July 2, 2011
Feeling like you need a nice, quiet place to get away from all the hustle and bustles of daily life? Feeling like you need to find someplace tranquil or else a heavy dose of a tranquilizer? Well, such a pastoral place can indeed be found. In fact, there are probably many such places along the lovely Wabash Trace Nature Trail. The beautiful lounging area pictured below is located just west of the trail in Malverne, Iowa. 
My bicycle riding accomplice Rich and I reluctantly left our haven of happiness and started back towards the excitement of the Thursday night Taco Ride. We rode past the smelly, possibly leaking ammonia tanks of Silver City and ate at a very comfortable, uncrowded, tasty and reasonably-priced sub sandwich/ice cream joint.
After this additional foray in the realms of Tranquilicity, we got back up in the bustle of Senorita (con tilda! you bastard!) Taco Ride. After a brief discussion in which I woosily broached the topic of bypassing the melee so that I could get back home in time to get ineffectual beauty rest in order to perform my profession of task delegator with my usual haphazardnous, we stepped into the extravagant Mineola Steakhouse (with expanded boundaries for pre-4th of July revelry). Rich was immediately fascinated by the foam pit, whereas I scanned the foaminess and was quickly disappointed by a lack of scantily clad female partiers and/or wrestlers. In the outdoor seating area we encountered our friend and fearless leader of a team involved in the upcoming MS Bike Ride, Nebraska (July 9 & 10). We quickly caught up on bicycle-related events and a brief foray into personal details, at which the conversation meandered rapidly to talk of Missouri River flooding. I quickly lost my conversational footing as I was inundated with critical elevations, evacuation times, berm construction materials, and percentages of the Missouri River watershed represented at upstream dams. Eventually I alighted outside the steakhouse only to find Rich's front tire flat. I had also apparently lost track of time as I people-watched and was upended in the tumultuous current of Missouri River flood talk (be forewarned that it may engulf you too! [if it hasn't already]).
As I noted the decreasing sunlight, I increased my homeward pace accordingly. I didn't notice when the well-illuminated Rich blew out his new tire tube until it was fairly dark and I had left him several leagues behind. I was repeatedly either scolded, reprimanded, and or joked with about my total lack of illumination (Elijah Woods where are you when I need you! and Elijah, if you're reading this, I need you a lot). The most frequent exhortation I encountered was a loud, self-righteous, "Light!" hollered about 10 feet before our trajectories nearly intersected. Humbled by the outspoken critics of my lightlessness, I latched onto a friendly, well-illuminated pair of riders who helped me make my way back to the trailhead. I quickly realized that Rich was nowhere to be seen and took the comradely action of kicking back in my car and calling and texting him occasionally while listening to my latest Badly Drawn Boy recording which I had transferred to my MP-3 player (The Hour of Bewilderbeast ). Rich eventually showed up and I sheepishly apologized for my spastic hurrying in the face of potential tiredness. Reunited and it feels so good.
Oh, and if you haven't noticed the Tour de France has begun and a professional cyclist I'm unfamiliar with (Philippe Gilbert) was wearing the creativity-inspiring yellow jersey after Stage 1 in what may be eventually be known as his most glorious moment of professional life ever! While determining Philippe's name I noticed that Thor Hushovd is now wearing yellow, which is a coincidence since I am reading an enjoyable novel which may feature a character who is actually (spoiler alert) Thor. This novel is called American Gods by Neil Gaimen. Go Thor!
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