Friday, May 25, 2012

Oh What a Night~! & Checking In…


Photo- My bike in the dark.
As the song goes--“…late December back in 63 …” Only last night wasn’t one of those special nights as sung by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  But I will say it was an interesting night.

It all started when I tried starting my car outside my work.  It was right after work as I sprinting across the parking lot.  You know that little boost of freedom as you are leaving work for the day.   It’s kind of like a kid being released from school for the day. There I was all set in my cycling clothes and anticipating a bike ride with a friend.  With happy thoughts, I put the key in the ignition and zilch!  Nada! Argh!


Thinking it might be a dead battery and I can always call AAA after I go on a bike ride.  I text my friend and tell her I’ll be a few minutes late; and I’m riding my bike to the meeting spot.  I was maybe 7 minutes late total to meet my friend.  Now I’m warmed up for our ride, having ridden from the flat South Salt Lake up to the Sugarhouse neighborhood. 


We head out taking a left on to a street and shortly afterwards a guy in a beige car is honking at us.  There’s no bike lane though there’s a white area that’s painted but its surrounding an island area and ¾ of it is what I would consider a gutter.  We are riding single file and a few inches into the car lane side of the white line; perfectly, within our right. 


The guy is still honking and yelling (through closed windows).  We come to a stop light and stop.  The front passenger side of his car is almost touching my leg.  He doesn’t want to give any of the car lane up.  My friend yells that we can’t hear him and he rolls down a window and yells that we should be in the bike lane.  Christine says,” Sir this is not a bike lane here.”  I yell that we are allowed by law up to 3 feet of the car lane by law.  “No you are not!” He yells back.  “Yes, according to the law sir.  Perhaps, you need to be more aware of your car driving laws.” Christine says nicely. 


The light changes and he tromps on the gas going widely around us.  In his rush he almost hits car in on coming traffic.  We kind of shrug him off and continue on our way.  Shortly there after we come to a stop sign, where we did a “California” stop; which was not a complete stop but a slow down and look around.


Next thing we know we are being asked to pull over by a motorcycle cop.  “Do you know why I pulled you over?” he says.  We stated that it was because we didn’t stop like we should have at the stop sign.  He asked for our driver’s lisc. Which I think he was surprised that both of us had.  Then he mentioned about another driver that had complained about us.  We nicely stated our position on that and he even went as far as stating that we could have been two abreast along that same area.  He finally just warned us and wished us a safe ride.  The whole rest of the ride we made sure we were stopping for those stop signs. 


After the ride with Christine, I rode my bike back to my car sitting outside my work. I tried turning the key but nothing.  This time I did notice that it was like the ignition was loose.  I called AAA and told them that I thought it just needed a jump start.  I was told me 25 to 30 minutes.  About 25 minutes later a driver shows up but not in a tow truck.  He’s got jumper cables and after two minutes of playing with the key in the ignition.  He tells me that my ignition needs to be replaced.  He gives me the option of calling a lock smith or a tow truck.  But the lock smith is after hours and might not have the right parts.  I opt to have it towed.


So out goes the call for the tow truck.  30 minutes later this lanky talk your head off guy shows up in a tow truck.  He spends almost the next hour trying to get my car into reverse so that he can get it backed up to hook it up to his truck.  The whole time he was going on and on; and I guess I reminded him of one of his favorite sisters of which he had 5 of  all of whom were older  than him. 


Meanwhile, I’m thinking if I was his older sister I would have been locking him up in a closet to get a moment of silence. Eventually, the car was backed up with the help of a co-worker that showed up out of the blue to pick up something from the office.  I left shortly after that in the dark with my lights on my bicycle and rode home.  It was about 10PM when I finally managed to get my bicycle up to my 3rd floor apartment, and I had yet to have dinner.  Oh What a Night! What an unusual night it was indeed.

Checking In…
Weight up 1 lb. and stats for the week are rather down…

Cycling—70 miles
Running—3.25 miles
Elliptical—14 minutes
And
One Pilates class


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