Pedaling Drugs

Today's Around Town Route

Okay, for my English Diction-challenged Comrades: 
Peddling:  SELLING something, usually on a small scale
Pedaling:  Working something with your FEET, usually a bicycle or in my case, Tricycle

I insert this short tutorial since I see, so often, in posts about cycling, the use of "Peddling" their bike or trike, when in fact they mean "Pedaling".  As a former spelling bee champion in the 3rd and 4th grade (circa 1946-47), I shudder when I see such errors.  Trust me.  It's just a weakness on my part.
Nobody is going to hell for misspelling Pedaling.  Here's hoping I didn't misspell misspelling....
Now, on to today's mild adventure.  Wanting to get in my usual several miles on the trike to build up my metabolism AND sense of well-being, I was in process of saddling up the trike, attaching the flagpole antennas, turning on the electronics, making sure I had full water bottles, etc, when Jacque mentioned she had a prescription ready to pick up at Walmart.  Since such things are an excellent excuse for a ride, I volunteered to go get it via high speed (HAH!) trike travel.
I again elected to take the mostly long way around, to increase the mileage accomplished.  Again all encounters with motorized vehicles were cordial and danger - free.  Most drivers actually hesitate to pass me, even though I leave plenty of room for them to pass without having to enter the oncoming lane.  Most also want to give me the right-of-way at intersections, even though they may have been first at the stop, thus having priority.  I like to wave cars through such encounters, even if **I** have the theoretical right of way.  I like to make sure there is lots of room and visibility in all directions before I go onward, and find it worthwhile to wave all traffic through as much as possible.
I also stopped a couple of times to yack on the ham radio, since there was a 2 meter net on the 147.09 Hartville repeater.  This repeater is around 10 miles away, and lacking mountain locations for antennas, it has spotty coverage here in Mountain Grove, especially when rattling along on the trike.
That sucked up maybe 5 or 6 minutes of stop time, and I rolled onward.
When I rolled into the Wally World parking lot, I parked aat the bike rack, chained up the trike, and took a break sitting on one of their outside benches drinking one of their 50 cent sodas purchased from their outside vending machines.
The pharmacy inside handled me circumspectly and I was again on my way in a few minutes.
With quite a few honks and friendly waves from motorist, I made it home again safe and mostly sound.

Ride Started:   10:20 AM      Ride Ended:  12:20 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.5  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  144      Ending BG: 80

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  7.23
Distance Walked: 1 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  3.7 MPH                             6.8 MPH              18.9 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 56 mins                  1 hour 3 mins         53 minutes

Farmers Day and Armadillos

Today's Ride Home

Today we took most of the day off and drove to Norwood for their Farmers Day Celebration which is kind of a mix of village fair and local musical talent.  We loaded my Recumbent Catrike into the back of the Ford Exploder so I could ride it home from the event, weather and time permitting.
The music and junk food were great, but getting up 4 days a week at 5:00 AM for Early Morning Seminary takes its toll on my metabolism and I actually slept, in our folding chairs, a half hour or more during the music.

By about 4:00 PM the weather was nice, with a faint breeze and cloudy  but no rain, so I wanted to leave with enough time to ride the trike home before dark.  Jacque decided she would drive home as well, so I unloaded the trike and we both took off.
My GPS/Iphone wanted me to take "Old Route 60" home, set for bicycle routing.  Old Route 60 is indeed a less traveled road, but it also has occasional high speed traffic, NO shoulders, and horrible pot-hole maintenance.  The newer main Highway 60 has wide, SMOOTH, paved shoulders.  The only real hazards are the plentiful slabs of truck tire shreds, lying in frequent fields that endanger trike tires with the fine-as-frog-hair wires that occasionally work their way into providing a leak.
So far I've only experienced one such flat.  The cars and truckers fly by at over 60 MPH but invariably give me wide clearance, almost always swerving to the farthest lane from me and pulling back into the right lane hundreds of yards after they've passed.  Never even had a "Close Encounter".
Thus my trip home was largely uninterrupted except for unusually large numbers of roadkill.

