Today

". . .was awful for a good several hours!" should read the rest of the entry title.

I woke up with plans to go climb a mountain! I do this on occasion, you know. This time I invited the youth group with the mention that if you plan to come, let me know! Otherwise, of course, I won't know that anyone is coming, will assume that I am the only one, and will go at my own glorious (read: slow) pace.

Well, I got some phone calls that intimated that no one was coming! People got sick, and teenagers are fickle anyhow. I wasn't surprised, geared up at my own pace (implied: a slow one), and got my bike ready for some crosstown action. Then another call telling me that another, unexpected teen was coming, and was in fact on his way to the trailhead. I have heretofore far neglected to mention that said teen was traveling in a CAR, my friends, and thus would have arrived much earlier than I would, as I had about ten miles to peddle. I was notified of this teen's intentions by a third party (a DIFFERENT teen, people) and so passed along the message to push back the hike-time by an hour.

I set out on my way and promptly got a flat inner-tube. In fact, it was a brand new one that I put in Thursday. So I stopped by my church to grab some tools (having only my camera and tripod on me) and replace the tube only to find Dick, the man who works the grounds watering the lawn. Now, he is about the sweetest man in the world, and a hard worker to boot, so he grabbed some wrenches and got to wrenchin' on my bike (without my asking), adding much time to the job. In the meantime, I called the teen myself (I didn't have his number on my cell phone, which was at home anyhow) to find that he decided to ditch the entire trip.

I collected my bike and resumed the journey, only to find that Dick had put the tire on horrendously off-kilter. The tire rubbed against a back post and the kickstand, the alignment was so off. I couldn't get over 10 mph on flat road in first gear. Yes, friends. It was that bad.

So I turned around and went home, taking occasional kicks to the tire to bring it slightly more in alignment (although this also frequently threw the chain off of my gears entirely) and to mete out my anger in small, manageable bits. Neither goal was much accomplished.

Happy ending: but then I got home to find a document from Little Rock that I needed to finally send in my visa application so that is finally happening.

Then I bought an icee.