The Memorial Day Shopping Fiesta and Family Barbecue Getaway (Nothing to See Here, Move Along, Move Along) kicks off today with the murders most foul of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” and CBS News Radio, along with any remaining illusions that Americans live in a functioning democracy.
There is no truth to the rumor that the new national anthem for our next 250 years — or perhaps 250 days? Hours? — will be the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” reimagined by Black Sabbath. Or so we may hope, anyway.
One thing is certain: That cheery little ditty, along with an unauthorized Kid Rock cover of the Eagles’ song “The Last Resort,” will be in heavy rotation down in the Adolf & Eva Memorial Ballroom & Führerbunker. The lyric “Some rich men came and raped the land / nobody caught ’em” will be a huge laugh line for everyone save the slaves serving up the Big Macs and Diet Cokes.
Meanwhile, some good news: M-Day weekend gas prices are at a four-year high! But that won’t keep 39 million of us from cranking up the Family Yacht and burning a few tanks’ worth to spend time eating bad food poorly prepared and swilling tins of thin industrial lager with people we really don’t like all that much.
Last I looked go-juice was between $4.50 and $5 here in The Duck! City, which didn’t make AAA’s list of the top-10 Memorial Day getaways (the podium: Orlando, FL, Seattle, WA, and New York).
No worries here, bruh. I got my holiday shopping done early yesterday, before the ravening hordes could descend upon the grocery and strip the shelves bare like a cloud of fat betatted locusts. And today I ain’t driving nowhere, nohow, though I do expect to get out on a bike at some point. Yesterday was stellar in the Elena Gallegos Open Space; I saw only a few other trail users as I rumbled along on the old Soma Double Cross, and most seemed to be enjoying the wide-open space as much as I was.
Meanwhile, Republicans will be traveling home after shitting the bed in Congress. Here’s hoping their constituents have a few words with them about the horrible smell.
Mad Blog Media 
Speaker my ass. The orange doctor’s stooge relaying instructions is what the boy is.
Concerning the weekend, I offer my last verse to the Dylan song “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.”
My nose runs, my feet smell
First one drips, the second one trips
It’s all part of growing old
I ain’t going nowhere.
This weekend is a good weekend to avoid road trips, given everyone and his uncle will be out on the road with a beer in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and someone screaming in the back seat.
My bike ride today was shorter than intended. Heading down a short hill on the Rail Trail, I managed to get the bike 45 degrees from my intended direction while sliding on some deep dust I hadn’t bothered noticing. Given the choices between falling over, hitting a trailside ledge at the wrong angle, or going overland, I took the last option. Then I heard this psssssssssssssss from the piece of junk I managed to pierce through my front tire.
With sealant losing the battle, I went on another mile while trying to clear whatever was preventing the sealant from doing its job. Finally washed the tire with my water bottle and pulled out more fragments but still heard the psssssssssss as sealant bubbled out. Decided to turn back.
Of course after a couple miles, the sealant actually sealed. Dumb, mistrusting, me. But I found some nice dirt roads headed off the Rail Trail between Fanta Se and Eldorado, so managed to get in a good ride anyway. Now, digesting lunch and watching the dog staring at me wondering when she gets walked.
Ooh glad it appears you stayed on the bike instead of the old catapult dismount Khal. I missed my ride opportunity but did mount the newish Thule Chasm In-Lock setup on one of my bikes. Slick way to pop on their insulated cooler bag in seconds with no hooks or bungie thingies. Or a larger tote bag option if cooling isn’t necessary. I make a grocery run about once a week on the bike and haven’t been happy with baskets or panniers I’ve used. The Chasm bike bags might have a downfall as I see the bartacking is suspect and other points of stress are “radial frequency welded” which really means glued. Thule had really poor luck with that on previous bike bags. But with a lifetime warranty on the table I’ll give it a go. I bought the “bundle” so I can outfit two bikes which pull supply duty.
Glad I didn’t do the old ass-over-handlebars, to be sure. I’m still babying my back and my left leg is still grumpy and weaker than the right.
Truth is, I jinxed myself, as a few minutes before that I muttered to the voices in my head “funny, I’ve never crashed on the rail trail”. Presto….
Haw. Must’ve been one of those days. I was riding the Soma Double Cross through the Elena Gallegos Open Space today, on a trail I am far too familiar with, and the mind wandered, as it will.
I snapped back to reality just before stuffing the front tire into a big rock, doing a short nose wheelie, and somehow managing to keep the shiny side up and get the right foot on the deck, thus avoiding the tangle of cactus dead ahead.
Oddly, one of the things I was thinking about was how I often find myself explaining to fatheads who wonder why I’m riding “a road bike” on the trails that a cyclocross bike often has a little less bottom-bracket drop so that even with 33mm tires and 175 cranks one mostly avoids bashing pedals on rocks. Which I did earlier, just before centerpunching that friggin’ boulder.
No harm, no foul, eh?
PO’G: Aaah… the science/technology and physics of bike builds and their so-called benefits …. as so often in “technology vs. human performance” …. often seem to defer to the human performance foibles, eh?
“Can’t fix stupid” resonates frequently in my cycling/MTB experience. 🙂
Life is full of risks … and so, let us all enjoy our challenges as our risk/reward ratio continues to evolve …. may our judgment keep pace! 🙂
Stay safe all and enjoy a great Memorial Day Weekend!
“Can’t fix stupid,” for real, JD. I probably shouldn’t have been riding (didn’t sleep very well the past two nights) and I got very, very lucky.
Afterward I decided to punish myself for stupidity by riding a rocky descent that I call “Perro-Roubaix,” which I haven’t tackled in a few years. Boy, did that ever sharpen my focus. …
I guess the lesson learned is never take yourself or your bike talent for granted. Saint Campagnolo will drill you between the eyelets.
K, I read somewhere once that if we had to think about every little action we have to perform to simply be in motion we’d never leave our La-Z-Boys. So the brain has learned to put that stuff on autopilot so it can do other important things, like think about girls, beer, ice cream, that witty retort you should’ve laid on that fool back in 1976, etc.
Basically it goes, “Hey, you got this, bruh. I’m out.” And then you wake up in the ER with a crown of thorns.
True enough, O’G.
Sorry to read from the tifosi above that I should remain focused whilst riding my bikes. These latter days that’s asking too much of me, as I have the brain the size of a walnut to begin with. But on the plus side I’m so damn slow these days that at least any crashes will be somewhat mitigated as long as they aren’t with Silverado’s and F150’s.
Well, Herb ol’ Brainiac, that walnut is probably the only portion of your planet-sized mind that displays in this dimension. The rest is Elsewhere. Shucks, you can probably put a few continents-worth of gray matter to work on other chores and still pedal along blissfully with neither let nor hindrance.
Now, me … of my top three crashes here in Duck!Burg, two of them happened while running. I can’t afford to give either of my brain cells a sick day.
The front wheel will hit what you look at. I looked at a rock, and hit the rock. But I didn’t crash. I listened to Julie Furtado.