This is one of the several dead armadillos encountered on the road today.  We have seen dozens of these critters dead, but never a live one.  Evidently they are nocturnal, rarely if ever seen in daylight but wadding across roadways after dark in search of insects and other small game for food.
Various other deceased critters were encountered, such as squirrels etc.  Just before I arrived home I came upon a huge, fat, dead raccoon.  SIGH

Ride Started:   4:07 PM      Ride Ended:  5:32 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  101      Ending BG: 86

Lowest Temp:  71 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  10.06
Distance Walked: 1 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  7.0 MPH                              7.9 MPH              34 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 25 mins                 1 hour 16 mins       9 minutes

Riding for RootBeer

Today's Roundabout Riding

The weather is cooling off, finally, here in Wright County Missouri.  Still, I should have ridden earlier in the day.  I wanted to get a shelf built under the kitchen sink for the Mistress of the House, and foolishly thought I could get that accomplished in a couple of hours.  Har. Har.
It was nigh on to 3:00 PM before I screwed the last screw for that project, and my conscience allowed me to saddle up the trike for a ride.  My feet and legs were already pooped because of all the bending and twisting, and my blood sugar already a bit low, but I need those trike miles to keep my metabolism and mood uplifted.
My excuse for a "triketrip" today was lack of diet root beer, a critical component of life for me.
I have purchased several cartons of Barq's Diet Root Beer, the tastiest available, from Amazon mail-order in the last couple of years.  We recently stopped buying the mail order stuff (diet Barq's is seldom available in stores, and may soon be dropped from production altogether), choosing to buy diet A&W locally instead.  So I intended to just trike up to Walmart, about a 5 mile trip, get a carton of fizzy stuff along with a few other items, and pedal back home again.
I wanted to do more than my usual +- 5 miles, so I took the "Long Way Around" to get there.
I stopped for a short rest/shade break at the never-busy local airport, resuming my pedaling within about 5 minutes or so.  My feet seem to be slowly getting better - probably largely due to the weather getting cooler in this fall season.
When I arrived at the Big Box store and chained up the trike outside on the sidewalk, I was stunned, STUNNED, to find absolutely NO diet A&W anywhere in the store, when they usually have a shelf full of the stuff.  So I bought a couple of small items we needed, ate a snack to beef up the sagging blood sugar reading, and went home.  Back to Amazon it is, for Diet Root Beer of all things.
Whoever thinks Big Box Stores always have what you need or want..... Think Again.

Ride Started:   2:58 PM      Ride Ended:  5:13 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  12.9   Lowest Voltage:  12.9

Beginning Blood Glucose:  74      Ending BG: 92

Lowest Temp:  71 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  9.81
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  4.4 MPH                              8.3 MPH              25.1 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 2 hours 12 mins                 1 hour 11 mins      1 hour 1 minute

A Tale of Two Rides

Yesterday's Mini Ride

Tuesday was wet and rainy much of the day, so I tried to make progress on upgrading stuff in This Old House while the drops fell outside.  I was able to get the floor rebuilt underneath the kitchen sink and verified that no additional leaking was occurring underneath the house.  That involves a grubby belly crawl to fully investigate, and I'm truly happy to be done with it for a while, until the next disaster, of course.
Along about 5-ish PM, the sun finally came out and lit up the surroundings.
This inspired me to take a quick trike ride, to which my sweet wifey agreed, bless her heart.
I mainly wanted to stretch my aging legs, which were stiff and sore from bending and kneeling under the kitchen sink much of the day.  It worked, and as usual, improved my mood quite nicely.

