The Juan Pelota ranch was pretty sweet. The race and the weather were not so much. Lauren, Seu, and I arrive at around noon on Saturday to catch the start of the Pro race. It was effin' hot. We met up with Kathy and headed to the super-sweet, shaded viewing area to watch the pro race. It was a good spot for sure, especially after landscaping a bit so my chair was level and after the sun moved behind that tree branch. The pros were definitely pretty fast. We had a couple Texans do pretty well in the race too so that was sweet. We didn't sit around for the finish because it was like a sauna but a little drier but still like a sauna. We headed back to town to stay at the same sweet hotel we stayed at the weekend before and hung out for a while until dinner. We hit up Texas Land and Cattle for dinner and it was delicious. Post dinner Lauren and I were headed back to the hotel when she decided she wanted some ice cream. We stopped at the Exxon down the road from the hotel. After buying some ice cream, water, and a couple of lottery tickets we walked out only to see some dude getting guns pulled on him by the cops. I quickly realized the guns were also pointed in our general direction so I quickly grabbed Lauren and scooted off to the side. At first I thought the dude was getting busted for driving a
convertible Volkswagon Beetle, who does that? Turns out the dude was doin' a little drug dealing. It was pretty sweet to see the cops bust him and pull out a pretty good sized bag of white powder, not totally sure what it was, that's probably a good thing. Then we went back to the hotel and you . . . know . . . scratched lottery tickets. I bought five dollars worth of tickets, two-two dollar tickets and one-one dollar ticket. We scratched the two dollar tickets first, I didn't win anything on mine, Lauren won five dollars on hers so she let me scratch the one dollar ticket and I won thirty dollars. Not bad for a five dollar investment.
Popo's:
The race was on Sunday which is normal and I got out and ready early. I warmed up pretty good and was feeling pretty good when I headed to the start. I hadn't ever ridden the course so I wasn't sure how it would go. The race started pretty fast and with the heat I knew I wouldn't last too long if I tried to keep it up. I was doing pretty good, about mid pack and recovering from the start and starting to feel pretty good. Then I went over a little descent and my front tire hit the one rock that was sticking up and I briefly popped the bead on my tire and I went down pretty hard. After getting up and giving my bike and then myself a once over I noticed my tire wasn't totally flat. I decided to try riding very gently. It didn't work, I soon flatted and I was left to walk it in. It was a nice hot hike to the start/finish area but I did get to cheer on all the other racers along the way, they looked pretty overheated. It was the first time I had a mechanical and couldn't finish so I wasn't terribly upset and after seeing how most people felt after the race I suppose this was the race to crash/flat out of. I still managed a fifth place in the series.
In other news, I started a new position at work this week. I will be working closely with geologists both supporting them and helping them with their work. It should be pretty interesting, I will be learning a lot and meeting some pretty cool people. I will have more details after I've been there a little while.
