I had a rather unusual urge to go on a bicycle ride last night.  I think I was feeling a little guilty about not getting up and going to the gym in the morning, and thought I needed some exercise.  I’ve only actually gotten up and gone to the gym before work once this year, so I don’t why it should have particularly bothered me yesterday, but such was the case.  I did a quick scan of the handy local ride calendar, and the “Martin City Brewery Ride” caught my eye.  Hmmm, a new ride on the calendar!  And, as it happened, I’d been wanting to check out the new restaurant also, so this struck me as a good plan all around.  So, I headed out that way and easily found the group forming up for the ride.  (It wasn’t very hard;  Martin City only has about 10 buildings.)  We took off right at 6:30, and after a rather dicey stretch down Blue Ridge we made a few turns and I began to recognize the route as a section of the much-maligned Summer Breeze ride from last year.  Rats, hills.  Hills, indeed.  Possessing one of the worst cardiovascular systems in the state of Missouri, I quickly lagged to the back of the group.  I did manage to hang with them for the 20 mile ride though, if mostly out of fear of getting lost.  I will definitely try the route again, it was really sort of nice in that there were very few stops and very little traffic.  Flatten it out a bit and it would be outright wonderful.  After finishing the ride, everybody went inside to hang out in the new restaurant.  At least I thought they went inside, so I snuck around back to grab a table by myself on the patio.  To my dismay, I found they had all gone through the building and were sitting on the patio also.  I felt I was somewhat obliged to join them at that point, so I pulled up a chair at the table.  The place is OK, but they have some kinks to work out.  Honestly it’s not a “Brewery” at all, it’s just a restaurant/bar.  Luckily I knew this beforehand by reading online a bit, so I wasn’t too disappointed.  I also read that their service can be a bit sketchy, and man did they live up to that.  Those poor kids messed up everything that could possibly be messed up, I kind of felt sorry for them.  Then again, when you’re sitting at a table with 15-20 people, all of whom want separate checks, you are gonna hit some snags.  (Another reason I didn’t really want to sit with the group.)  It would probably be a lot fairer to ride the motorcycle out there for lunch some day with Donette, we’ll have to do that soon.  (Soon as they come out with a coupon most likely…)

It seems like most of our activities these days are dictated by what we have a coupon for.  Such was generally the case this weekend.  I guess the exception was Friday night, when I ended up down at the Brooksider.  My friend Troy (Laura Schalker-Manivong’s hubby) came down and hung out with me for the better part of the evening.  I don’t get to see him very often, which allows for plenty of conversation material.  And, while I didn’t have a coupon for the occasion, the ol’ Brooksider is just downright reasonably priced so I didn’t break my wallet right off the bat.

Saturday our entertainment for the afternoon was at John’s downtown.  Not my favorite place to hang out by any stretch, but we had a groupon that was about to expire so we figured it would pass the time.  It was a nice day too, so I had to admit that a little time on their deck didn’t sound bad at all.  I wasn’t sure if you could order food on the deck or not, but luckily you could, albeit in foam to-go containers with plastic-ware.  What the heck, gave it a little picnic feel.  I’ve eaten at John’s several times for lunch, and have always been less than impressed, to say the least.  About the most complimentary thing I’ve ever been able to come up with has been “It’s cheap.”  As it turns out, that may have always been my own fault for just getting the lunch special of the day.  (Generally something along the lines of tacos, grilled cheese, etc.)  On Saturday I ordered a catfish sandwich and Donette had a burger, and both were very good.  I’d go so far as to say her burger was “outstanding,” as a matter of fact.  I may well find myself back there in the not-so-distant future to order one myself and make sure it wasn’t just a fluke.  While we enjoyed our early dinner, a pretty good crowd of youngsters filled up the place.  It appeared they had spent their afternoon at the nearby swimming pool, and they were all good and wound up.    Hey, what can you expect for a rooftop patio on a nice afternoon.  They were a bit loud, but provided us quite a bit of entertainment while we ate too.

Sunday my day started off with a nice 17-mile bike ride with Munkirs.  We had kicked around the idea of 34 miles, but between the 95% humidity and our assorted old-man aches and pains, it wasn’t too difficult to call it good at half that.  Plus, I had the prospect of mowing the lawn staring me in the face, another unpleasant task in that kind of weather.  Indeed, by the time I finished these two activities I was not a happy camper.  Felt a little woozy as a matter of fact.  Desperate for some calories and air-conditioning, we headed up to our old stand-by 75th Street.  They’re always good for some cheap refreshment, so we hung out there and watched the Royals game.  (“Watched” being the key word there;  They never have the sound on, which annoys me.  Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.)  After the game we headed back home and loitered for the rest of the day.  I broke out of my horror-movie genre last night and watched “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” which I haven’t ever seen.  I started watching it on network TV but the commercials drove me crazy pretty quickly so I found it on Netflix.  Good movie, if entirely too thought-provoking for me.