Ride Started:   5:14 PM      Ride Ended:  6:04 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.7  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  88      Ending BG: 53

Lowest Temp:  60 F    Highest Temp:  64  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  5.97
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  7.2 MPH                              8.3 MPH              20.1 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 50 minutes                         43 minutes          7 minutes

Today's Middling Ride

I got going a bit earlier today, after nailing in a final wood strip underneath the kitchen sink so Jacque could paint it while I was out enjoying myself.
A out a mile into the ride, my noisy drive chain got SO dry and noisy I decided to stop and lubricate the derned thing.  I found a shady spot and pulled over.  It took a while to find my almost-empty tube of lube, but at last after searching every nook and cranny of my pannier it appeared and I was able to satisfy the dry chain and it now makes a lot less noise going down the road.
About halfway across town I saw what first appeared to be a clump of leaves in the street.  When I swerved to avoid hitting it, I was surprised that it turned into a gray squirrel, leaping up and scampering directly in front of me, just barely avoiding getting squashed by..... a TRICYCLE.
I had started out with the intention of riding 7+ miles out to Cabool and back to visit one of my church friends.  By the time I got to the on-ramp for Route 60, however, my enthusiasm for a 14+ mile round trip had faded somewhat, plus I'm still always short on time for house remodeling.
I rode on across 60 instead of taking the eastbound on-ramp and went into Walmart to spend some money.
I was low on spray sunblock, a couple needed tools, bike chain lube, and chocolate cookies.  It took longer than I wanted but managed to find it all, eventually. 
After exiting the store, I relaxed on the trike seat while consuming a couple of cookies and a Diet Pepsi to cancel it out, when the very friends I had started out to see near Cabool drove up and parked across from me in the Walmart parking lot.  So I got to see them after all and we had a nice visit.
The ride home was largely uneventful.  The slowly evolving fall weather is cooling things a bit so my feet were quite comfy today.

Ride Started:   10:35 AM      Ride Ended:  12:49 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.8  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  151      Ending BG: 116

Lowest Temp:  71 F    Highest Temp:  75  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  5.40
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  2.4 MPH                              6.7 MPH              16.7 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 2 hours 14 mins                  48 minutes          1 hour 26 mins

RedFace Thursday

Today's Plotted Track; Internet Blinky Again

My feets were a bit more painful than usual this morning, and my blood sugar checked high, so I had the conflicting thoughts of staying off the trike because of the pain, or get on the trike to help burn off the carbs causing the high blood sugar.  Since I'm convinced exercise actually helps - long term - with the foot pain, I took off on the trike in spite of the pain.
Which didn't result in any excess agony, though I did stop for an extra rest break or three.

Sandals Off, Air and Shade Cooling

As I approached a large farm building with surrounding acreage, I heard what sounded like a helicopter coming in for a landing.  My memory still holds many memories of Vietnam and stateside chopper pilots coming in and taking off, from the OH-13's depicted in M.A.S.H. to the Loaches (LOH-6) and Hughey guships (UH-!B and many variants).  I craned my neck to see if I could see the incoming aircraft, but could see nothing whatsoever flying around.  As I passed the farm building and craned my neck even more to spot the whistling chopper blades, I noticed when I bent my neck to the rear, the sound was coming more from the front.  Embarrassed was I when  I realized there was no helicopter blades causing the whistle, but my own brake strap was hanging in the wrong direction and was rubbing slightly against the left tire, causing the distracting noise.  BOTHER
The weather here in Missouri is slowly cooling off and it helps that it hasn't rained in 2 or 3 weeks, but it still gets warmish out in the direct sun.  By the time I got close to home it was almost noon and VERY little shade was available.
Very nice to get inside the house and listen to the Air Conditioner burning up money. Well worth the cost.....

Ride Started:   10:44 AM      Ride Ended:  12:03 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  229      Ending BG: 166

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  7.91
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  6.0 MPH                              7.7 MPH              26.3 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 19 mins                   1 hour 1 min          18 minutes

Wednesday: Haircut Day

Partial Track of Today's Wandering

My graying hair has been too long and shaggy recently (hair touching my ears, ICK), so I've been needing a visit to the barber.  Lately I tend to remember such things either before or after they're open for business.  Luckily, today, I remembered in time to actually get the job done.  A great excuse to get the trike out of the garage for a ride....

