Turkey Day

It was just a touch under 50° when I pulled on the long tights and headed over to the levee for the 7 am Thanksgiving ride. I didn't really have a plan in mind for this ride, other than to be back home early enough to help get thing in order for a mid-afternoon Thanksgiving Day dinner. The weather was chilly but otherwise beautiful as we rode up the river trying to catch up with Scott who seemed determined to keep us from getting too lazy. With a light head-crosswind we were limited to the low-20s for much of the outward bound ride, but Scott was spending a lot of time up on the front and he wasn't getting any complaints about it, so it was good. Then we caught up with Donald who took over the Mother Duck duties. He ended up pulling the whole string of a dozen riders for the next ten miles, all the way to the turnaround.

The return trip was a little faster, thanks to the increasing tailwind, but I was still surprised when three or four of us ended up off the front. We were going around 23-24 mph, so there really wasn't any reason we should have opened a gap unless the rest of the group just wasn't interested. Anyway, we stayed out there for a long time riding paceline until, somewhere around the Country Club, I sat up and said, "I'm going to wait up for the group." I thought it would be nice to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving before they all headed home. The rest of our group did the same, so we all came back together before the Playground.

With family and friends scheduled to come to the house around 2:30, I spent quite a while polishing silver as the 20-pound turkey cooked and The Wife made pies and all the other stuff necessary to make a thanksgiving dinner for twelve. Luckily my plywood extension to our little dining room table held up to the strain. I'm still not sure if my stomach did.

After everyone left and the outside temperature started to drop I decided it might be time to fire up the heater. It hadn't been turned on since it had been installed in the early summer. Well, naturally it didn't fire up, so now I'll have to call them up and get them out here to see what the problem is. Luckily it's not really very cold and the old gas heater in the fireplace can keep the temperature under control.

Sounds like we'll be doing a later-than-normal 7:00 am ride again tomorrow. That should work out just fine.....