Let Love Rule

Yesterday I took vacation time to go on a lovely bike ride. I originally planned to do ride the West Branch Loop. It's a bout 59 miles of rolling hills around the birth place of  Herbert Hoover, but I missed my turn and ended up in a little town called Tipton. Oops!

I had never ridden my bike there before, so it turned out to be kind of cool. I love that route because of all the prairie poppies on the side of the road and getting to ride by the very swollen Cedar River. I had a great ride. I felt pretty strong, but not my very strongest. It was hot, but not terrible and I brought a half of a peanut butter and honey sandwich to eat at the halfway point. The only big problem, was that I didn't bring enough water with me. Derrrr. Lately, I've been going on social rides with friends that are 30'ish miles at their longest and then we always stop to eat and drink along the way, so I don't need as much water. This was the first time in a while that I had done a longer route by myself. It was a good reminder of what I'll need to have on my for the Clear Lake Road Race, which is 51 miles long.

I headed back from Tipton, after I stopped and ate my sandwich by this adorable tractor. On the way back, I had lost my steam. I'm not sure if I just went too hard on the way out, or if I had a head wind that was harder than I thought, or whether I just was too dehydrated to get up and go. I just slowed my roll (literally) and enjoyed the beautiful Summer day. About a mile from home, I saw a lemonade stand run by two very stoic little girls. I gave them twice what they asked for a cup of lukewarm pink lemonade and it was the best I ever had.

Here is my cat Friday photo. The other night John brought up the marriage question again. He does from time to time. Not so much because he wants to get married, but more because he wants to make sure that I'm not resentful about not getting married. We've been together for almost 5 years now. We've each been married before and I know he's not really into getting married and it's not a big deal to me either. I said that I didn't really care about getting married, but at some point, it might be nice to have a celebration with our friends. John said, "Well, since neither one of us like parties with a lot of people, what do you think that would look like?" Um....Like we would both be in hell? Yeah. We're fine the way we are.