After lightening the load on my head, I thought I ought to ride a few more miles in order to take advantage of the more aerodynamic head whistling in the wind.
I failed to notice much difference, though my skull may have been a bit cooler while riding.
As one can see from the photo, it didn't help my looks either.  Oh Well.
I was going to do a longer ride today but Jacque is getting tired of her kitchen being torn up underneath the kitchen sink.  Thus the re-prioritization from cyclist to old house repair.

Ride Started:   10:20 AM      Ride Ended:  11:11 AM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  14.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  135      Ending BG: 83

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  82  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  2.94
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  3.6 MPH                              7.6 MPH              18.6 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 49 minutes                          23 minutes           26 minutes

Tuesday Tooling

Today's Plot, Radio/APRS wasn't working well

With our early-morning Seminary schedule awaking us at the UnGodly hour of 5:00 in the A.M., the temptation is exceedingly strong to catch a nap when we get home at about 8 AM before doing anything else.
Naps are a wonderful thing, mind you.  Howsomever, the weather outside gets uncomfortably warm just after the sun comes up and continues to warm things more and more until just before sundown in the late afternoon.  This adds up to hot riding on the trike, with lots of watching for shade breaks.
So this morning I resisted the 8:00 AM nap temptation but still didn't get out on the trike until around 11:30, so of course it was  H.O.T.  by then.  No matter, I like to ride even if it's not comfy.
\Jacque had a doctor appointment in Springfield early in the afternoon, so I didn't want to lolly-gag too much, so I shortened the route a bit from my normal rambling.
I did take several detours down streets I didn't remember seeing before, just for the heck of it, and as usual enjoyed some different sights and areas.
 One house had a mailbox supported by an old bag of golf clubs, with the shanks of the clubs holding the mailbox in the air.  Of course I didn't think to take a picture of it until I was too far past it, and I was wanting to not waste time so I rode on.  I need to take more pictures of odd and funny stuff, such as me on the trike.

Ride Started:   10:33 PM      Ride Ended:  11:17 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.8  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  123      Ending BG: 90

Lowest Temp:  78 F    Highest Temp:  82  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  4.54
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  6.2 MPH                              7.1 MPH              16.1 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 44 minutes                          39 minutes           6 minutes

Rambling Here N' There

Saturday Evening Ride

Saturday just before dark I decided to get in a few late miles.  As I rode past our fairgrounds I could hear the roar of hopped-up V8 engines and noticed a line of pickups waiting for their turn at the "Truck Pull", something I'd never witnessed before.  I had seen it in the paper and Jacque had suggested attending it but I hadn't thought I would be much interested.  The barking ROAR of souped up engines with open headers convinced me otherwise.  I called Jacque on the phone and asked her to meet me at the gate with enough cash to get us in to see the event.
For those few (like ME) unaware of what constitutes a "Truck Pull", this one involved dozens of both sparkling shiny racing paint jobs along with rust and beat-up fenders on a variety of 4-wheel drive pickups with HUGE cross-members and hitches on the back.  Some may have been actual cattle or hay-haulers but all were outfitted with hopped up V8 engines.  Some actually still had mufflers of a sort and many had open headers, either poking out the underside of the fenders or standing straight up through holes in the hoods.  The ones with mufflers could be watched without holding my hands over my ears but didn't seem to be lacking much horsepower.  The trucks pull onto a dirt track, one by one, and hitch themselves to a large motor-driven sled that lowered a drag underneath as the sled was jerked at maximum horsepower down the track.  High speeds were definitely not achieved, but the display showing the distance the sled was dragged before the pulling truck spun out or bogged down with no more movement showed who had the best traction, horsepower, and driver.  Great Stuff.  At $10 a pop for each of us,, it was affordable thrills.
The most fun seemed to occur when the "Junior Division" was allowed on the track, with 3 drivers under-age participating:  A 9-year old, a 13-year old, and a 16-year old.  The 9 year old stole the show, driving Grandpa's hopped up Ford truck the farthest in this category:
9-year Old Draggin Wagon
Obviously this was NOT this youngster's first time behind the wheel!  No doubt he must be a farm kid experienced driving tractors and hay balers and.... Grandpa's beefed up 1979-or-so Ford.
This score was barely below the ADULT winning score.   Great Stuff.
The gatekeepers told us the pulling competition would likely go on almost to midnight.  We enjoyed ourselves, but appreciating beddy-time more and more, we left about 8:30 and went to bed with the faint roaring still heard from the fairgrounds in our ears, Jacque following me slowly home behind my trike head and tail lights.

