It has been a while since I have had to take my bike apart and load it up in a bike case. I think since cross season actually. And I will tell you what, putting ONE bike in the case seems like a cake walk compared to taking 2 apart, lugging 2 around and rebuilding 2 bikes! But I still love cross anyway!
But I forgot about the whole curiosity thing that I am kind of getting annoyed at now because so many people ask me what is in the box. I know they just wonder but it kind of gets old after doing this for 8 years. Plus who gives a rats??? I don't' ask them what is in their luggage but I don't care either I guess.
Gotta great seat partner on the way to St. Louis. The guy happened to be an Orthopedic surgeon so I drilled him about Chris's injury. Seems we are making the right choices although he was shocked when I told him that Chris was climbing the rock wall at the gym.
The doctor did have a secret though. He had ONE leg and was more than happy to show me his $102,000 prosthetic leg. He only had a very upper right thigh so it was quite the device he was showing off. He was able to click it behind the knee to enable it to swing at the knee joint in a huge circle. Pretty wild to have his right shoe in my face when I was sitting on the left side of him. And god, did I ever have a boatload of questions for him. Don't call me shy! Did you know that insurance companies consider that cosmetic and don't cover it? Wow, I didn't.
And the cool thing? He is doing a triathlon with his wife in July. He is doing the swim portion. And you think I am an athlete with a "go get em' attitude?" I don't think so. He takes the cake on that one and I wish him the best of luck.
The next flight onto Birmingham Geoff Kabush and I got to share a good moment that we both agreed we'd never have had happen on a flight before. The guy next to us whipped out his trumpet/bugel. I could help but wonder if he was going to play it or not and I kept seeing Geoff look over at the guy too wondering the same thing. And he did play it!!! But only with the flight attendants consent to play the Happy Birthday song. We still don't know who's birthday it was but I just pretended it was for me since mine was a few days ago.
Once into a very pleasant Birmingham on a quick flight I went to pick up my rental car and quickly discovered "southern hospitality". I had 3 guys taking my bags to the car, putting the seats down to accommodate the bike box, explaining every last detail of what I was signing, etc. Impressive.....remember this was a rental car company after all.
Once at host housing in the most beautiful area I have been in with my hosts Ken and Linda, whom I just met today, I unpacked and went for a ride. And I once again discovered more southern hospitality. The cars when going around me were practically going up and over the other side of the road! The pavement was precious too but with my knobbies I didn't quite get the full effect of the smoothness.
I even ran into another road cyclist who was more than happy to completely turn around and chat it up with me. When has that ever happened in Heber Valley to me!?
Lush green
Thick woods everywhere.
All in all, it was an easy travel day and I will be looking forward to pre-riding the course tomorrow.
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