That felt like a short weekend.  I’m not entirely sure I didn’t miss a day somewhere.  Guess it’s over though.  That’s usually the sign of a busy weekend, which I suppose it was.  We started things off on Friday with happy hour down at the Phoenix, where we watched Lonnie McFadden for a few hours.  Great show.  We got there about 30 minutes before he started and grabbed what I thought was a great table.  It’s the table I always eat lunch at so it must be a good one.  As it turned out, maybe it was a better spot for lunch than watching a band.  We were over on the “bar side” of the place, where it got pretty loud pretty quickly with the after-work crowd.  I think over on the dining room side of the place might have been better for watching the show.  Oh well, the place was packed so I’m not sure it made a huge difference, but we’ll try the other side next time.

Saturday we had some tentative plans for several different things, none of which panned out.  We did roll up north, with Teagan in tow, and visited with Donette’s parents for a while.  They had just completed a big remodel in the house so we got to see that, and Teagan enjoyed the opportunity to play fetch in a yard bigger than a postage stamp.  After that we headed back south, and settled in for the evening.  Just couldn’t get going again.  There were a few festivals nearby that we had considered going to, but between the muggy heat and a general lack of interest (not to mention a general lack of funds,) we just couldn’t quite get out the door.

Sunday I got up early and rode my bicycle down to Union Station to participate in the City Of Fountains ride.  Munkirs met me down there, and we took off on the “long” route.  Good ride, if maybe marked a bit sketchily.    By the end of the ride it seemed people had pretty much given up on even trying to follow the route, and were just trying to head the right general direction.  Musta worked, we ended up back where we started eventually.  With my ride down there and back, I got 50 miles out of the morning, a good distance for me.  After I got home and cleaned up, we headed off to the pool for my inaugural visit of the year.  Donette’s been a few times already, but I’ve had neither the opportunity or the inclination myself.  Sunday was a nice afternoon though;  Not too hot, and with all the rain the pool provided an icy-cold option if things did get a little too warm.  We hung out there for a few hours, then headed for a late lunch / early dinner at Quintons, a new entry up in Waldo.  It got a rather mixed review from us.  On the upside, they feature four different reuben sandwiches, which just so happened to be exactly what I was in the mood for.  I went with the pastrami option, on rye.  (As if there should even be another bread choice;  They did have white or wheat for some weird reason though.)  It was an excellent sandwich, if I ever do get back there it will be to have another one of those.  Donette had turkey on a croissant, which she said was good also.  But, on the downside, we just didn’t really care for the place.  That’s a little vague, I realize, but such was the case.  It was a little overpriced, a little stuffy, and when the owner dropped in and changed the channel from the Royals game we were clearly watching, I think it probably marked the end of Quintons for us.

Man I was stressed out yesterday.  Perhaps the most stressful part of my stress what that I could pinpoint exactly WHY I was stressed.  Best I could come up with was that I had my day very well planned out and it had dissolved into a frantic jumbled mess by 9:00.  That isn’t all too rare of an occurrence though, so I don’t know why it would throw me off yesterday.  At any rate, stressed I was.  As luck would have it, as soon as walked in the door after work Donette greeted me with an invitation to the Brooksider.  Ahhhh, that sounded just perfect, so we loaded up lil’ Teagan and headed down there.  They have an intermittently enforced “no dog” rule down there, so Donette and Teagan didn’t stay too long, but everybody got to meet the pup at least.  After they headed back home, I hung out and enjoyed the nice weather and a CAO Brazilia stogie.  This little respite seemed to calm my nerves a bit, whew.

Last night I met Munkirs for the Tuesday night bike ride out at Mission Farms shopping center.  That route is still growing on me, it’s just a pretty nice ride.  It started off as usual, a huge group of riders in a big bunch taking up a whole lane.  Then, also as usual, about the 5 mile mark the group started thinning out a bit and breaking up into smaller groups.  Few more miles, the group gets smaller, and by that time Munkirs and I have usually settled into our pace for the evening.  Towards the end of the route I was feeling pretty drained, and when we finished and checked our cheap, barely functional, non-Garmin computers we both showed just a bit over a 17 mph average.  That’s pretty zippy for old men like us, definitely the fastest we’ve ridden that route this year.  I have a feeling it’s also about the max speed for that group, I don’t think we’ll see much faster than that.  I threw in a little bonus for the evening too, and rode my bike from the house out to the ride.  A little pre-planning might have resulted in a slightly slower speed during the ride, so I’d be able to actually get back home under my own power.  I made it though, albeit at a much slower pace, for a total of 32 miles on the evening.