12 Oakdale

We (I) decided we will ride our bikes once a week for the next 3 months. Then we would evaluate our future bike needs. I’m not ready to quit riding, but I am very leery of having a fall. I’m not sure whether Grant feels he can ride an upright bike anymore either. Only one way to find out. So Wednesday is Bike Day. Our first ride was along the West Orange Trail from Chapin Station north 4 miles to Ingram Outpost and back. After dropping Clara off at school, we drove over to our starting point, Grant offloaded the bikes, we went to the bathroom and rode away. At 9:00, there were few people, either bikers or walkers, to impede our unsteady riding. It is still cool enough for me to wear a long-sleeved bike shirt with a t-shirt over it.  By the time we got to our endpoint, it was sunny but still comfortable. We ate our tangerines and headed back. Mission accomplished. We both felt fairly comfortable in the saddle. This week, Grant suggested we start at Magnolia Park and ride along Lake ...

We are in Gainesville for Barton and Jen’s wedding. Spaulding and Molly flew in Thursday and rode up with us. Dinner at Satchell’s Pizza, then a visit to the UF bat houses for the bats’ nightly exodus. Right on time, with a beautiful sunset and no mosquitoes. I guess the latter due to the thousands of bats, duh. This morning, Molly is doing a 15+ mile run on the Hawthorn Trail; Spaulding is running for about an hour from the house. Grant and I are lazing and drinking coffee, before our Zoom covenant meeting. The luxury of being old. Although we are continuing the fight against aging. We’ve committed to a bike ride every Wednesday, I’ve graduated to 3# weights for my shoulder exercises, and Tuesdays, Denny comes and pushes us to more core strength. I’ve been really good about doing those exercises at least 2 other times a week. I’m starting to notice the difference that makes. I’m also gardening 2-3 hours every morning, weeding the front beds for an hour, then working on our vegetable p...

Six days of tent camping at Bahia Honda. The weather was lovely, with nice breezes which meant mostly no bugs. One little bit of rain. Unfortunately, even though we know better, we didn’t zip our tent windows when we were away, so our sheets got a little wet. But we were able to dry them out on the wooden railing around our campsite.  Because the onshore wind kicked up the waves and moved the sargassum towards shore, we snorkeled on the bayside next to the rocks. Lots of minnows and quite a few reef fish whose names I have forgotten. Thursday we drove up to Marathon to eat a lobster Ruben and a conch po’ boy at Keys Fisheries. They did not have the $1 stone crabs I’d enjoyed in years past. I was too cheap to have even the $36/pound selects. We’d stopped at Robert Is Here for milkshakes on the way down the day before. Friday we got up early to get a parking space at the old 7 Mile Bridge. Before we rode our bikes out to Pigeon Key, we had breakfast at the 7 Mile Grill. Our coffee ha...