----------
For as big as some of these RVs are, they
are like stealth machines. We’re on the
outer ring of campsites in this campground and with the one way aspect of the
roads, everyone has to drive by our site in order to exit the park. I’m amazed to step out of the trailer in the
morning and see an empty spot where there was an RV the night before or even
vice versa. Kim’s bike is louder than
some of these rigs.
----------
No time change for Arizona…so tomorrow we'll be 3 hours
behind Michigan time.
----------
 |
| Looks like the profile of a person |
There was a gentleman riding slowly in front
of me and as I came up beside him, I asked what was going on. It was an organized time trial…6 ½ miles down
and back on the road beside the campground.
I asked if this time trial qualified the rider for the next level of
some competition…he replied, “No, it just qualifies us to be called crazy
people.”😉 We passed the starting clock at a
leisurely pace so I figured he was either already done or warming up. We rode together for about 1 ½ miles…I
explained I was out to get pictures of the desert grass…he was on his cool down
ride. We chatted as we rode along…and at
one point he very politely and gently called me out on not wearing my helmet. Oops! 😏 I
mentioned that we had seen bib wearing cyclists yesterday over near Casa Grande
and Arizona City and asked if there was a ride going on. He replied that this is the weekend of the
Southern AZ Omnium, which consists of multiple events scheduled throughout the
area over the weekend…he had only signed up for this event and didn’t know
about the others. But when I checked the
Omnium online, its events were for March 10 and 11…the riders we saw yesterday
were participating in another event because it was March 9th.
He commended me for picking cycling as my
form of exercise…by starting ‘young’ I was setting myself up for some good long
term cardiovascular benefits. Wait, did he just call me young?
Sw-eet!! He went on to say that his
wife thinks he’s getting too old to be doing this; of course, at that point I
had to ask how old he is. I had glanced
at him only briefly when I came up beside him and I pegged him in his early 60s. Turns out he’s 75. O-kay,
so that’s why I was called young. Youth is relative to one’s own age. 😏 He also asked if I had heard about a study
done over in Great Britain that showed cycling to be one of the better forms of
exercise in terms of living longer. He’s
going to use that study as justification for his riding next time his wife suggests
he hang up his wheels. I told him that I
had not heard about that study, but I did look it up when I got back to camp.
This is just an excerpt of the article by Sarah
Knapton, Science Editor for the Telegraph:
They are often
derided as Mamils (middle-aged men in
Lycra), but a new study suggests Britain’s urban cyclists will have the last laugh.
Cycling to work lowers the risk of dying early by 40 per cent, and reduces
the chance of developing cancer by 45 per cent.
Similarly a daily bike ride to the office nearly halves the risk of
heart disease, according to a major study by the University of Glasgow, who tracked the health of more
than a quarter of a million people over five years.
This man and I covered a lot of conversational
ground in our mile and a half together…and as we were riding, the last
qualifier came speeding in so I didn’t get in the way of anything.
----------
----------
Going to Organ
Stop Pizza, like Saguaro National Park, has become a ‘must do’ when we’re in
Picacho. The pizza is good and listening
to/watching the Wurlitzer organ is better!
Recognizable songs from movies, plays and TV shows with Happy Birthday
and a special song for anniversaries thrown in.
While it’s fun to watch the various instruments around the room produce
the music, this year I found myself watching the organist more. The skill required to make it all happen is
phenomenal! The keyboard is a
half-circle of multiple rows of switches, buttons, levers and keys…and the organist needs to
know where each one is. He’s not only
playing the keys but constantly reaching to either side or to the front to make
all the extras happen, too. Sometimes
it’s turning on a single light to highlight a particular instrument or cluster
of instruments and other times its multiple lights to showcase the entire
area. And then there’s making the
curtain rise for the dancing animal puppets…and quite possibly pushing the
button to start and stop the dancing.
It’s multi-tasking at the highest level, that’s for sure…and every
aspect of it is entertaining.
----------
No imaging for Kim tonight…the rain has
stopped but the sky is clouded over and his sky charts show that it will still
be cloudy in the morning. But tomorrow
night, now that’s a different story. The
sky chart is showing clear skies for tomorrow night, so he’s already making
plans for what to image and what scope to use. I look at the sky and see the stars…he looks
at the sky and sees endless imaging options.
----------
Bicycle miles today: 5.6
No comments:
Post a Comment