Double Duty

A prolonged stretch of limited WiFi access combined with limited activity on my part has left me a few days behind on my updates. As such, this update will cover a couple of days. Not just to get caught up more quickly but because the month of November has gotten off to a bit of a slow start from a cycling (and blogging material) perspective.

My remaining days in Schulenburg were relaxing but not particularly productive. Originally, my friend Tracy was supposed to return on Sunday but bad weather in the area affected her flight and she was postponed until Monday. As such, I was left on my own on Sunday. While I did get some freelance work done, I have to admit that I watched a fair bit of TV – much of which was football. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.

Monday was a bit more productive as I focused on getting ready to return to the road on Tuesday. My brakes have been squealing more than a little lately so I wanted to see if I could improve that situation before getting back on the road. That task was accomplished by simply cleaning the rims of the wheels. I say “simply” but it actually took a bit longer than expected because they were significantly dirtier than expected. That said, my wheels are now clean and my brakes function in relative silence.

With my wheels shiny clean again, I decided to continue the clean up and polished up the rest of my bike. After all, a clean bike is a happy bike. Then again, I think a bike that’s been on the road for five months and over 11,000 km is also a happy bike. The same could be said for the biker.

The only other activity for the day was to take my recently cleaned bike for a ride back into town. I needed some food and, well … I just wanted to go for a ride. Both tasks were completely successfully.

Tracy returned on Monday afternoon and we had a great, albeit short, visit. After hearing her talk about hang gliding and Lookout Mountain it really made me want to get back in the air. While I’ve done mountain launches in a paraglider, I’ve still yet to do so in a hang glider. Some day.

The rest of Monday evening was pretty quiet as we just hung out and chatted in the Party Porch.

Tomorrow my ride to Florida resumes. Since I’ll be making another extended stop in a couple of days, I guess it would be more accurate to say that my ride to Houston resumes tomorrow. From there it will be a flight to Toronto. Then it’s on to Cuba on Saturday. And no, I’m still not exactly sure what the Cuba plan entails but one way or another I’m sure it will be an adventure.