Ride of Silence

Today was a day off that was scheduled long ago to allow ourselves to enjoy the Cowboys-Eagles game on prime-time Sunday Night Football. At the time, we had no idea it would be for first place, but this is a brutal rivalry and we are both rabid fans of our own teams. We knew this was gonna get ugly.

We were pleased to see the unseasonable weather of Sunday (see previous post) forecast to continue through the beginning of the week, so we'd not only be able to stay up late and sleep in past our usual 5:00, we'd also be able to get a ride in when we did get up. The problem is, would we be on speaking terms?

So, we began to refer to the upcoming Monday as the Ride of Silence. After all, the nice thing about being on the bikes is you don't really talk much to begin with. At least we'd be 'together.'

Of course, none of this came to pass, despite the fact that someone (me) did, in fact, have to lose. See pix added at bottom for the bet. We woke up none the worse for wear, and hit the road smiling.

The male half of us needed another 300+ miles to hit 10,000 for the year, so we made an effort to get most of it at one shot. Donna already passed that mark, but since Annie was a little under the weather for a while after our Canada trip, I did a couple of our rides on a bike borrowed from Dad. We got about 275 of it, and I'll be turning in my 10k for sure when the club records the numbers next week.

We met Dad for breakfast and headed west. The Pike Tavern in Gettysburg became our lunch stop and turnaround point, but not until we'd found one of the goofy roadside oddities that I love to sniff out. Behold, the Haines Shoe house of Hallam, PA:

With the super-short days this time of year, we got home after dark, but were plenty warm thanks to the unseasonable weather. My guess is this is probably the last ride of any length we'll get in for a few months. I have my hands full with maintenance on both bikes and a couple cars now anyway, so it's probably a good thing. We just need to make room in the garage to work.

THURSDAY ADDENDUM:Good sport that I am, I have attached below a couple pix of the payoff of the Eagles' loss to the Cowboys Sunday night. The public appearance was at our HOG meeting in front of 100 of our good friends. What fun.