Tom Week – Strava Success

5/3/19

Good bike ride this morning. Ten miles. Best of all I now have the 7th fastest time on Strava for a route segment in Castroville. My usual place is in the hundreds or even thousands. Rest of the day was lazy, listening to sea lions and boat bells, watching neighbors come and go. Lots of fun. Got dinner from Phil's which is one of the main reasons for coming to Moss Landing.

5/4/19

Driving through the familiar. It was nice to visit Gilroy and eat at one of our favorite restaurants. It was weird though driving so close to San Francisco but not going to San Francisco. This park is nice. We have an unobstructed view of the ocean.

5/5/19

Lots of climbing on the bike today. Just short of 1000 feet. There are way more rental RVs here than in any other park we've been in.

5/6/19

Pat and Tonya had Dr. appointments today. Had lunch at one of favorite restaurants. Later we got to visit with our informally adopted son Chester. Smiles and tears.

5/7/19

Shopping day. Running from one familiar place to another. Consumer nostalgia. Tonight I went to a comedy showcase. It is among the worst I ever saw.

5/8/19

Too cold to ride today. Where we're going tomorrow it's in the 80's.

5/9/19

Woke up to temps in the low 50's. Many miles later it's in the 90's. Ah California. Tried to get propane at the RV park but the guy couldn't make the pump work. Or the next guy, or the fourth guy. Finally we gave up. Hopefully the problem is their pump and not our tank.

PIX

[caption id="attachment_4018" align="alignleft" width="300"] This island off the coast of San Francisco is rarely visible due to fog.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4019" align="alignright" width="300"] This hang glider zoomed over the RV park a couple times.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4020" align="alignleft" width="300"] Only at a truck stop in Northern California can you see sea gulls and a snow-covered mountain.[/caption]

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100 Words – The saddle

She knew all the big horse words like dressage, cadence and farrier. I was an idiot who had no business being in a saddle. It was only my basest desires that brought me to the trail that day, hanging on for dear life atop a beast trying to throw me off with every step. Somehow my screaming failed to clue her in to my distress. I became aware of this when she yelled, "Hey, lets run this part!" She kicked her heels and her horse took off and my horse followed. The ground slammed into my face. Gravity won again.

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100 Words – Wounds

Barely awake, I lay in the bloody mud. My wounds ooze unexpected colors. The field is full of the dead, enemy and comrade alike. I alone am still alive. The battle was fierce and futile. People died on and for an empty field. Mothers and lovers will weep. The wolves and vultures are already disposing of the remains. Our God and their God look down and pity us as they share a somber drink in some heavenly tavern. No glory for the fools below. Years from now the schoolbooks will label this my greatest victory. The schoolbooks will be wrong.   #100words

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100 Words – Vivid Police

When Alexander gets truly stressed he suffers from vivid hallucinations of police surrounding him. They are there one second, gone the next. The first time this happened was his first semester of college. It started a week before finals and got worse every day. After the last final he got puke in the street drunk, and that was the end of the phantom cops. His therapist tells him that when he sees the cops he needs to take the blue pill. She thinks that's funny. Alexander sticks with her because she's the only shrink he's found that's smarter than him. #100words

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100 Words – Witness

I came to witness the second coming of Truman Capote. All I got was a bunch of tourists puking their green drinks on cobbled streets. Old buildings gutted of their souls and cheapness. No longer the refuge of poets and madmen. They have fled for the fringes where visitors need not witness their divine ugliness. The saddest part of all was realizing that I was also just a tourist. A voyeuristic dilettante climbing onto the shoulders of giants. Seeking approval from the ghosts of my heroes who care not for the living. Just the suffering of those doomed to follow. #100words

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100 Words – Woods

The echoes in the woods magnified our sense of danger. Creatures scurried on either side of the road, but they were small and harmless. It was the occasional ground-shaking thud that was worrying. It seemed to come from every direction and had no pattern. Then there was a mighty bang and the world tipped on its side. I woke up some time later with a terrible headache. Gravity seemed to have righted itself. The stars were all gone. I couldn't see the road ahead of me. I sat there waiting for the dawn the dawn to come. It never did. #100words

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Tom Week – Alabama Etc.

3/22/19

We're in Alabama! State number 26. It's everything we could ever hope for. Lot's of gun shops and even the news people have accents so think I can't understand half of what they're saying. Instead of golf carts the residents ride around on ATVs and mini bikes. Our next door neighbor has a dog called vittles.

3/23/19

We're in Florida again! Twenty miles from Pensacola. We're at a KOA with lots of RVs but very few people. Haven't figured that one out yet. My perceptions of the Gulf Coast are proving misguided. Not the people and places. They're what I expected. The problem is distances. New Orleans is only 230 miles away. That's three states. Alabama and Mississippi have much less coastline than I pictured. Also met a guy here at the campground that's riding his bicycle across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It's his sixth day on the road and he's covered 400 miles.

3/24/19

Great day today. This morning I rode my bike to downtown Milton, FL. A town on a river trying to balance quaint and touristy. Fortunately quaint seems to be winning. After being in Georgia and Alabama I have to say that Florida is much friendlier to cyclists. Nice wide bike lanes everywhere. Then after lunch I got a pile of work on the RV done. Vents to replace and clean. Holes to weatherstrip. Door to trim to nail down. I felt like such a "guy."

3/25/19

Daylight Savings time, time zones, states smaller than I thought. All this has left me dazed and confused. We woke this morning in Florida. We drove to Alabama. Then we drove to Mississippi. All in the matter of a few hours. We are now an hour from Louisiana. We are in a very nice RV park in a not great area of Biloxi. Pat and I both got a little nervous because the neighborhood reminded us of one in Fresno. That park turned out to be hideous. This one is much nicer.

3/26/19

On the best of days there are no plans. Today is one of those days. We've extended our stay in Biloxi till Friday and rented a car. Or rather a truck, and this in no mid-size wimp of a truck. It is a 2019 Ram crew cab with a HEMI! We toured Biloxi, ate lunch at a pathetic Hooters knock-off called Twin Peaks, and took Abigail to a dog park that only had one other dog. Then I took a nap. I was up all last night working on my latest short story.

3/27/19

Nearly fifteen miles on the bike today. Out to dinner we had one of those rare failures of an experiment. The food was way spicier than hoped and it was full of unexpected ingredients. You can't win them all. Then we went to a giant gift shop which seriously needs some competition.

3/28/19

Coming back from WalMart I managed to get lost again. Having the ocean to the south is confusing. Took dad to the casino. He won six dollars, but Mom made him buy me a beer so he actually wound up with only two dollars profit.

PIX

[caption id="attachment_3934" align="alignleft" width="300"] Behind this RV park there were cows. As in mooooo![/caption] [caption id="attachment_3935" align="alignright" width="300"] Some RV parks have "yuge" spaces.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3936" align="alignleft" width="300"] The rental truck was the envy of all the lesbians in the park.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3937" align="alignright" width="300"] The view from the top of the Biloxi Bay Bridge[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3938" align="alignleft" width="300"] Pelicans by the bay.[/caption]

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