Rally Cap

It worked! Yeah, I'm a sorry Cubs fan!

Tour Day France

I know, I know...almost the entire month of July has passed and I haven't blogged a word. I'm not all that good at this blogging stuff anyway, but I've been glued to the Tour Day France as is usual for me in July. It's good stuff...maybe better now that there is no clear favorite. I'm playing the Fly to the Finish Sweepstakes too. I want to win one of those Cervelo bikes the CSC guys are riding. I find the flat stages pretty boring but the mountain stages are awesome. The new guy on the Discovery team is really shaking things up. Now if only someone in the United States with deep pockets and the love of the sport will pick up the sponsorship so we have at least one United States team in the race (Discovery's sponsorship will end at the end of this season). I did hear mention that there may be another US team next year too.

June Biking

I didn't ride my bike except to commute again this month.

June miles=499
2007 miles=1786.4
Miles (since June 2006)=4725.4

22 commuting days in June. Longest ride 29 miles.

Have you Never Been Mellow...

Why I had this Olivia Newton-John song going through my head during Saturday's ridge run with the cross country team at the Dunes State Park is beyond me. It's hard to get mellow with the summertime flies zooming around my head.

Road Trip

Steve and I took our yearly road trip to the Indiana State Track Meet in Bloomington, Indiana, last weekend. For the second year we camped at Yellowwood State Forest. Yellowwood is a wonderfully undeveloped area that suits our purposes well. It has primitive, uncrowded, camping and plenty of trail to run on. Yellowwood is home to the Tecumseh Trail Marathon in the fall. We ran about the last eight miles of the marathon course on Saturday.

Steve brought out his new ThermaRest sleeping pad (the ProLite 4) for this year's trip. Although Steve is relatively new to camping, he's the master when it comes to the cool stuff. He's also got a JetBoil that we use on this trip to heat water for coffee in the morning. Me, I've got my 25 year old Sierra Designs three person tent. This tent refuses to wear out. It's on the heavy side so we haven't used it to backpack, but it's roomy and easy to pitch when we're car camping. Between the two of us, we've always got all sorts of camping/backpacking gadgets, although I did forget my sleeping bag one time! I won't do that again.

May Biking

I'd didn't ride my bike at all except when I was commuting.

I rode at least one direction (to work or to home) on 20 days!
Longest ride-32 miles on 5/27
482.4 miles
Miles for 2007 805+482.4=1287.4
Miles (since June 2006)=2937.4

I replaced the straight bars on the Trek with some trekking bars but then rounded the hex head bolt that tightens the brake/shifter to the bar. With no way to get it out, I tried to drill the bolt out. I ended up destroying it. I've been watching eBay for another set of 3x7 shifters. Always something new to learn!

Memorial Day 2007

Last night I stumbled upon a Leonard Cohan song on YouTube that's been out there for years, I just had never heard it. It's amazing to me how much there is that I don't know. It's ironic that this song shows up in the new Shrek movie that just came out.When I was a kid another Cohen song, Suzanne, was a popular folk song and I knew the haunting words by heart. Leonard Cohan's monotonic voice seemed to hide the beauty of his songs.

I used to hang out at a coffeehouse in Porter, Indiana, called Saturday's Child. That must be where I first heard "Suzanne" sung. Saturday's Child was run by David Sanders and his wife. I remember him playing Woody Guthrie songs on the auto harp. His wife wife had an awful voice, but that never stopped her from singing. They frequently performed between sets of their featured musicians-oftentimes students at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I particularly remember the two of them singing "We're in the Money" together! They were definitely NOT in the money! Dave had his art studio upstairs. Sometime later, Dave and his new, much younger wife, were in our La Maze class. The coffeehouse is long gone now.

I chose this version of the song simply because I could make out the words easily. It's sung by Rufus Wainwright. His voice captures the sadness of this song perfectly for me. I'll be pulling weeds on Memorial Day, remembering the coffeehouse days, with the words of Hallelujah going through my head.

Thank you to our men and women in the military. I hope you'll all be home safely by next Memorial Day.