42 Hazy Miles and One

I woke up this morning already feeling rather warm. The a/c in The Daughter's room is obviously seriously low on whatever has taken the place of good ol' freon and the little 5,000 BTU unit in my bedroom is definitely not up to the task of cooling both rooms. So it felt nice to hit the road in the relatively cool but quite hazy early morning air as I rode out to meet the Tuesday ride. I was almost a mile away when I heard the train blow its horn so I wasn't too surprised when I arrived at the crossing near the end of Oak St. and found a long line of motorized coffee-slurpers impatiently awaiting the lifting of the gate. I rode around in little circles for a few minutes until the train passed, and then had to wait forever to get across the River Road onto the bike path. As we started out I could see the sun over my right shoulder, looking like a big burnt-orange ball behind the thick morning haze.

We had a good-sized group this morning and as usual Rob was pushing the pace. After a few rotations the speed drifted up into the upper 20s, and it didn't take me too long to figure out that, with the combination of unreasonable speed and steady headwind, I would get quite enough of a workout tucked safely into the group near the back. I knew it would get fast on the return trip with the wind at our backs, and since I'm not Superman, I thought it wise not to blow my legs up too early. Somewhere along the way, way out past the chemical plant, a little group of us split off the front, which turned out to be because Todd had flatted and the word didn't quite reach those of us who happened to be nearer the front at the time. We had been chasing Rob and a Triathlete almost all morning and were finally starting to close the gap, so we had a pretty hard ride, finally making contact near the Luling bridge.

The return trip, thankfully, remained civilized for quite a few miles, despite the fact that "The Donald" had rolled off right away. By the time the pace picked back up, he had I guess three minutes or so on us and it wasn't until we were most of the way back that he was easily in sight again. Of course, by then a few of the guys could smell blood and heaven forbid we should fail to catch him before the Huey P., so things started to ramp up and we spend a long time around 28-29, with a final mile or so that had us up to about 32.

Last night I joined some folks from the office for dinner at "One," which is a fairly new little restaurant down on Hampson Street in Carrollton. The service was good, the prices a little high, the wait rather long, but the food was awesome. Somewhere, squeezed into a corner of that old shotgun house, there is a real Chef. This place was, IMHO, well worth whatever the wait and whatever the cost. I had "Orechiette Pasta with Wild Mushroom Jus, Oven Dried Tomatoes &Pine Nuts, Finished with Cured Black Truffles & Reggiano." Damn, it was good. I will definitely have to save my pennies for a return trip to this place, especially since it's right in my neighborhood. Between the Abita Turbo Dogs at Monkey Hill and dinner at One, it was a pleasant evening and a great unofficial send-off for Irena who is headed to Yale's B-school in August.