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| Sunday Afternoon, 1:00 Fine Tuning before the Launch |
Another awesome weather day. No humidity, bright sun tempered by huge puffy clouds on a deep blue background. Low wind. With the Niceness!
I've been tracking my food intake religiously for over a year (via www.livestrong.com/myplate) and have lost about 22 lbs in 14 months. I've actually reached a certain point of stasis whereby I fluctuate by a few lbs depending on the recent few days of eating/drinking and riding or not riding. Last night at the asparagus party I ate and drank with abandon. Instead of (gulp!) trying to itemize my vast consumption, I just recorded a ballpark number of calories consumed (I went with 2200 given the beer, lamb, jerk chicken, rice & vegetables, corn bread, challah bread pudding, cupcakes, and chocolate peanut butter balls I consumed). This morning I note that I gained two lbs from yesterday, logging in at 148.2 lbs (67 KG).
All the more reason to go BIG.
Today, I manage to leave early enough to have time for a reasonably long ride (though not early enough to do the proverbial 60+ miles ride that every weekend I imagine myself doing). But feeling slightly taxed from last night's indulgences, I am not up for a lot of climbing so eschew the western route and the Princeton Hills and instead head northeast into the semi-rural commuter towns of Lunenburg, Shirley, Groton, Pepperell, Devens. I conceive of the course as I pedal. Part of it, I decide, should take in the Nashua River Rail Trail. I generally avoid community rail trails on nice weekend afternoons because they are busy with weekend bikers, inline skaters, dog walkers, etc., but today it makes sense to incorporate about seven miles of this trail to provide a car-free passage between Pepperell and Ayer and the last leg of the ramble.
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| Rail Trail Style |
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| Bubble It Dub In the scruffy town of Ayer |
Ride Summary: 40 miles (64 K), 16 mph, 3,062 feet of elevation according to strava (and I thought I was avoiding climbing), two and a half hours a-spin. Lemonstar - Lunenburg - Groton - Shirley - Pepperell - Groton - Devens - Shirley - Lemonstar.
Road Kill: A bad day road kill. I arrived too late to save the big water snake I came upon dead on its back near a culvert.
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| Water Snake, West Groton |
A large fisher buzzed with flies and the stench of decay (it had been dead more than a day for sure).
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| Fisher, all dignity gone |
Finally, I happened upon what I thought was a dead monarch butterfly. However, it turned out to be alive but on its back upside down and struggling mightily. I gave it my finger, it grabbed on and righted itself but when I let it go, it fluttered but couldn't stay aloft. I left it on the road side, off the tarmac at least. But I doubt it lived.
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| Butterfly that probably didn't live |
Respectful moment of silence for the victims of car craziness - they're not hard to photograph. Roadkill documentation project ... NEA funding maybe? Art or biology or sociology? Dust unto dust dubster, but for the grace of Gott there goeth thee. We. What was the carnage like when the wagon trains were busting trail out west? Did I bring this to your attention?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2582865/Train-passengers-horror-high-speed-TGV-pulls-French-station-body-cyclist-crushed-25-MILES-accident-took-place.html
Scrodicus
Last year the mayhem got so bad it occurred to me that I should try to photograph all the road kill I see, a sort of homage to the life departed. So I'm giving it a whirl, more or less. So yes it's a kind of a socio-biologico-artistico-project-lament.
DeleteAnd I wish you HADN'T brought that unfortunate incident in France to my attention. Ugly business. But it proves a point - don't try to beat the train.
Most, if not all, water snakes are poisonous. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteiCod.
That one looks like as king snake.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right that it's a king snake. But not all water snakes are poisonous, there are some benign ones.
DeleteGotta' say, this was one of the bigger dead snakes I've seen.