Face to face, One and done, More moving, Makes it easy, Drink and Dine
Saturday morning I hopped on the V13 and took it into the swamp, a staple of testing that I do with wheels. Since we are in the midst of dry season I hoped the path would be muck free, it was thankfully. The parking lot was jammed with spillover parking in the roadway. I saw two gators in the first couple minutes, just hanging in the water like statues, as they often do. As I continued riding I got reports from two different groups of an “agitated” gator on the path. I never had that description told to me before about alligators in the swamp, although they obviously can be aggressive. The second group that told me about it said they turned around because the gator started walking at them which freaked them out. I was intrigued.
So as I rode a bit further I saw it, a gator walking right down the middle of the path. I never saw one walking casually like this. I got closer. As I was about 40 feet away from him he suddenly flopped back down and laid there, looking at me. I have ridden past a ton of gators on my wheels, but they are always already laying still, not moving towards me. I nudged myself even closer which verified this was a young gator, he was probably only 6 feet long nose to tail. After some inner discussion I decided to just go for it. Just as I mounted the wheel the gator stood up and started walking towards me again. I was committed at this point and rolled by him without incident but it surely spiked my adrenaline as I was not quite sure what was going to happen.
Later in the ride I had another first when I smelled/saw a dead gator floating in the swamp. It’s carcass was pretty decomposed already with a dozen buzzards feasting on it. It was right about that point where I decided I had enough and turned around. Some people that saw the video were in disbelief that I rode past an advancing gator. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith/stupidity.
Saturday night I decided to go see the new Ant Man movie solo at Silverspot. I was a back and forth if I wanted to go or not for two reasons. I have heard several reports that the movie was not very good and second, going to a movie yourself is kind of depressing, although I have done it a few times since I became single. I decided to pull the trigger and go last second. I wish I hadn’t made that decision.
The movie was not great, despite it’s over the top usage of crazy CG. I could only give it a B and wished I just waited to see it on Disney+ instead of wasting 40 bucks on a ticket/food. The multiverse story line Marvel is running with now takes away from the importance of most plots IMO because if you beat one arch villain there are thousands of other versions of him still in the multiverse, it’s dumb. I also may discontinue going to movies myself, it just feels like that is something that needs to be shared with someone. Weird, I know.
Sunday morning I got up and out early to do a range test on the V13, the second time I attempted to do so. The first run I developed that weird tapping sound that cut the ride short. For some reason, me taking the wheel apart, twice, seems to have minimized the tapping sound, despite me not really seeing anything obviously wrong. The ride went well with me covering almost 53 miles before I ran out of juice.
There was a funny moment during the ride. I mounted the wheel in a pavilion out at Aver Maria after taking a quick break. When I did so I was next a metal picnic bench. My balance was off and I shifted to the left, there was no room to go that way. The end result was me diving off the wheel onto the bench. As I fell I pinned my selfie stick under me, bending it. I also smacked my face on the hard surface, thankfully my full face helmet prevented knocking out any teeth. It was ridiculous.
On Sunday afternoon I started working on clearing out more stuff in advance of moving. I took a bunch more items down to the curb with the majority of it being scooped up by people before dark.
I talked last week about my strategy of how to get rid of the furniture items I don’t want/need. An idea struck me during the day, maybe the new owners want this stuff? So I took a picture of each item and sent them to the buyers realtor, telling her I was going to get rid of these things but if the new owners wanted it, they were welcome to have it. She responded later that they actually want the items, all of them. That is fantastic, greatly simplifying my requirements. I went through and cleaned out all of the unwanted stuff in each of those pieces of furniture.
I may even be offering them my 70 inch TV as I have no real spot to use it at the new house until some remodeling is performed. The TV is something like 6 years old at this point so I would be just as happy getting the latest and greatest for my new house when the time comes.
My buddy Don texted me during the afternoon asking if I wanted to grab dinner, I said sure, knowing he is still working through the difficulty of losing his dog a couple weeks ago. We met up at the Yard House, a bar I went to with him once before. I was thirsty and finished my first 23 ounce Miller Lite very quickly, putting me into my friendly and talkative drunk state pretty quickly. I had an Ahi Tuna sandwich which was really good. Don and I had a good time just talking about whatever came to mind, similar to when we met up the week prior. It was a good way to wind up a busy weekend. They only will get busier from here.