Big Journeys

My friend Robb Hunter is cooler than me and is riding a 1985 Honda Nighthawk 750 across the country. He stayed with me from Saturday until this morning, whereupon he left with Alaina Laumer, a Walnut Hillsian, to ride to Minneapolis and then onward to Canada, Seattle and California. You can track his progress here -- his Droid's beaming a GPS tracking signal to the webz and then to your home computer. I was getting worried I'd have to drive out and rescue him and Alaina when I saw them stationary at a truck stop for about an hour, but I think they were just eating a late breakfast.

It was a pretty relaxed weekend, starting off with a jaunt with Sean to Tower Road. We made it a mile shy before we got tired of killing ourselves in the heat, so we turned around and hung out in the JJ Peppers parking lot for an hour. Birchwood won out for dinner with Sean and Jessica. Saturday, it was a solid 60 miles in the sun on Saturday to Willow Springs. Sunday, nada, except visiting Evanston to see some bike racing and dinner in Matt and Amanda's backyard.

The girl whose company I keep was interviewed for Future Shipwreck. Read the interview here. I'm pretty proud of her.

Fourth of July

Dairy Queen in Wolcott, Indiana.



Big globe in Hoffner Park in the Northside neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was a trip to pack up more ephemera and visit with old friends.

Rip-off Ray Bans leave good tanlines.



Big miles on the Mystery Route on Saturday with Judi and Eric of Team Hungry. Here we are taking a break at the top of Flick Road. We scoped out the Duke Energy powerplant and got in way beyond the RDA of Vitamin D. Sunday, it was up Kirby to Sheed to some other stupid steep stuff in the noon heat. I woke up with 5 hours of sleep Monday and ended up doing hill repeats in the shade of Mt. Airy's Shepard's Creek so that I could eat the Dairy Queen (white Oreo strawberry Blizzard) without guilt. Ride to eat, dawg.

James and Pam have a really adorable kid. He's well-behaved, too -- good parenting.

It's always sad to get back on the road west-bound on I-74. The house I grew up in is on the market and while it's not received any real offers, it'll be gone someday. That building's got good bones -- and a dingy handprint of mine from when I was 9 in the back stairway.

My dad and I talked about gardening. I helped my mom plan out a new business.

Ohio.

Sigh...

2009 CONTINENTAL IN RETROSPECT from RAPHA on Vimeo.

I love this stuff.