Ok, did anyone else find it a bit strange that when Donald Trump said “you’re hired” to Bill, the Apprentice suddenly segued into something like a Price Is Right rip-off?? What was with the boardroom disappearing into a soundstage? And the cheesy band? Dude. So chintzy. I was just waiting for Rod Roddy to pipe in with “Hey, Bill, come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Apprentice! Behind door number one, manage construction of a Chicago skyscraper! Behind door number two, manage a beautiful golf course in Los Angeles! And folks, he’ll do it all in a…..newwwwww carrrrrrrrr!”
Cue the music. Doot doot do dooooo, doot doot do doooo, doot da-doo-doo da-doo-doo da-doo-doo doot doot do doooo.
If only they’d brought out the Plinko game.
Anyway. Twenty four hours from now, I’ll be pedaling away on the road to LaGrange, and then Austin. The plan is thus: Tonight I pack, putting extra clothes, toiletries, and my sleeping bag in the new backpack I got at REI a few weeks ago. Woohoo, a chance to use my new backpack! Tomorrow morning I’ll get up at like 4:45 (ugh), load my bike and pack into the car, and drive an hour over to Rhodes Stadium in Katy, one of the two locations the ride starts from. I’ll drop off my luggage and find the Dow team, and we’ll start riding at 7:00! It’s 82.6 miles tomorrow to our overnight stop in LaGrange, where I’ll relax, get a massage, and sleep under the big Dow tent. Sunday morning I’ll be up bright and early again to ride the remaining 80.2 or 68.5 miles (there are two different routes you can take out of LaGrange, the normal and the “express,” so I’ll decide which one to take after seeing how I feel on Sunday morning!) into Austin. We finish in front of the state capital, at which point I’ll put my bike on a truck headed back to Houston, and hang out, shower, and eat before hopping on a bus to follow my bike back home.
I have no idea what time I’ll be back, but at the moment, I’m figuring on somewhere around 5-6 hours to ride the first day, not counting the lunch or rest stops…so that’d be getting to LaGrange between 2 and 3 tomorrow afternoon. Sunday, assuming I get started at 7 a.m. again, and take the “express” route, I figure on arriving in Austin by 1:00. Hang out for a few hours, hop on the bus, back in Houston by 7 or so. Get my bike and everything, and finally home by 9 or 10. Whew! What a weekend!
I will take plenty of pictures, and have many stories to tell on Monday morning, I’m sure. At the moment, I’m both anxious and excited.
I’ve been saying that once the MS150 is over, I’ll have a chance to catch up on other things, but of course that’s probably not true. As soon as that’s over, I have to prepare to buy a new car (Dad’s coming down on the 27th to help me with the purchase). And I have to go back to REI next weekend to exchange my tent; I got the spring sale catalog in the mail the other day, and the tent that I bought for $160 three weeks ago is not on sale for $110. I called them, and they have a 30-day guarantee, hooray. My obsession with keeping receipts for anything over ~$100, especially electronics and outdoor equipment!)
So I get $50 back that I can then turn around and apply to some new hiking boots. Oooh, soon I will have everything I need for the Colorado trip and beyond. So exciting. I think at least one or two people might end up with the same tent as me. $110 is too good to pass up if you’ve been thinking about buying a backpacking tent!
And finally: Jo sent us the link for the moon Quizno’s spongemonkeys again yesterday, and Matt got to looking around the site and found this short, random, and slightly disturbing cartoon: Mr. Stabby. The worst part about it is that once you’ve watched it, the dang theme song gets totally stuck in your head!! “Mis-ter Stabby, la la la la la la…”