Ride Started:   5:32 PM      Ride Ended:  8:27 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  149      Ending BG: 83

Lowest Temp:  68 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  5.42
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  4.2 MPH                              7.3 MPH              20.0 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 12 mins                   41 minutes           31 minutes

Today's Ride Route (power blinkage knocked out our WiFi)

We again started our week by slowly getting up at 5 AM and conducting our early morning Seminary class.  We were home again before 8 AM but crashed and caught a few winks in a futile attempt to make up for early wake up.
Just before noon I dragged myself out of my easy chair and announced I was going for a ride.  Jacque, being very tolerant of my idiosyncrasies, let me do my thing.
it had been noticeably cooler this morning, but by the time I saddled up it was getting warm.  Also - the route I rode turned out to not have very many trees along the way for shade.  I was really hot and tired by the time I found my first shade, and I took advantage of it.  I took a couple more breaks along the way before I got home and enjoyed every one.

Ride Started:   11:22 AM      Ride Ended:  12:34 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  12.9   Lowest Voltage:  12.9

Beginning Blood Glucose:  169      Ending BG: 166

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  88  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  5.01
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  4.2 MPH                              7.3 MPH              20.0 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 12 mins                   41 minutes           31 minutes

Tracking Tools on a Trike

Today's Wandering Track

I taped and mudded some drywall repair in the master bathroom yesterday.  The mud was from an unmarked bucket I found in the garage that looked, indeed, like genuine  drywall mud, and mixed into a nice paste that was used to do a fairly nice job repairing the butchered corner in the bathroom.
Imagine my deep dismay to awake this morning and see the tape hanging from various places, and the dried "taping mud" had turned back into a loose powder.  Either it wasn't actually taping mud OR it was so old that it has lost any binding power.
SO I had a great excuse to take a trike ride this morning to procure (1) some real, up-to-date taping mud and (2) to purchase a 2.5 mm hex key wrench to carry on the trike for adjusting the rear-view mirrors.  No matter how I tighten the joints on the mirrors, trike road vibrations eventually work it loose and the mirror slides to angles un-useful for my viewing.
Of course, I had to pad the trip with a few extra miles, so I took a familiar "Long Way Around".
Evidently missing a few days of decent riding allows my legs to go blah, because I had to stop a little more often and endured a bit more foot pain than I'm recently used to.
No matter.  It was still fun, pain or no pain, and as always elevated my mood just being out in the sun and breeze, which wasn't always favoring me.  No Matter.
I rode Route 60's abundant shoulder to the middle exit to Mountain Grove and Walmart, which is just south of my target store:  Ace Hardware.  They turned out to have what I needed, though it took a while to search for the items needed.
I had thought about taking a Cold Coke Break at the 50-cent outdoor vending machine in front of Wal Mart afterwards, but I had been gone so long I decided I should just point toward home.
Jacque had an appointment that she had to leave for at 1:00-ish and it was after noon by the time I left Ace.  I made it home with a bit of time to spare.
Jacque's audiologist appointment in West Plains today and, after she left, I was left with the trike for transportation only.
Which turned out to not be necessary.  I was poking around in the basement with a flashlight when I noticed a strong leaking dribble of water coming out out of the water line coming into the house.
So I didn't have to make any subsequent trike trips.... today at least.  The water turned out to be leaking below AND above the floorboards, and I had to drill and cut through soggy wood in the floor of both the house and the kitchen sink cabinet.
So currently we're restricted to limited water, and I must shut the water main off tonight to avoid losing however many gallons per night we've recently been losing.  We had noticed our last water bill seemed a bit large for a family of two, but until today had not realized we had a round-the-clock LEAK.
OH the joys of remodeling a house built in 1926..... sigh.
It's a wonderful thing I have trike riding to "Elevate My Spirit".

