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Old June 10th 18, 03:24 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
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Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Thursday's ride


To the Farmers' Markets today. The only farmer at the first one had
sold out and gone home. I bought a "Tuscan chicken wrap" and a bag of
chocolate-toffee saltines at the other.

Thursday was a contrived ride, in honor of the only rain-free day
predicted this week. (The rain didn't quite materialize today, but
came close enough that I hurried home by the shortest route.)

On Thursday, I went to the animal shelter by way of the Heritage Trail
and 225S, to avoid Pierceton Road and the worst part of Wooster.
(Which worst part Google Maps marks with a dotted green line. On the
other hand, they also green-dot 225 S, which *is* "bicycle friendly",
and they did route me through Robby Road.) I delivered the last three
pieces of the old quilt I cut into animal blankets, so I've no more
motivation to go that way. By way of Pierceton is nice, but the last
time I ate at the Odd Fellows Café, they had put a disgusting amount
of sugar into their formerly-delightful tomato soup. Even the
croutons were sweet -- some of them had caramelized when toasted.

From there, I went to Aldi by the scenic route, intending to stop at
Culver's for lunch, but when I got to Culver's I couldn't decide to
eat anything I could see on the menu. At the time, I thought it was
the heat, but in retrospect, I think it was the cataracts -- I
couldn't read the smaller type that told one exactly what one was
ordering. Well, the heat *did* have something to do with rejecting
the butter burger.

It was time to eat my emergency food bars, but I'd left them home in
the soda fridge; I don't like to store them on the bike when the
garage gets up to eighty or ninety, and forgot them when checking the
bike.

So I went to Martin's intending to eat at the Side Door Café, but I'd
never eaten there and didn't feel up to figuring out the protocol. So
I went to the deli case -- the single-serve containers were all hot,
and macaroni and cheese was as close as they came to balanced. I went
down the line of refrigerator cases reflecting that I'd reached the
stage of hunger where anything specific sounds revolting. Some of the
bulk salads looked good, but exactly how many pounds make a serving?
Got to the end of the dairy section, turned around and went back along
the outside walls. This time I spotted a one-serving container of
"loaded baked potato salad". Potato salad makes a fairly-decent
one-dish meal, so I bought it and went to the bike for my spoon --
which, for convenience, I had moved from the tool-kit bag to the
emergency-food bag a few months ago. Eat potato salad with my fingers
in public? I put it into the insulated pannier; if I can't find any
snacks at Aldi, well, that's where I buy my emergency food bars.

As I was pulling out, I noticed that the tables and chairs on the
patio in front of the Side Door Cafe are now accessible from the
outside -- and, because of the heat, deserted. So I turned back.

Then I discovered that I could eat my "salad" with my knife in a
civilized and un-embarrassing manner -- because it was nothing but
chunks of left-over potato. There were some shreds of cheese and
something I presumed were bacon bits tossed with the leftover potato,
and a bit of sauce at the bottom. I think one was supposed to zap or
fry it.

I'd meant to get a couple of extra miles by looping to the north, but
upon leaving Aldi, I decided to skip that for reasons that had nothing
to do with the frozen sausage in my pannier. I couldn't face the
infamous intersection of Parker and Thirty, so I retraced my route and
crossed Thirty on Old Thirty, at Lake Village Shopping Center (which I
had to look up on the map; I call it Sprawl Two or K-Mart Plaza).

When I got home, I told my spouse how much I hated the infamous
intersection, and he said he'd seen pedestrians crossing there with no
trouble.

Duh. All I need to do is to turn right onto Thirty, ride until I find
a flat spot in the median, dismount, cross one set of three lanes at a
time, remount, and ride back to the intersection in the breakdown lane
-- which should be fairly clean because it gets used by right-turning
automobiles a lot.

Parker crossing Thirty is one of the reasons that the powers that be
are planning a limited-access highway from Fort Wayne to Valparaiso.
Nobody is mentioning that "limited access" means "limited crossing".
In CARs of my acquaintance in other places, such few crossing places
as exist are off-limits to bicycles and pedestrians.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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