And the bicycle flies away.....

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
      Today was the day I went to FedEx with my bicycle packed in a big box and sent it off to Bernie's Bike Shop in San Diego to be put together. Yesterday University Bicycles took it apart and packed it. Today it has gone. I hope it arrives safely on Friday or Monday. I arrive on Tuesday to collect it. It's like sending a child off to college - will it all work out the way I hope it will??? When FedEx weighed the bike in its box, it weighed the same as my dog - who never likes me picking him up.
         Today also I met with M. and R., two residents in the Manor in Boulder where I live who grew up and spent most of their lives in South Texas where I'm going to be biking. This is hot desert Redneck country. The Klu Klux Klan town of Vidor is off to the north. Once the town begged a friend of theirs, the 7-11 manager, to open  a store there. He did, and people shopped there every day. But then they noticed his stock manager who came twice a week was a black man. They told the manager to fire him or they wouldn't shop there from noon on Wednesday. He didn't. They didn't. And the store closed. Prejudice is amazing.
     The tour doesn't go through Vidor but we do go to Kerrville TX where a man called Kinky Friedman once ran for Governor, and sang a song called "They don't make Jews like Jesus any more" which did not get him elected. Texas is going to be an experience and it's the place we have on the schedule a day of riding 111 miles - a significant number. My  friends plan to put up a big map in the living-room downstairs and mark off the miles as I cover them.
      Sammy the Patient Beagle sadly tore his toenail off on some ice in a parking lot, dripped blood all over the back seat of the car, and now has a neat bandage from the vet, which I have to swathe in plastic bags when we go out so he doesn't get it wet. He doesn't seem to mind the extra attention and loves the snow. He will stay with my cousins who have Scooter the beagle and Stanley the almost beagle, since beagles are the only dogs he sees around.

      Next Tuesday at this time I'll be in San Diego California with a couple of days to get used to the oxygen in the air (ahhhhh!) and the lack of snow (easy-peasy). Yes, I'm taking a swimsuit.