicycles...no matter which way you are going, the wind is ALWAYS in your face. There is never a tail-wind, it is always a head-wind, which makes life on a bike in the wind kind of difficult. I hope they had a good and safe ride, and I wish I knew who they were. I have been trying (okay not so much really) to find some folks in the area to ride with, I know there is a group that rides from Temple and Belton areas, but I will keep looking. PHOTOGRAPHERS NOTE: The photos in today's entry do not really do justice to how interesting the riders were and how beautiful the sight actually was, but it was the best your photographer could do through the windshield of his car on a windy two-lane country road. At least no one was badly injured in the quest to take these photographs. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Okay then...the black cat stayed inside last night. The temperature was expected to go down to below freezing and we decided to let her stay inside. We put him/her/it in one of the guest rooms with food, water and a litter box. I do not know where the QUEEN CAT is this morning, she is not in any of her usual places, but there was no loud cat-fight noises last night, and so far I have not seen any cat-blood anywhere, so I am assuming that everything went pretty well. We will take this one day-by-day.

I was going to sleep in a while this morning, but at about 5 AM this morning, the smoke detector that I just changed the battery in last week started beeping again (it is in the room where the cat slept last night). It would beep a few times, and then quit for a while, then beep some more and then quit for a while. So I finally got up and made coffee, and it has not beeped for about thirty minutes now. If I had a gun...

Today I am going to go get my hair cut, it has been almost two months and it is finally at the point that it must be done. Also the cattle need to be fed, and some boxes from the move need to be put into the shed and some more boxes need to be emptied. I need to clean out the office AND my car (since it is no longer being used as a micro-mini moving vehicle). So the day looks like it will shape up to be full of interesting stuff happening. We shall see...

Okay it is now the mid-to-late afternoon, and I jut got out of the shower. We have unpacked probably a dozen more boxes, and put stuff out in the house. The cattle have been fed, and the black cat is asleep in the leather chair, the dog is asleep in the study with Jody and the QUEEN CAT is asleep on her window ledge in the master bedroom. We planted some petunias that we were given several weeks ago by our friends Lynda and Michael, and I tried to pull up the worlds largest dandelions from the flower beds, and the dandelions won. My goal is to leave the house at 3:30 PM and go into Georgetown to get a haircut, go to Target and pick up a few things (you should try very hard to stimulate the economy), and then we will stay there and have some dinner before we come home. Oh, and we are taking a lot of wrapping paper to the paper recycling place at the Zion Lutheran Church. All in all it has been a good day, although it has been kind of short in the good deeds department. I will try to work on that tomorrow, but that does not let you off the hook...go do something nice for someone, right now!