The Bug® has put AAA’s Memorial Day travel forecast up on blocks.
It’s the first time in two decades that AAA hasn’t had a stab at guessing how many Americans might be traveling over the holiday weekend, according to PR manager Jim Stratton.
No worries, Jimbo. I haven’t been big on holiday travel since, well, forever.
When I was still a newspaperman it was possible (and pleasurable) for a single fella to piss off for points unknown while the breeders were juggling work, school, and the juvenile justice system.
My shift was generally something like 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., with oddball days off like Tuesday and Wednesday, and I got spoiled by not having to deal with crowds whenever I wasn’t on the clock and wished to make a nuisance of myself without billing someone for it.
After mutating into a cycling scribe I often frequented Durango on Memorial Day weekend, getting my ass handed to me en route to Silverton, in the crit at Fort Lewis College, or on whichever stretch of hilly, rocky dirt Ed Zink was using for a mountain-bike course that year.
But holy hell, a long haul to an ass-whuppin’ loses its appeal faster than a kissing booth at the state fair in a plague year. So I decided that if I ever craved a beating I could sass the wife, save myself all that driving time and gas money.
This time around, as it happens, it is a plague year. So we kicked off the long weekend with a short road ride and some light landscaping.
Parts of the back yard were looking like that part of your neck you always miss with the razor because at age 66 you’ve taken to shaving in the dark to avoid panic attacks, myocardial infarctions, and suicidal impulses, and the whole concept of shaving at all has become meaningless since nobody gives a shit about that part of your neck because mostly they are not looking at it or any other part of you, unless they think you may have wandered away from a nursing home or insane asylum and are wondering whether there might be a cash reward for your return, dead or alive.
But I digress.
So we pulled weeds and dug up junk elms, laid down weed block and river rock, and bagged up unsightly piles of this, that, and the other. There will be more of this sort of thing as the holiday weekend progresses. Or so I am told, anyway.
If Herself posts any FaceButt pix of a new “flower bed” that’s 6 by 6 by 3, you’ll know I’ve given up shaving and yard work for good.
Mad Blog Media 
Herself says “Patrick out in the garden.” I says, ” was just out there and didn’t see him.” Herself says, “You didn’t dig deep enough.”
“The funny thing is, the lawn looks greener from underneath.”
PO’G: Good to see your supplementing your cycling efforts with some whole body, range of motion, flexibility-inducing yard work! It’s one of the few things that allow you to see immediate, (hopefully) productive progress nowadays.
Nice looking bench too!! 🙂
The previous owner had one bench set up and the components for a second scattered about. I just brought all the pieces together.
Tell you what, though. All this fetchin’ an’ diggin’ is an awful lot like work.
“junk elms”
Would those be American elms? Just askin’.
Them’s Siberian elms. They tell us all about how the Illuminati killed Vince Foster for the Trilateral Commission using Hillary’s private email server in Benghazi.
Ahhh. You have one of those coniferous trees also eh? I’ve got a bigger-than-the-house Doug Fir that produces a whole lot of needles, pine cones and sticky tree sap that holds the rickety deck together that said sap glops upon. I might suggest examining your fine bench for dollops of sap on those fine summer afternoons before sitting down. “Hey Sweety. I’ve had a hard day of riding. Before I change out of my new bib shorts I’m going to take my cold glass of lemonade and go sit down on the bench out back and watch the sunset.”
It’s Panic in Needle Park around here. Two big ’uns in back, two more up front. Sticky bastards they are too.
Needle Park? I thought that was on the South side of Tucson. Gee, I am a really cheery fellow today, heh?
Think it was John Lennon that yelled out at the end of a Beatles tune “I got blisters on my fingers!” No shit. Today I had these implements in hand and in use. Saws-all, various circular saws, hammer(s), impact driver, drill, crowbar(s), hoe, shovel, a tape measure that lies like hell and heavy wire cutters. I don’t want to talk about it…
Oof. Whatever you were doing it sounds worser than digging up Siberian elms, which have roots all the way to Irkutsk.
Measure twice, cut once, Grasshopper. Here is something else Mr. Lennon had to say.
Jeezus I won’t say that tune was uplifting.
One of favorites that still resonates today.
It’s a song about Trump family life. Nothing uplifting about that.
“But I digress.” Quite a digression.
My mind has been known to wander. The voices say, “Hey, this sounds fun,” and off we go.
Meanwhile, while NO one was looking summer crept into Michigan with a blowtorch. Hit 88 at my place today. As cold as spring has been it feels like we are being microwaved. No, it is not a dry heat as you sou’westers like to say. More like a sauna. But under a shade tree (leaves came out this week!) it feels just fine.
That’s always a stunner when Yahweh flips the thermostat on your, innit? I think cold to hot is worser than hot to cold. With the latter, you can always put on more clothes. But there are only so many that you can take off without risking guffaws and/or arrest.
Went back and looked at that 2009 Iron Horse posting. Laughed my ass off. I wish I had been able to snag a 12th place in even the Race Around the Middle School at North Mesa. Sheesh.
Glad you liked that one, Hoss. A moldy oldie, to be sure.
No Iron Hose this year, thanks to The Bug™, but some persistent cusses rode the route and then some.
One of these years, if I don’t die first, I want to ride that route. What I’ll have to do is put the 12-30 on the front and the 50-34 on the back.