Let’s just say Sunday was a lost cause. We had dinner guests planned and that meant I had projects to finish around the house. I did manage to get out long enough to pick up a new tire and tube for the bike after suffering two flats in consecutive days. I think the towpath is the wrong surface for my road bike. I did manage a short hike to the beaver marsh and back with Paul and a little over 11,000 steps for the day. Monday, I vowed, would be better.
“So how do you think you’d do in a post-apocalyptic world, dad?”
I had stopped over Savannah's after work to spend some time with Jack and he asks the damnedest questions. Our conversations often head places they don’t with anyone else. He is home on leave for two weeks and there is no one I enjoy talking to more.
“Frankly – I hope I go in the explosion, but if I don’t, I think it would be tough to live thinking I need to fight and kill for everything I need. I don’t think I could do it unless one of my family was in jeopardy. Then I could do anything,” I said.
We had been discussing North Korea and 9/11, since it was the anniversary. He was in kindergarten at the time and has no recollection of the events other than his mom coming to take him home from school. Since I was in the Adirondacks at the time, I didn’t know anything until that evening when I kayaked into Wanakana to pick up some milk at a small general store. The clerk looked me over, noticed the several day growth of beard and said, “you don’t know what happened today, do you?”
We talked more about chain of command in the military and whether or not the military could maintain control of things if everything else broke down.
“I think it could as long as commanding officers weren’t giving orders that soldiers knew to be immoral and started rebelling,” I said.
“I don’t think I could ever disobey a General. I’d figure they knew something I didn’t and I’d just follow orders like I’d been taught,” he said.
I described Mai Lai during the Viet Nam war and mentioned the atrocities of the Nazi’s during WWII. He saw my point and I’m sure it made him think. He’s like that.
I got home and did some chores before changing into my cycling outfit and hitting the road. It was 6:30 and I figured I had 90 minutes of daylight. Maybe in Highland Heights, but in the Valley…not so much. I pedaled hard over the last twenty minutes and pulled into Indian Springs around 7:40. It was already darker than I’m comfortable riding in. I know I need a light on the bike, but think that if I got one I’d start taking more chances with the dark and that’s not good. I know they work well and that I can see illuminated bikes farther off and maybe better than I see riders in daylight, but I’m still not so sure I want to be one of them.
I will also admit that I’m in horrible shape…for me. I’ve got a lot of training to do for the next trip to the Adirondacks and time is running low. I think I’m in a good groove again and will keep it going into the winter provided the winter isn’t so tough that I’m too exhausted when I get home from work to do much of anything but rest. Poor old man…
Bike duration: 70 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1,000.
Bonus: 18,000 steps.
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