Ride Started:   10:22 AM      Ride Ended:  12:33 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  12.9   Lowest Voltage:  12.9

Beginning Blood Glucose:  195      Ending BG: 93

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  82  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  8.73
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  4.1 MPH                              8.0 MPH              26.8 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 2 hours 8 mins                 1 hour 5 mins         1 hour 3 minutes

Home Again Home Again

Today's Around-Town Track
We RV'ed home from Dallas starting yesterday, staying the night in an RV park in Vinita OK.
We only had 180-something miles from there to home so we made it back to Mountain Grove in just a few hours including a stopover at Sams Club in Springfield, of course.
We'd only been home a couple of hours, cooling our heels and rejoicing
I decided I needed to unwind by taking a good ole trike ride, so I saddled up and took off.
Thankfully, we arrived home on a mostly cloudy and cooler day, and the temps weren't that bad even in the late afternoon when I rode.  I had managed to lose the oil filler cap when I added a quart of oil to the engine somewhere along our travels, and I wanted to stop by our local O'Reilly's auto parts store on the way 'round with the trike ride.  I didn't want to do a major miler today so I kept it down to maybe 5 miles.  I had stopped for a shade break and was texting someone on my Iphone when I heard a voice behind me asking "Are You all Right?"  I turned to see a rickety old fellow, probably almost as old as I am, staggering across his yard to check on me.  He couldn't hear very well when I answered his questions, so he got closer and closer.  He kept asking questions and it seemed he still could not hear my answers.  I tried to assure him I was OK and only taking a rest break, and he finally said "That's quite a rig you've got there."  I thanked him for his concern and rode onward.
Coming through the middle of town, while turning a corner, I was passed by a small group of high school joggers.  Yes, Passed.  I made my turn and thought at first I had gotten ahead of them but as I rounded another corner I saw they had actually gotten farther ahead.  I followed them for half a block and thought I'd finally get to zip around them, but as I made my next turn they continued on straight.  I encountered a few other joggers, male and female, but all coming toward me from the other direction, so I had no race encounters with them.
I stopped for another shade / water break, and to check my blood glucose, when a cyclist rode up and wanted to chat.  He was riding an electric-assist bike, with 29 inch wheels, and proudly extolled the value and virtues of electric assist bikes.  I'm still in the curmudgeon mode about electric or any other "motor" on a so-called human powered vehicle, but he assured me he got more exercise and more miles than I because the electric motor helped him get up hills, go farther, etc.  I have read that such claims are largely true, but if I can still pedal myself up hill and down dale, however slow, why  bother with the electric motor?  I grant you in a few more years - if I'm still chugging at all - I may well be bragging about MY electric powered vehicle as well.  But not Today.
I made it over to O'Reilly's, and they had my part, and it even fit when I tried it on the RV when I got home.  Life is SO good sometimes.
Total miles today:  Around 5 or 6.  Didn't capture the data off the GPS before I reset it.  Oh Well.
Temperature ranged from mid 80's to upper 80's.
It was great to unwind on the trike.

