Whilst pedaling along on a relatively cool Tennessee Tuesday morning, I had only gone a few miles when a car pulled alongside me and slowed to match my pace. The gentleman inside was smiling and gesturing and after 30 seconds or so pulled on ahead and pulled over on the shoulder in front of me, requiring me to stop and see what he wanted. It was a moment or two before I registered the fact that he had a nice pedal-powered trike mounted on the rear of his car. He ambled out and walked toward and, with a distinct British accent, shook my hand and proceeded to regale me with stories.
He was not a bit over 90 years of age, originally from England, and was a WWII veteran, having served in both the RAF (British Royal Air Force) and the US Army Air Corps. He was mainly in training when the war was ending, but on a dare, flew one mission over France from England as a belly gunner in a bomber. He worked in all sorts of aeronautic and space programs, and was quite the tale spinner, also filling me in on some details about this area of Tennessee. He was a talker, indeed, and I almost had to insult him to get going and be on my way, enjoyable though he was.
When I was a college student in 1965-66 in Silver City NM at Western NM University, I occasionally visited friends up in the little village of Pinos Altos. Occasionally I would bump into a gold miner or two, of which there were several in those days, who spent most of their time back up in the mountains digging for gold and silver. None of them had struck it rich, but gold is found most everywhere if you look for it enough, and these guys often went for weeks without human contact. As a result, when they encountered some willing listener like me, they would enjoy TALKING to a live human so much that it was difficult to get away from them. This fellow reminded me of such guys, and sure enough, he lived in a nice home on top of one of the local Tennessee mountains, far from town. His wife of so many years still lived with him but evidently was in "bad shape" and provides little in the way of conversation for this ebullient Brit Boy. I commented on his accent and he laughed, saying he had left Britain about 1952 or so and didn't think he still maintained such an accent, but it was still quite evident, and really stood out here in the heart of downtown Tennessee.
He apologized several times for taking up so much of my time and said we should go on our own ways but 30 minutes later he was still holding forth. I apologized and explained after so long my wife would be worrying about me and we parted. Fun guy. This cut my riding time a bit short but I still almost made 10 miles to my surprise.
On Monday my radio/GPS tracker worked surprisingly well, and Tuesday - Not a drop of it. No clouds on Tuesday meant no ducting of the radio waves a bit farther to help out, I guess.
Oh, yeah, Treasures. I obtained tuesday, free of charge, a nice washer and a large bolt, both lying freely available for the taking on the road shoulder. Not only did I obtain such useful objects, but I might well have saved someone's tire or windshield. A few years ago just such a bolt flew off a cargo truck passing us in Montana, striking our RV windshield and making a mess of it in the process. It took me 5 miles to catch up to him and get his company and truck number. Little good it did me - when I called the company they proclaimed that unless the driver had pulled over and talked to me and acknowledged his guilt, they would never acknowledge or pay damages. So all truckers have to do is keep rolling..... BAH. No biggy. It only cost a little shy of $1000 to get new windshields installed. So at least THIS bolt goes into the safety of my spare-parts box instead.
Ride Started: 9:02 AM Ride Ended: 10:42 AM
Beginning Blood Glucose: 200 Ending BG: 66
(No breakfast; insulin pump basal rate cut back to 80% for the ride)
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 9.42
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
5.7 MPH 9.2 MPH 17.6 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 38 mins 1 hour 1 min 37 minutes
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