The bat cave

My mom had her second cancer operation today. This one was much easier on her and it puts her back to the way she was before the first operation. I'll spare you the details. Anway she seems fine now. Well,..she has to stay in the hospital for a few days but other than that I think she will be ok. I was thinking. There are only so many rooms in this hospital and I think we've been in quite a few of them now. It's like we own it now or something. I feel quite at home there.

Speaking of home. I'm blogging from the basement bedroom of the house I grew up in. It's really an old house. Built around 1900. Here is a photo of my workstation. I don't know why I find this interesting but I do. Don't you ever wonder where people blog from? I mean that exact space. Well right now this is it. It's a cool old desk actually. I wish I owned it. Who knows perahps some day I will. I used to sleep in this bedroom during the summer when it was hot out. There is a door with some steps that lead outside. I'd keep my bike in the next room and early in the morning I'd put my bike shorts on, grab my bike, go out that basement door and ride it all the way to Flathead Lake sometimes which is 100 miles to the north.

It was a strange transition to leave the basment like that, then leave the city streets and then be out on the open highway on my bike. Like leaving the bat cave or something. Then I'd hang out at the cabin and ride back a few days later. Life was good back then. Simple. The only thing I had to worry about was getting a flat or having a mechanical. I used to carry quarters in my socks and I knew where all of the pop machines were along the way.

I used to put Coke in my water bottles when I ran out of water. I had a water bottle on my handlebars over my front brake. I didn't notice that Coke had been splashing out onto the front brake. I had a rule back then about distance riding; never use the brakes if you don't really need to. I was going down this one steep section pretty fast about as fast as traffic so pulled out into the lane. I touched the brakes to control my speed and the front one stuck while braking. I wasn't ready for that and it threw me forward off of the saddle as my body was relaxed. I managed to ride the bike to a stop but it gave me a scare. I took the brake apart at a nearby stream and cleaned off the sticky Coke. After that I had another rule: never put Coke in the front bottle.