I love to ride, I really do but I do like other
things as well. I like going to Renaissance Faires and I don’t always
like doing it on a bike. Ren faires require so much costume and then
you have to dress off the back of your bike in
a parking lot. When you leave out it’s hot and you are sweating and
you really just want flip flops and AC and to GET OUT OF ALL OF THESE
SKIRTS WHY AM I WEARING 10 YARDS OF RUFFLES?!?!? We typically try to
take to bikes to the opening weekend of the local
Ren Faire and I typically spend a lot of effort talking us out of it. I
mean, if the weather isn’t perfect (and when is it in April in Texas)
we might as well take the car. No sense on getting dressed in the wet
in a parking lot right? And we don’t want
to get caught in those unpredictable North Texas Storms that I grew up
with. Who knows when you might get a Tornado! And I’m the only one who
grew up in Tornado country so trust me….we should just take the car.
And if it’s not raining its’ going to 100
degrees and oh my Dear Zippo you know how much you hate riding in the
heat. After being out all day, I don’t want you to get ill with heat,
let’s just take the car. And of course if we are thinking of doing a
wine tasting then we should defiantly take the
car because….Safety.
This year for some reason was very different for
me. We had the date to go to Faire picked out and we had the
conversations about packing light done and we had plans to leave early on Friday
so we could take our time and ride the back
roads. Then it started to look like we were going to have storms…and I
didn’t care. I didn’t care, I wanted to ride. I wanted to ride come
high water or lightening or crankiness. I checked the weather and
checked the weather. Mr Man and I poured over
dewpoints and humidity and I finally decided that we could take the
bikes. We would probably get wet about 40 miles from the hotel but we
would beat the worst weather. Then Saturday would be beautiful and Sunday would be good as long as we left in the morning.
I checked in with Spyderman and Zippo about the rain (ok I bullied them until they agreed to ride wet) and we were all set.
I could not home from work fast enough on Friday
afternoon. I got into my riding clothes and threw myself on my bike
like the Zombies were behind me looking for my brains. I flew to Zippo
and Spyderman’s house to get them and away we
went. Once we shook ourselves free of the Interstate in Belton and hit
HWY 317 I felt the stress crumbling off me. Flying out of my life with
the speed of the wind. Burning away from me and I emerged free and
without care from the cocoon of my daily life.
I was just the three of us. Mr Man is not a Ren Faire type of person
and Union Jack and the Billy Goat Gruff couldn’t make it. The three of
us made for very stress free riding. Easy to make choices. Easy to
decide when to stop, when to go. Easy to know
that our bikes were very compatible as far as power and speed. Stress
about medical bills, about my health, about my house, about my job all
gone and gone and gone.
Mr. Man calls this brain draino. I had never before really experienced the need for it like I did on that Friday
afternoon where I ran away from my life, from my responsible thinking
and rode straight into possible storms without a care
about it. But that afternoon I had a need that would not be thwarted
by such things as reality. I was riding and that was final. And ride I
did.
Luck was with us all weekend. We missed all the
rain on our way to Waxahachie, TX except for about five drops in
Hillsboro but we did have a tornado warning that evening that caused us
to spend some time in an inner room at the hotel.
Saturday was sunny and moderate just as promised and on Sunday
we once again avoided all the rain except for 15 minutes of being spat
upon by the heavens. I can’t remember another time when the fates
smiled so hard on me during a ride. I deserved it. After
everything this year has given me, I was due some luck and some brain
draino.
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