Keepin' On Keepin' On

Monday was a typical spin up on the levee under clear but surprisingly chilly skies, and I guess it was the nice weather that kept the pace just a tad on the faster side of easy. After a pleasant ride to the office, quietly prioritizing the items on my to-do list and enjoying the pretty morning, I settled in at the desk for what I figured would be a busy week. Then the phone rang. It was The Wife who said we would need to drive up to Baton Rouge. The mother-in-law had taken another turn for the worse and this time it was looking like the end of the road. So around noon we headed back up I-10 to RedStick. It wasn't until around 9 pm when we finally headed back to NOLA, and by the time I finally hit the pillow it was after midnight. A few hours later the phone rang with news that The Wife's mother had passed away, so of course there were lots of phone calls and when the alarm went off at 5:45 I'd probably netted three hours of sleep. I dragged myself out of bed and down to meet the levee ride, and once the pace started to increase, I started to drop back. The combined lack of sleep from the prior two days had finally gotten to me and I had neither power nor motivation. So I spent most of the ride in a daze, sitting at the back of the paceline trying to keep my legs moving and my eyes open.

By noon the funeral arangements had been made with an afternoon wake today and funeral tomorrow up in B.R.

I was glad to be able to ride this morning, especially since it was another great weather day, and in an hour or so I'll be back on the road to Baton Rouge. Whether we'll stay up there overnight or not is still a bit up in the air, but I'm guessing we'll stay overnight. Personally, I'll be glad when it's all over. The only wake I've ever enjoyed, the kind I might choose for myself, was when Greg Gulotta died unexpectedly. Greg was one of the key players in the early New Orleans Bicycle Club, and he ran the famous Gus Betat & Son bicycle shop, locally referred to as simply "Betat's." If he hadn't died so suddenly you'd probably be ordering your bike parts from the Betat catalog. He was in his late 20s, or maybe early 30's at the time, and after returning from a training ride he'd accompanied his wife and young child on a little shopping errand. While waiting in the car in the parking lot he had some sort of sudden attack and was gone by the time they returned. Anyway, Billy Richards, who was one of the senior members of the NOBC, gathered a few of us together and we all went to a local bar where we all drank rather heavily while Billy picked up the tab for everything from beer to cognac. That's around when I started picking up the slack with the bike club business, since Greg had been handling much of it himself.

If you haven't yet checked out the Amgen Tour of California's Tour Tracker, you should. I have to admit it did cut into my productivity at work yesterday. It is so great, though, to have live video and commentary, GIS tracking of the race, a chat room, and constantly updated information about who's off the front. Looks like today I won't be able to see any of the live coverage, though.