My First Unemployed Weekday Ride

Now that I'm unemployed for the 1st time in 15 years (wow you're probably sick of hearing that already), there are lots of firsts.  First unemployed beer, first unemployed blubbering cry, first unemployed telemarketer call, and so on.  Today was my first weekday ride as an unemployed cyclist.  It's one of those really beautiful things -- I have time on my hands, and an extremely time consuming activity that I enjoy doing.

Speedo and I met at his place, and decided to ride towards Jarachinas Road.  Most days, this would be a beautiful ride.  Jarachinas is one of the few roads in the RGV that has it all:  light traffic, wide shoulder, rural scenery, rolling hills, and a good connection to other decent roads.  But it wasn't in the cards today, as the wind was not about to let us do this ride without paying a steep price.

Instead, we rode a little south, then rode west along the Rio Grande through Winter Texan Land (Bentsen Palms Road near the State Park), and on through Penitas and to Havana.  We averaged 17 mph, but the wind really hammered us.  It averaged 20 mph, but the news said there were gusts in the 30+ mph range.  It was blowing us all over the road.  The link to my ride data is here, and a screen shot of the ride summary is below:

Maybe because this was a 'first' for me, or because it was smack dab in the middle of a workday, or maybe something entirely different, the ride felt like it had lots of character and RGV eccentricity.  Here's what  I mean:

• I'm out of Nuun.  So I stopped at the corner store to get a Gatorade for one of my water bottles.  The clerk, who I've seen before when wearing street clothes, acted like she was selling Gatorade to the Elephant Man.  Her discomfort with my lycra almost made me laugh.
  
• After Speedo and I cut through from Conway to Military using the Mission Trails hike and bike, we found ourselves in the middle of Winter Texan Land.  There were retirees in RVs, on cruisers, on mopeds, in diesel-powered dually pickups, and walking their dogs.  As we turned on to Military, a very large RV pulled in behind us, and laid on the horn.  And this horn had the same volume and pitch as the ones you hear on the big rigs.  Speedo and I were livid.  He said "I would have considered riding single file and letting her pass, but she had to use the horn".  We rode two abreast, taking the lane, and she made an illegal pass against a double yellow line.  From her gestures and facial redness, I'm thinking that this particular retiree may not be long for this world, what with the perils of high blood pressure and stress and whatnot.
  
• Speedo had a flat out in the middle of nowhere.  As I held up his bike, I looked on the side of the road, and saw a used disposable douche.  What the heck?  On the side of the road?
  
• The little towns of Penitas and Havana are pretty cool.  There's not much there, but they have a unique combination of the historic and the rural that makes me want to go back and meet some of the residents.
  

We're planning another ride on Thursday.  I'll try to take my camera this time so I can document the ride with a few more details.  Which will mean that these will be my first photos on a ride while unemployed!