We are going to ride the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride again this year with Jules. It will make our sixth time doing it together. That's almost unimaginable when I think back to when we bought Vicky her inexpensive step-through bike shortly after we were married. We thought we'd tool around the island a little, never dreaming we would do the STP even once.
But the more we rode, the more we knew this was something we wanted to do. As of now that inexpensive ($400) bike has gotten her to Portland five times.
And since biking has become more of a thing for us, she has outgrown her inexpensive step-through bike, and could use a real road bike.
But the problem is that this one fits her so well. She rides in an upright position. A better road bike would put her more into the commonly-seen riding position bent over the handlebars. She has a titanium disk in her back which limits her flexibility, and necessitates an upright biking position for her, so a better bike really isn't an option. The two most important aspects of enjoying riding and being able to ride many hours in one day is being in shape and having a bike that fits you.
For me, I think it is a kick. When we are on our bike rides, I think it is cool that this Medicare Grandma of nine kids can keep up with younger people on bikes where sometimes one wheel costs as much as her entire bike. I'm proud.
We came home a month earlier from Road Trip 6 than we had from Road Trip 5, which was itself one month earlier than when we arrived home from Road Trips 1-4. We were gone almost the same amount of time for all of them, but just left earlier this year so we could catch fall in the mid-west National Grasslands.
Part of our thinking was that we could start riding and getting into bike shape a month earlier.
Good plan, but we forgot to tell the weather to cooperate. Because it has been COLD and RAINY.
We can bundle up for the cold, dressing up in our full armor gear, but when it rains the visibility for us, and most importantly for vehicles, is worse. So it's not as safe. It also gums up the bikes. There have been only a handful of days when we could ride outdoors.
So this year, we have only gotten in 200 miles. Most of our riding has been indoors, on our trainers.
And that is SO BORING.
I admire people who can ride exercise bikes consistently or ride exercise bikes at a gym consistently, because it is absolute torture for us. You ride and ride......AND DON'T GET ANYWHERE!!
And there's nothing to see, or to talk about.
To keep from going crazy we started watching movies on Amazon while we cycled on the trainers.
That lasted for only a few movies: Steven King's Graveyard Shift, and all of the Indiana Jones films (seeing them altogether leads to this conclusion about them: All of them are good except the second one which is just a bunch of screaming by some kid and Kate Capshaw).
What we realized was that movies move slowly. Even good ones. Even Indiana Jones! And when you are sitting in a theater or watching it on your television that is OK. But when you need distraction it doesn't work.
So we shifted to documentaries.
An amazing difference. Time goes much more quickly. Learning something and being able to talk about what we are learning has made it doable.
So, what have we learned? I know you are interested.
Well, we are now experts on WW-II. We learned about the glider corps--didn't even know there was one. After these boys landed their gliders (hopefully) they were more or less on their own to get back, to be able to do it again. Many didn't.
We learned about the 10th Mountain Division, and the horrific battles they fought in Northern Italy. Most casualties of any unit that fought in WW-II.
We learned about the British Air Corp's bombing in the Lancasters. It was slaughter in the skies, and slaughter on the ground.
We learned about the great naval battles of WWII between the Hood and the Bismarck. What seems on the surface to have been a great battle was actually, of course, just another a great slaughter. The Hood was obliterated in seconds. Three survivors. The Bismarck, the pride of the German navy, lasted only 8 days after it was launched! Because German submarines had been called to the area where it sank, the British ships had to immediately leave instead of rescuing the German sailors. Hundreds of potential survivors drowned.
War: Young men dying and old men talking.
The most fascinating thing we learned was about Garbo. The spy referred to by the allies as Garbo, not the Greta Garbo. Garbo single handedly probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He was a double agent spy. He actually received the German cross for service to Germany! This guy was good. He had a network of spies reporting to him......all made up. The main thing he did was convince Hitler that the invasion of France was going to be in a different place than Normandy, so Germany moved all of their troops away from Normandy.
He told Hitler that the Normandy invasion was a feint, and he bought it. After it was clear that there was no other invasion he told Hitler that because the feint went so much better than expected that the allies just decided to skip the real invasion. And Hitler bought that too. This guy was good.
When you watch Saving Private Ryan again (if you have the guts to), consider what the slaughter would have been like for those boys landing at Omaha Beach if Germany had actually been fully prepared for it. Normandy was successful basically because of one man who neither one of us had ever heard of.
We learned about ancient history: Napoleon's Navy, Alexandria, Genghis Kahn.
Then we got into psychopaths, an interest I'm sure everyone also has. We watched some of the latest about psychopaths which, given our professions and experience, told us that there was nothing new. We watched a show about Aileen Wournos, the female "serial killer." A movie was made about her (Monster, with Charlize Theron). Her attorney convinced her to plead guilty, so she did, and got the death penalty. Her attorney was someone named something like Mr. Attorney. Seriously. Then we got into Bernard Madoff.
So, ask us anything about psychopaths. Anything. We've got it.
Now we are in to Ken Burns. Our first one we watched was about prohibition. It got boring---after awhile it was just a bunch of stories about different criminal enterprises. We did learn one interesting fact: The origin of the term bootlegger. It came from the 19th century in places where selling alcohol was illegal. Guys would walk down the street with flasks in their boots, and would sell drinks from them. I think that would ruin the experience of my Chianti, though, quite frankly, but apparently I'm alone about that.
Now we are watching about the Dust Bowl, which is much better. Those poor settlers. They did it to themselves, and if we had been there we would have done the same thing. Just feeding their families, and desperate. When you-know-who says that our country is experiencing "carnage, " it is clear that he has never really talked to people who really experienced carnage, or have even spent two hours watching The Grapes of Wrath.
So, our bodies and minds are getting better and better!!! Sheesh. Talk about taking ourselves too seriously. Minds getting better? Right. Bodies getting better? We're in our late 60s. We're treading water with our bodies, at best.
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