Texas Triking

Frisco Trike Travel Tracking

We RV'ed to Dallas this week for Jacque & Bobbi to attend the 2019 Time Out for Women event.
Once parked with the RV they took off for the event in the towed Ford Exploder and I had my own transportation.... the Catrike.
I used it at first for a couple trips of 200 yards or so to the RV area dumpster to get rid of bags of trash.
On Friday, I rode over to Jacque's son's house nearby for a bite of dinner.  The tracker refuses to separate Friday's data from Saturday's, so from the track it looks like I made multiple trips all in the same day until one clicks on each tracking dot and notes date and time, which is a bother for those having other things to maintain their interest.
Dallas has grown, and keeps growing, by leaps and bounds every time we visit.  There were hundreds of new homes and countless new shopping centers in every direction that we did not recall from our previous visit.  We had a nice visit in spite of my being late because I'd forgotten I needed to feed, water, and walk the doggies before I went anywhere.  To do otherwise would have risked big uckey messes around the RV.  We've been there and done that, and we are much more careful now.  Better to be late for din-din than have stinky poops and pee puddles to clean up.  Don't ask how we know.
Dallas' growth is reflected in its heavy traffic, but the streets were wide and the speeding vehicles all gave me plenty of clearance as they sped along.  On Saturday, I needed some stuff from WalMart, which was only 4-ish miles away, so that was a good excuse for a ride.  Again, the packs of cars and trucks all gave me plenty of room, but I finally decided, about 2 miles into the trip, to exit the pavement and ride up on the wide sidewalk.
I normally hesitate to ride sidewalks, since pedestrians have the right of way, and they often have strange crossings at intersections that are particularly dangerous for human powered vehicles such as mine.  These sidewalks didn't turn out that way:  They were nice and wide, fairly smooth, with manually triggered crossing lights to help me get across roadway intersections, PLUS there was absolutely no other traffic ON the sidewalk. 
I took this flattering selfie while parking in front of Wally World...

I liked that sidewalk ride  so much that I rode the same sidewalk going back to the Hidden Cove RV park.  Again, no walkers or other traffic was encountered.  The only other cyclists I saw were those lazily cruising around the RV park, back and forth to the beach and the water's edge.  Total miles:  Almost nine.  Temperature was wobbling above and around the 100 mark most of the day.  I noted on my weather app that Mountain Grove was around 20 degrees cooler than Dallas while we visited.  Story of our life.

Anybody Seen My PHONE??

Today's Plotted Route - Radio was blinky today

Today started fairly simple:  I loaded the trike one-wheel trailer with a pile of corrugated cardboard we have accumulated over the last month.  Since I hate to throw anything away, preferring to sell or GIVE it away, I took it on the less-than-a-mile trip to the local unmanned cardboard recycler.  I say "unmanned" since in spite of at least monthly deposits from us since moving here in November, there has never been a live soul (or dead?) in or around the facility.
That done, I had two choices:  Return straight home or detour a bit to add a few miles.  It was hot and I was already almost ready to give it up for the day, but I stupidly decided to "rack up a few more miles".  I made it out to the west end of 1st Street, directly across from one of the other recycling facilities in our booming town of 5400+-, S&S Recycling.  I should have hauled the cardboard there, since I wound up there anyway, and they have personnel on duty that probably would have paid me a few quarters for the cardboard.
While I was resting in the shade, shoes off, a large semi rolled up to the opposite corner of the intersection and stopped, and wouldn't continue onward, the driver staring at me out the window.  I thought he must be wanting to turn in my direction and feared he didn't have enough clearance to make the turn without hitting me.  So I slapped on my shoes without latching the velcro, held my helmet in my lap, and quickly made the turn, parking under another shade tree out of the trucker's way.  Instead of turning, he drove straight through the intersection past me, meaning likely he thought "I" was going to make the turn and was only waiting for me to go first.
I started to relax again, when I suddenly realized I couldn't find my Iphone.  I was sure I had been dorking with it when the trucker interrupted me, but try as I might, the phone was nowhere to be found, either on the trike, my baggy attire, or in the small area I'd just been around.  I circled the area again, twice, with no success finding the phone,  By now I was uncertain just when I'd seen the phone last and not sure WHERE I last saw or used it, so I elected to ride back to the cardboard collector in town, again, retracing carefully the route I'd just taken, and watching the roadway for the little bit of black and white constituting my phone.  I especially watched the bumpy areas closely, surmising I may have lost the thing when slamming across one of the many rough spots in the road.
No Luck here at all.   So, AGAIN, I carefully rode back up first street to its end at S&S recycling, a mile or so, still watching in vain for the missing phone.  I wondered if it was worse if someone spotted it:  Would they return it or keep / sell it?  Or if someone might have driven over it, scattering the pieces.  When I finally got back to the offending intersection, I got off the trike and walked around the questionable area, THIS time spotting the phone lying in plain view in the road.
At first it appeared undamaged, but when I tried to activate it, nothing happened.  Black screen.  I thought perhaps the battery had died, but as I poked around I sadly realized it had, indeed, been run over.  The visible damage was slight:  A small pimple in the metal back and (OUCH) a visible crinkled area at the top of the phone's case.
SO, nobody stole it, but now I'm out the cost for a new phone and the aggravation of losing all my data therein.
Such is Life.
The subsequent ride home was uneventful.  SIGH

