With 17 days off the bike I wondered how the legs would do today.

The long time off came about from my wife and I taking a vacation. We traveled by Amtrak from Houston to New York City and then took a cruise on the Norwegian Gem up to Halifax. Once we reached Halifax the cruise moved south stopping at Saint John, New Brunswick, Bar Harbor, MN, Boston, and Newport, RI, before returning to New York City. After a couple of days in New York we boarded the Amtrak Crescent to New Orleans. We spent a night in New Orleans. After that we took the Amtrak Sunset Limited to Houston.

Back to my legs; they did pretty good as long as I wasn’t riding into the wind. Fortunately the wind was not that strong so I managed to average 15.0 mph over the 32.93 mile route through Atascocita, Walden on Lake Houston and Huffman. The terrain around here is flat so no challenge going up any hills either.

The main challenge was the change in the weather since we left on vacation. When we left it was in the low 90’s. Today I waited until 1:03 to give the sun time enough to warm up. It was 73 as I rode out the driveway and 77 when I rode back in. Riding in the shade was cooling and I am glad I decided to wear long sleeve and short sleeve jerseys. One thing of beauty was the clear blue sky. On our trip there were days when the sky feel on us. In Bar Harbor it rained while we took a catamaran out to look for whales. Sadly we did not get to see any.

Being gone this long sometimes means the roads can change with construction or what not. I did not find any on the route but some construction signs were added on FM2100 north of Old Atascocita Road so this might show up in a few days. With the Grand Parkway construction at US59 and Community Drive my route selection can get hemmed in.

My mileage for October also took a hit from the time off. The month’s total is now 224.66. Year to date stands at 5442 miles. It looks like I will not reach last year’s total and I will need to minimize days off to reach 6000 miles for the year. Hopefully the weather cooperates.

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