Things you learn on the road

The Garmin Forerunner GPS has a feature that tells you the sunrise and sunset each day. The cool part is it adjusts for your specific location. It is really cool to watch the sunset time change as we bike east (FYI, it sets earlier the further east we go).

Semi trucks for the most part will pull way around us as we bike in the road. Beware of objects! Heather watched a light fluffy thing (must have been because of the way it tumbled quickly and topsy-turvy-like) fall from a truck right in front of her. On closer inspection it was a huge brick. Lucky she was paying attention and stopped well before she was struck.

I have read countless times that when backpacking (or using panniers) heavy things go on the bottom. Well, the same thing applies when using a BoB trailer. It makes a very significant difference as I found out the hard (or easy, depending on if you are a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person) way.

When your riding partner (or yourself for that matter) is moving too slow, have them sing a mundane, repetitive song to themselves. Some sugestions are "99 bottles of Gatorade on the bike" or "Row, row, row your boat". I did this with Heather, and boy did it ever work well. Too well, actually. I ended up asking her to stop doing that after a while because I could not keep up.

it helps to name some of your equipment (helps because it gives me a chuckle) that you are fond of. BoB is of course self named. My bicycle is named Lisa after a very tough girl I knew in high school who ended up joining the Crew team at UC Davis. Our stove is WiLI (after Wisper Light International, the model we have).

Cows like to follow cyclists. For the last week or so every time we bike past a herd of cows they follow us down the road. Ok, sometimes they need a little encouragement, so I "moo" at them. A few cows ignore me but respond well to Heather signing MOO at them (I guess they are deaf cows).

That's it for now. Until next time...-dana