Fire

I hadn't ridden my bike in a week. My bike rack was destroyed in the car wreck, and the car it should be attached to was in the shop for repairs.

Monday I would have ridden round trip to work but that was the day I had to take my xB to the body shop and get the rental car Met Life is paying for. That scrubbed that day.

Tuesday I had apheresis therapy, and they don't like me to ride my bike to it because working out right before makes your blood harder to filter for whatever reason. Normally, I'd put my bike on the rack, drive to apheresis, ride home from work that night and back in Wednesday morning, but that was problematic with the rental car.

I could have tried putting Corinna's rack on the rental car, but I feared it would leave marks on the car. It's left them on her car, and for that matter, every bike rack I've ever owned has marked up the cars I've had them on, which is fine unless you have to take that car back to Enterprise.

So we'd scrubbed Monday and Tuesday right off in terms of bike commuting. Wednesday night, as usual, I had Mo, took her to the doctor and then to school Thursday morning, and normally that'd set up a ride home Thursday night and back in Friday morning, but that whole bike rack situation. Yeah.

I worked it out with the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster to bring her to my house Friday night and I'd take her back Sunday (as opposed to meeting half-way both times), thought maybe to ride to work and back on Friday, but I had put my car in the shop on Monday and they said they'd need five to seven days to finish. If they called me at work on Friday afternoon saying I was done, but the rental was at my house, I was potentially screwed into paying for a rental over the weekend. Met Life is paying for the rental while my car is being repaired, but if I'm not set to return the rental when the repairs are done?

So I got home from work Friday itching to ride. I had a small check to deposit at my bank, some movies to return to the library, decided to make a ride out of it. I rode out through Turner, stopped for Powerade at County Line and 55th/Switzer, where the cashier was listening to a shortwave radio, a language I didn't think I'd ever heard before. Wolof, it turns out (I asked). Where do the speak Wolof? Senegal.

I know, that means I have the Ebola virus now. But whatever, it was such a beautiful night to ride, up Antioch in to Merriam, up Antioch, took the Turkey Creek trail over to Foster, down the almost reconstructed Johnson Drive to make the world's most elaborately prepared ATM deposit at Capital Federal. I had 27 miles and change when I got home, so I guess I rode about 18 to make this deposit.

Then back through Roeland Park, Westwood, down Mission Road to the Boulevard, and eventually around to the West Bottoms where I found these fireeaters. Julie, where you wondering if my text was ever going to jive with the pictures on my post, here it is: I met Tammie and Shawn in front of the Edge of Hell and took some fun pictures on my big long bike ride.

I struggled with camera settings, but I got a few okay shots in. Fortunately I had my tripod, I forgot it at first, got around the corner, realized it and went back for it. I almost didn't go back, it was feeling so good to just ride, but then it sure came in handy.