Morning and Night the Saturday Before

Dan works for the Border Patrol out west, lately on horseback, and the nearest Starbucks is 70 miles away. So when he called to say he'd be in town and wanted to meet at the local Starbucks precisely when it opened at 6:30 am, I understood. You can take a city boy out of the coffee shop, but you can't take the coffee shop out of the city boy. So I met Dan and his friend Courtney, who he's helping with a cross-country move, waited for the barista to open the door, and finally headed north to the lakefront for the Saturday Giro Ride. Along the way we passed hundreds of people along Carrollton who had been camping out since Friday in order to get the best parade-watching spots for the night's Endymion parade. Considering that it was a big day for parades down here (Mardi Gras is next Tuesday), there was a pretty good-sized group on hand even though Chad had a few of the BW guys doing an anti-social team training ride somewhere up the road. After crossing the casino bridge the pace gradually, but steadily, rose, until going almost full-bore for the last mile or so before Paris Road. Dan's friend Courtney dropped off at that point, but I was sure she'd be able to find her way back uptown since we had made a point of showing her all of the key landmarks on the way out. Well, all of them except one. Anyway, just a minute later somebody hit a bump and ejected his tail light. I was toward the back, so I slowed down to turn around and pick it up for him, thinking it would be easy to catch back up. However, when I started to turn around I saw two cars coming and had to wait seemingly forever for them to pass. By the time I picked up the light the pack was hopelessly far down the road so I just settled into a nice pace, figuring I'd get back into the group after the turnaround. A few miles down the road I noticed a couple of the guys dropping back and as it turned out Tim had gotten everyone to ease up so he and Max could drop back and pace me back up to the group. That was nice!



So we finish the ride and Courtney is nowhere to be found, so we figure she just rode back uptown. When we finally found her at the house we got a pretty good story. She'd lost her phone the day before so she couldn't call us for help or directions. As it turned out there was one crucial thing I'd forgotten to tell her, which was to bear right coming down the Seabrook bridge to get back onto Lakeshore Drive. As a result she got completely lost and ended up hitching a ride back uptown.



The evening was spent downtown at the office where we had a nice little get-together, and much wine and beer, waiting for the Endymion parade to make its way down Canal Street. It's pretty nice when you can just look out the 10th floor window and wait until you see the horses coming before taking the elevator down and walking straight out the front door to watch the parade. The parade was fun and, unlike most Endymion parades in the past, there was never a really long gap or delay. I got home and hit the sack, ready for tomorrow's early morning wakeup for the Northshore training ride.