Ride Started:   10:34 AM      Ride Ended:  12:40 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.0  Ending Battery Voltage:  13.0   Lowest Voltage:  13.0

Beginning Blood Glucose:  126      Ending BG: 157

Lowest Temp:  75 F    Highest Temp:  78  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  9.65
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  4.2 MPH                              6.4 MPH              24.7 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 2 hours 16 mins                 1 hour 30 mins      46 minutes

Saturday Commutes - ByTrike

Saturday's Multiple Tracking

I got in several short tricycle rides this day... First, an almost-early morning ride.  I had planned to ride over to the Big City of Cabool MO.  The day was clouded over and cool, but as I neared the departure point from Mountain Grove city limits, the sky seemed to be darkening even more, so I wimped out and decided to call my friend on the cell phone instead of risking getting caught in the rain on good old Route 60.  He was in a talkative mood and I must have sat there at the seldom-visited intersection on the phone for 30- odd minutes.  (I don't like to yack on the phone while  in motion, even though it's not that hard to do on a trike.)
We finally hung up and I got rolling again, again with the idea of making a 6 - 10 mile run.
Howsomever, I noted the on-dash clock time and thought about our increasing need for us to get our master bathroom finished and set up again so I took a rather short but enjoyable couple of turns toward home and arrived back with a tad over 3 miles on the GPS log.  Oh Well.
Instead of putting the trike away inside the garage, I left it parked outside next to the Ford Exploder in case I needed to make any runs for materials or whatever.

(Ford is on the Left, Catrike is on the Right)

This turned out to be a good thing since I made 3 or so more runs across the tracks to get nails, liquid nails, screws, and odd pieces of this and that  which don't get remembered sufficiently to get it all in just one trip.
Then, for the rest of the day, multiple bending, twisting, kneeling, cutting, sanding, banging, gluing, re-cutting, yada, yada.... such stuff was much mo fun 20-30 years ago when my joints weren't so grumpy about being abused.
Every now and again, I needed more stuff, and off I'd go on the trike.

A run to the lumber store at 11:00 AM
Total Mileage .80 (snicker)

Another run to the lumber store at 3:00 PM
Total Mileage .78 (doublesnicker)

Try as I might to make better progress, I was not able to accomplish getting the bathroom finished sufficiently to install the new toilet.  Wet paint on door jambs and trim that refused to dry, etc, etc.
So for another two nights it looks like we'll be making the long trek from our bedroom to the hall bathroom for middle-of-the-night potty breaks. (Two nights since I refuse to do slave labor on Sundays, especially on a commode!)

Early Morning:
1st Ride Started:   9:21 AM     1st Ride Ended: 10:35 AM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.8  Ending Battery Voltage:  12.9   Lowest Voltage:  12.9

Beginning Blood Glucose:  77      Ending BG: 84

Lowest Temp:  64 F    Highest Temp:  71  F

Stats from the GPS:  Total Miles:  5.2
Distance Walked: 1/2 mile
Overall Average Speed       Moving Avg          Max Speed
  2.9 MPH                              6.3 MPH              16.2 MPH

Total Trip Time                   Moving Time        Stopped  Time
 1 hour 10 mins                   33 minutes           37 minutes