Today's Tracking of a Very Short Ride
Jacque had another physical therapy appointment in Athens today, at 11:00 AM. Had I taken my usual morning ride before-wards, it would have been tight time-wise for me to get in a few miles and get back in time to make the trip with her. Athens has a couple of non - long distance trails around the perimeter of town, so I decided to try riding one of those whilst Jacque stretched and pulled with her trainer/therapist.
I had a whole hour to kill while Jacque was tied up... pun not intended. What could go wrong?
First of all, the Eureka Trail turned out to be almost 20 minutes away from the therapy shack, so I had less than 40 minutes to do a whopping marathon. The entire length of this particular trail is supposedly about 6 miles, so I had hoped to make 12 miles by riding its length and back again.
Since I only had 30 minutes or so by the time I got everything unloaded and set up to ride.
I have ridden this trail before, a couple or more years ago. It is gravel and unpaved, a fledgling rail-to-trail project. Last time I rode it the gravel was large chunks and not very easy to ride. This time the surface is much smoother, with finer gravel coating the trail. The inspirational signs every tenth of a mile are a bit much, but hey. What do I want for free? "Find Serenity!" "Find Butterflies!" "Eat Healthy!" And "Find Friends!" All that's missing is "Find True Love!" - But then again, I haven't ridden all 6 miles so I may have missed a few more important ones.
I was watching my pedestal clock closely, hoping to not get back too late or make Jacque wait too long, and I decided to turn around at the 1.1 mile marker - 11 tenth-mile inspirational markers later -
and went back to load up. As I hoisted my hind end off the trike and reached for my phone, it was nowhere to be found. I knew I hadn't lost it too far distant: I had used its mapping feature to lead me all the way to the Eureka park, so it had to be either dropped somewhere in the vehicle or out on the gravel somewhere along the trail. I searched the Exploder high and low with no success. I was running late by now but didn't want to leave without finding the phone, so I got back on the trike and re-traced part of the route... Still no joy. When I got back to the Exploder I was desperate to pick up Jacque so I took off without the phone, losing hope I would ever see it again. I called out on the ham radio for someone to get on THEIR phone and call MY phone in hopes I would hear it ringing - safely inside the vehicle somewhere close to me. A nice fellow with a distinct Tennessee accent answered, Jack WX4ID in Clinton, TN. He rang up my phone and HE could hear it ringing, eventually going to voice mail, but ME, I couldn't hear a peep. It has a nice loud ringer set to the OOOGAh-horn sound, so if it was anywheres in the car I'd have heard it. I finally made it to Jacque's therapy shoppe and we turned back to go looking for the phone, thinking of all the problems associated with trying to replace it.
As we pulled into the Eureka Park lot again, we were immediately accosted by a frantic but nice lady asking if we had lost a cell phone. A more welcome sight is seldom encountered. She had spent the last 20 minutes using the found phone to call all sorts of numbers contained therein - in hopes of tracking me down. She and her hubby had waited at the park for who knows how long, and thankfully we arrived before they gave up and left for home.
It's rather unsettling to realize just how much we've all come to depend on cell phones. Ours contain texts and emails from family and friends, names, phone #'s, addresses, we used them for songbooks and scriptures instead of actually carrying around paper books, reminders of birthdays and doctor appointments, calculator, GPS, internet browser, newspaper reader, book reader.... Gack. If Kim Jong Un ever fires off a low level nuke explosion in the sky and fries all our electronics we will no doubt sink back into the dark ages.
And on that sunny thought, see you next bike ride! Maybe I'll have my brain with me sometime.
Ride Started: 10:20 AM Ride Ended: 11:21 AM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.0 Ending Voltage: 12.9 Lowest: 12.7
Beginning Blood Glucose: 165 Ending BG: 140
(Ate before riding; insulin pump basal rate 100% for this ride)
Lowest Temp 71 F Highest Temp: 78 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 1.27
Distance Walked: 0 mile
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
6.8 MPH 8.4 MPH 17.1 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 1 min 1 hour ? minutes
"Maybe [you'll] have your brain with [you] ...? Are you sure you still have one? You are 71 (if MY brain recalls correctly, highly questionable) and the older I get, it seems like my brain is slowly leaking out.
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