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Stealin’ Watermelons was a song by Elvin Bishop, whose albums were a regular feature of our Tuesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday drinking club back in college. I still remember the lyrics to Travelin’ Shoes. Not politically correct…Somebody fetch my coat and hat, and hand me my walkin’ cane. I love watermelon. Cold and fresh and sweet and messy andContinue reading “Stealin’ Watermelons”

Thursday’s club ride drew a very small crowd. Only Bill (my France riding companion) and I showed up in Wallace. So we decided to do a route with a little more climbing and skip the coffee break and hopefully finish before it got too hot. Now despite my almost constantly saying what a weak riderContinue reading “Feeling the Heat”

Cycling through the French countryside, you will quickly notice what appear to be tombstones at regular intervals along the roads. The top is usually painted yellow and displays the number of the road you are on. The rest of the stone may display a kilometer number with an arrow pointing the direction to the nextContinue reading “Borne Again”

Silly me, I was getting a little depressed over the state of the economy. Inflation running at 8.6%, highest since the early 1980’s. And food and gasoline and electricity, three things it is hard to cut back on, are going up much faster than the CPI. The stock market is in a state of freeContinue reading “A Better Place”

And bring money. Lots of it. I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in France, riding my bike and eating so well that despite riding 577 miles with 48,000 feet of climbing over two weeks, I still managed to bring a couple of extra pounds back though US Customs. Anything to declare? In Europe, gas stationsContinue reading “Fill ‘er Up…”

At least 5 people I follow on Facebook are posting photos of themselves touring colleges across the country with their high school senior children. It is so nice to see smiling young adults posing in front of university buildings and statues, with their proud parents on an adventure to see what campus would make theContinue reading “Advanced Studies Part 2”

I remember college courses like Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Statistics, and a bunch of math courses for my major in that subject. I did take a ‘fun’ course called ‘Introduction to Wine and Wine Making’, which at UC Davis was actually a fairly serious and scientific class, since there is a world renown Viticulture and Enology DepartmentContinue reading “Advanced Studies”

Driving home yesterday I was listening to ‘Willie’s Roadhouse’ on Sirius XM, and a novelty song by C.W. McCall came on. It was one of those CB radio, long haul truck driving songs that were popular in the 1970’s, inspired by movie Smokey and the Bandit. Breaker, breaker… This particular song told of a pairContinue reading “Malaucène Memories”

Giving up something for Lent is a tradition for some Christians. Not eating meat used to be a common abstention, or no alcohol, or even no marital relations. If I had to choose among these three, I’d better get used to eating seafood and tofu. But now a Chicago area church has some new ideasContinue reading “On a Diet”

Most cycling training programs include something called a ‘recovery ride’ about once a week This is a ride where you keep your intensity and distance at a really easy level. The theory is that this is better rest than just staying off the bike entirely. Recovery rides are great fun. If you have been doingContinue reading “Recovery Riders”