January

A year ago today we were in Big Bend, seeing a part of Texas we hadn’t seen before. The next day, New Year’s Day, we drove up to Fort Davis and went for a hike in the Davis Mountains. Then we visited the McDonald Observatory, which was unfortunately closed for New Year’s. But I still got to go into one of the big telescopes, because, well, it wasn’t locked. No lights though, and I didn’t want to start flipping switches. Before leaving West Texas we also visited Marathon, another quirky little old town. We had coffee in a little shop that had stacks of the Santa Barbara Independent (!) to read. Another surprise that day, I ran into my old friend Quinton at a gas station near Abilene!

We also made a quick trip to Orlando for Ed’s birthday, right in the middle of grapefruit season. Yum! And we saw manatees!

I attended a fascinating class taught by Edward Tufte.

February

After our wonderful trip to Taos last year, we decided to try skiing there this year. On the drive there, we got to see the Cadillac Ranch covered with snow, and a herd of mystery animals which I later found out were pronghorns (Texans call them antelopes, but they aren’t really). We saw another herd of these later – they really are beautiful.

This time we rented a house on the Rim Road. A great house in a good location for skiing, but the roads were snowy and Rim Road is called that for a reason. Did you know I have a phobia about going over a cliff in a car? We did not die though.

The skiing was fantastic, not crowded. We also snowshoed one day. While we were having lunch in the lodge one day, our neighbor texting me a photo of our house with snow falling furiously. It snowed 13 inches in Dallas! I was sorry to miss that even though we were enjoying even better snow in New Mexico. When we got home, every other house in Dallas had a snowman in front.

We saw John Prine in concert over at SMU; he was very good (and funny, as we knew he would be).

March

One of our favorite restaurants burned down.

I took Mia to Dallas’ St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is pretty raucous and fun.

April

Ed and I took a Saturday morning bike ride over to the lake, had a great 22-mile ride, but on the way back as he signaled a left turn, he hit a reflector in the road and went over the handlebars, fracturing his collarbone pretty badly. It required surgery, and still bothers him. Quite a setback, as he was trying to get back into shape.

But, I got an iPad!

May

Mom and Dad visited for the world premiere of Moby Dick at the Dallas Opera, and I think they would say it was worth the trip. How the heck can you make a stage set about a whaling ship? Well they did it, and it was spectacular.

June

So hot. It got up into the 100’s early this year. I was going to try riding my bike every day again this summer like I did in 2008, but gave up.

July

Ed, frustrated by not being able to exercise and continuing to gain weight, decided to go on a diet. I, who had gained weight in sympathy, agreed to join him. We cut out alcohol and most of the usual things you don’t eat on a diet, and lost weight rather easily. Who knew?

August

Still hot, so I went to California! It was great to see the Steeles. I arrived during Fiesta, which was something I hadn’t seen before. There were cascarones (confetti eggs) smashed everywhere. In Texas you only see those on Easter. We attended several dance performances and ate some great food. I also went kayaking one day at Campus Point (with Kevin), went to the Botanical Garden (with Aidan), biked down Gibraltar Road and at Ealings Park (with Nico), went on a few hikes (with Linda), saw the movie Inception and went climbing (poorly).

September

By this time it should be obvious that we really like Taos. We went back yet again for two weeks. This time we rented two houses for two different experiences. The first week we stayed in town, which was nice because we could walk to restaurants and into town. The second week we stayed at an isolated house up a private road in the foothills near the ski mountain. This house was phenomenal, we liked every detail. It had a little writer’s cottage out back, and we tied our camping hammock out there. One night we slept outside on the second-story deck under the stars. In the mornings we could see the hot air balloons rise and then dip into the Rio Grande canyon. The only downside of the house was it was a one-mile drive down a very rutted dirt road just to get to the road to town, which was another six miles or so. The road was not bikeable (up anyway).

So this trip we went on several hikes and one backpacking trip. It was cold backpacking, but we were well-prepared. We even brought our iPads and watched a movie in the tent (just to say we did it). We went biking one day, Ed’s first time on the bike since his accident. He had a tough time; it was windy and he didn’t feel stable on the bike. We tried to bike another day, but after driving about 45 minutes, we got out to start riding and he felt it was too windy for him, so we drove back and I rode by myself up to the ski area, which is now an annual tradition for me. We also both bought new climbing shoes, and went bouldering. I feel better about my limited climbing skills now; it had just been so many years since I had climbed anything.

