I started my birthday early with one last sunrise ride on Y City Road. Two Mennonite women wearing flower print dresses met me on bicycles on their way into Gentry. An early morning flight passed low over head on takeoff.
In Rogers, I rented a 15' truck and drove the Beverly into the bay. I practiced my sailing knots by securing the bike to the side rails for transport.
I gingerly drove the mammoth machine I had rented to Home Depot to pick up a washing machine, ladder, and reel mower for the new house. (Another link broken in our dependence on foreign oil.)
Moments after the clerk helped me load the truck the sky opened up with an inch of rain in a half hour. No time to lose, I pushed ahead in the driving rain, taking the big beast and my lack of experience onto the expressway.
Arriving wet, but on time, we closed on our first home at 10:30 am. With the deal done, I needed to set off bug bombs two towns north in my new home. Knowing that the rental truck guzzled six miles a gallon, I un-tethered the 70 mpg Beverly and had her pose for the intro photo.
I rode down the ramp like a rockstar and scooted my way to my new home and back. Just before I got back to the truck, I noticed the left lane had come to stop for no apparent reason. As I got closer to the first stopped car the driver motioned under his vehicle. A dog had parked himself under the car and in traffic. I pulled onto the shoulder and walked to the scene wearing full yellow jacket and helmet.
Now both lanes were stopped and backed up as far as I could see. My attention turned to the dog who was panicked out of it's head but not moving for anyone. I asked the driver if he had any food. He didn't, so I told him to slowly move forward and I would signal if he was going to hit the dog.
An old, frail woman came running from her car yelling "Food, I've got food." What she meant was pork rinds and she started throwing them at the dog. Unphased, the dog sat psychotically as the old woman pelted it with pork rinds.
I talked her away from the truck and cued the driver to move ahead. This terrified the senior citizen but the driver and I, along with two lanes of traffic, had a connection - move the dog. Just as the driver cleared the dog another elderly woman ran as best she could with dog leash in hand. Recognizing the owner, the dog hurried to her. I escorted the two ladies off of the roadway and quickly made my way to the bike.
I pulled into the slowly stirring traffic expecting people to be upset about how long this fiasco played out. The digit I met, however, was thumbs up. It was a long line and each thumb seemed to cue the next as I passed by. What a freaking birthday.
Back on track at the truck, I loaded the BV back up and moved on to the mattress store and storage buildings to max out the payload. At the new house, I didn't have the same off loading space I'd had before, so I decided to wheel the scooter backwards down the ramp.
The ramp wasn't much wider than the scooter, so my yoga classes started to pay off. Focus. Balance. Control your breathing. I won't unload a scooter like that again. All in all, great trip. The Beverly has the garage she deserves and won't have a daily dirt road drive.
Best of Show, 1st Place, Scooter
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