Flatland Century

This past weekend, we went to visit family in Lubbock, Texas. Erin's older sister lives in Portland, Oregon and her brother lives in Cambridge, Massachussetts. These weekend, they, Erin's younger sister, and we met at their mother's home in Lubbock. All things considered, the weekend went reasonably well. Being very diverse in ideologies, belief systems, political orientations, marital status, financial status, etc. has caused no end of discomfort and strife at some previous family getherings. This time, no one was overtly angry at the end of the trip. Still, we left feeling like everybody was at least mildly irritated with us. Is that paranoia, delusions of our own importance, fatalism, or the truth? Who knows?

One part of the weekend was an unalloyed success. While we were there, I rode my bike on a long trip. I left the house at 4:30 a.m. (that's the dark 4:30) on Sunday and headed southwest out of Lubbock. It was a little windier than I'd hoped so I didn't quite get the average speed of 22mph I'd hoped for. I rode 102.75 miles at an on the bike average speed of 19.8mph. I throw in "on the bike average speed" because I wound up making a few more stops than I would have liked.

One of those stops was when I had a flat right after my turnaround. So, I'm sitting there about to start pumping that new tube up when I looked up and saw a Godsend. A farmer who had been out early checking his irrigation was heading to pick up his kids and go to church. He saw me and asked if I needed to use the compressor in the back of his truck. That saved me wearing my arm out with that mini-pump. And those things never get the pressure up where you need it. Thank you Mr. Gomez.

I also stopped a few times to stretch my back a bit. So instead of 5 hours total time, it was closer to 6.