Yesterday one of my friends on Facebook posted “When was the last time you did something for the first time”? Well one thing I did for the first time this trip was fly fishing. Ed has wanted to do this for a long time. I thought I would be bored to tears, but I actually loved it. It’s nothing like regular fishing. You don’t stand in one place for long, you have to be smart and use strategy and skill, and the scenery is beautiful. And, I caught a fish!

Last year I was successful in my attempt to get cheap tickets for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. They give out a few hundred for $50 (regularly $185), and I snagged two by watching Twitter and refreshing the page constantly. The festival was fun, we saw Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Broken Bells, Phish, Flaming Lips, Mountain Goats, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Sonic Youth, Gogol Bordello, Pete Yorn, Lucero, Black Lips, Manchester Orchestra, Temper Trap, Deadmau5, M.I.A., Devendra Banhart, Portugal, the Man, Trombone Shorty, Robert Earl Keen, White Rabbits, Blind Pilot and Lance Herbstrong.

October

The two big October events here are the State Fair of Texas and Halloween, and we participated in both. The Phantom of the Opera was back on Swiss Avenue:

We were invited to Ed’s cousin Nicole’s wedding in Buffalo, so we combined that trip with a visit with Mom and Dad. I flew up ahead of time and spent some time with them, and then drove their jeep up to Buffalo and picked Ed up at the airport there. We stayed at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, something Ed has wanted to do for a long time. The inn was built by the Roycrofters, and Arts and Crafts guild. Ed’s sister Colleen stayed there also since we were. She didn’t know anything about it, thought it would be a regular hotel. The funny thing is that it turned out she used to work across the street from the place and didn’t know what it was.

The wedding was nice and it was nice to see all of Ed’s aunts and uncles and cousins again. I hadn’t been to Buffalo for a long time. We also went to see the Darwin Martin house, a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The main house is still being renovated, but we got to go into two of the other houses on the property. House house houses.

November

We went back to Austin to visit our friends Mike and Carla, and we had a relaxing traditional Thanksgiving with just the three of us. Last year it was just Ed and me, and we decided to do South American food instead of turkey with the fixings, but I missed it, so this year it was back to the old standbys.

For Erica’s birthday we took her and four of her friends out to dinner here in Dallas, which was fun.

December

It was a good year (fractured clavicles notwithstanding) up until the first of December, when Ed’s stepdad passed away. We made another trip to Orlando for the funeral. We were glad we have been going there more often lately, and Ed will always treasure the trip he took to Ireland with Bud et al three years ago.

Unexpected travel in early December means a rather frantic holiday preparation season (at least for me, who procrastinates until December). But I (kind of) got everything done by Christmas, and we had another relaxing day. We had to laugh at all the winter gear we got each other as gifts. We had lobster pot pie instead of fondue for Christmas Eve dinner, and prime rib for Christmas. Yum.

I think that’s it. I’ll try to do better next year.

But … sometimes I start out and think I don’t think I can stand riding two times around that damn lake today. So I try to find a new route. Today I decided to ride up the west side of the lake as usual, but then continue on into Lake Highlands to look for a flock of wild peacocks that Mom had alerted me to. I rode up one of the streets in the article, but didn’t see a single peacock. I circled around to the other street, and noticed that my back wheel was a little wobbily. Thinking I had a flat, I stopped to check. That’s when I saw this guy:

Then I noticed a teenage boy making multiple trips to take out the garbage, ignoring the three peahens underfoot. And the white peacock up the street. And the many peabirds standing on porch furniture and garbage cans all around. Look, you can even see them in Google Maps!

I turned my attention back to the bike, and found that it wasn’t a simple flat but a broken spoke, which is a difficult repair even with a spoke wrench and the spare parts, which I didn’t have anyway. So I started to walk up the street to at least get a good look at the white peacock before starting the seven mile walk home. But luckily, just then the owner of the house the white bird was guarding arrived home. He was a fellow cyclist, so insisted on giving me a ride home. On the way, he told me a little more about the peacocks (they love donuts! it makes them hyper!), and about biking in Dallas. It turns out the hill route that I (and all serious bikers here) ride was one of Lance Armstrong’s favorites back when he was a local junior racer. It’s a really tough route. It also turns out that the good samaritan was one of the people quoted in the newspaper article. In fact, I think he is even in that Google Maps street view shot I linked above (next door to all the birds). So despite the hassle, the ride was just what I was looking for, a break in my routine.

If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I have an idea for another route to explore. Stay tuned!

Also, I go early for the coolest temperatures, which means the ride doesn’t get pushed aside as I procrastinate or other things come up that I need to do. And finally, I set goals to make me go, because I know that if I don’t get outside and do things in the summer, I’ll just get depressed. So this month I set a goal of riding every day in June, which I just met this morning.

