Saturday, December 5, 2009

A dishonest day's work

A blog entry without pictures is like a day without sunshine, but it's dark with precipitation right now, so I'm going for it.

In preparation for today's wintry mix, I spent some quality time with a couple of my bikes and a couple less of my friends on Friday. The day started with a mountain bike ride in the highlands of Glastonbury led by Al T. and joined by his brother Joe, well, at least until we lost Joe at an intersection. I was playing middle man, trying to balance seeing where Al went while keeping in sight of Joe, and while I saw the later at the intersection in question, it seems he did not see me. One friend down. Al and I searched and called in vain until I had to give up and head home, but we still rode around in the woods a bit trying to find the increasingly-long lost brother.

A bit of lunch in my stomach, I switched to the cross/road/everything bike and headed for West Hartford to look at a rusty Volvo wagon project that it seems will be my return to car ownership. I'm planning (as little as possible) an exploration of this country next year and am not resolute enough to do it by bike. At least, even with my penchant for bottom feeder bikes, this vehicle will in most cases allow me to pass the test of a true biker: the-bike-inside-is-worth-more-than-the-car.

Now, it having been Friday, that meant afternoon snails riding club, and while Peter poo-pooed pm playing, Brendan, Dario, and I agreed to meet after my car shopping at the Noah Webster LIBRARY, except that in actuality, Dario had agreed to meet at the Noah Webster HOUSE while skimming his email. Losing two friends in one day, at this rate, I better work on being a nicer person.

So after wandering with Brendan through a place with a big cross, an interchange that will remain nameless, a quad track, a dead-end with an expansive view of Westfarms Mall (we didn't see the farms), the wrong way in Newington, the right way in Newington, a hospital with our lights off, another view with a lot of their lights on, and along side a big cemetery that wasn't spooky at all, I turned my wheels for home, making it there with a solid eight hours of riding for the day. For lack of somthing better, I must use the cliche, time flies....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hail Snail,

I believe that the Noah Webster house does have a souvenir shop with books though. Does that count?

In any case the W.Htfd. Res. at twilight ain't nothin' to sneer at.

- dario

Brendan said...

It was just a different form of the right way.