Here are the month’s stats from my GPS.

Count: 31 Activities
Distance: 631.95 mi
Time: 47:37:34 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 10,004 ft
Avg Speed: 13.3 mph
Calories: 28,674 C

(Note: my average speed is always slow here. I go fast around the lake, but getting there involves lots of turns and stop signs — I do stop at stop signs).

Really, Ed and have caught ourselves skipping this weekend, it was so nice.

Halloween was great, we had hundreds of trick-or-treaters as usual. It’s actually pretty nice here, we get extra police coverage, and they (with the historic district’s approval) shut down the trick-or-treating at 9pm, so we don’t get the bored high school kids looking for trouble *.  At that point, we walked down two blocks to a party at a friends’ house.

Today we went for a bike ride, and then rode the motorcycle over to the lake to go sailing. This was our best day sailing yet. Perfect weather, so pretty. Wish everyone was here.

*I have been impressed here that there is never any Halloween vandalism. People put out expensive displays and decorations, and especially pumpkins. I have never seen a smashed pumpkin in Dallas.

This bike would actually let me stop using the car for the last of my car-dependent errands: buying kitty litter.

Ed’s brother is visiting; he spent a quiet day by the lake. I donated blood again. Ed and I also planned to do the Ride of Silence, a worldwide slow, silent ride in memory of cyclists who have been killed or injured. It seemed an appropriate way to think of Kelly.

In the end, Ed had to stay at work to late to make the ride, so I went alone.

This was a somber ride. Over a thousand riders lined up at 7pm at White Rock Lake. The White Rock ride is the original one, started in response to the death of Larry Schwartz, a local endurance cyclist who was nationally known. The pre-ride speech was sobering, reminding everyone that the person next to you might not be here next year to ride. And then a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace”, which reminded me of Kelly’s funeral, which made me cry (as it always does). I wasn’t the only one tearing up. And then we rolled out.

The slow speed was difficult to maintain with that many people, but appropriate. It took about an hour to get around the lake (as opposed to my usual half hour), and in all that time, no one said a word.

After the ride, the riders lined up on either side of the road, front wheel to center. Someone walked a ghost bike by, and the bagpiper played “Taps”, and we all rode home to live another day.

I did meet my cycling goal of riding every day of the summer. Then Ed goaded me into going four more days to make it an even 100 days in a row. The next day, I went for a run, then two days of biking, after which I realized the run made my legs kinda tired, and really, now it’s time to get back into a normal training schedule with intervals and days off. So don’t worry, Mom!
Since Hurricane Ike, we have had so many nice days where we can open the windows, at least at night. I also finally figured out how to open the doors in the dining room, which have screen doors. There were matching double doors for the dining room entrance into the living room out in our garage, which had been stripped but not painted. I am hoping to paint those and get them hung (although I can’t find the hinge pins or the door knobs). I think they will look good. Both set of doors have smallish panes of glass with old imperfections, which I like. We also want to paint the dining room a different color, but haven’t come up with anything yet. Hopefully by Thanksgiving we’ll have this figured out.

Provided I can make enough money by then, I am planning to ride across America next summer. This is the route I am interested in, more or less, but the version I am planning also goes through Milwaukee, North Muskegon, and Hampden, Maine … and possibly Potsdam and Massena as well.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’ll keep you posted.

• I’ve been trying to keep my cycling going through the summer this year. Normally I slack off a bit once it gets hot and we stop having events to train for. This year, I decided that with the lake bike trail so close, I’d try riding every morning before it gets hot. It’s been working well; I have about 110 miles in already this week. The lake is pretty in the mornings, and quiet.
• My first vegetable garden here has had mixed results; I think I need to redo the beds in the fall. But thanks to mom, I am using the established herb garden to make lots of interesting pestos!
• We may go to New Orleans in August for a wedding. Should be interesting to see the place.
• I didn’t mention it before, but when we went back to Houston for the MS150, we drove by our old house and the new owners had taken out every single flower bed and put in grass. Roses, herbs, amaryllis, everything.
• I have been steadily working through last fall’s pecan crop, shelling them with this nutcracker. Hopefully I will never have to buy pecans again.
• I have not filled up my gas tank since sometime on our drive back from New Mexico, over a month ago. I really think people should think more in terms of Gallons Per Day than Miles Per Gallon.
• I am out of fun facts for today.
• I may start posting things other than what we are doing, just to keep things interesting.