Thursday's (reminiscing) Ride

The group ride Thursday was a million times mo'bettah because these latest rounds of rain kinda cooled things off; but the trade-off was the sauna-like lack of evaporative cooling. Really the term evaporative cooling does not apply to North Central Texas. El Paso and the parts that are in the Mountain Time Zone maybe but not here in Plano. This time I rode my bike to the meeting place so I can bail when the pack came near my folks' place back in Plano.
It's a wee bit unnerving cycling with three lanes of commuter traffic going or exceeding 50mph; but that's what cyclists do in suburbia Dallas. The ride itself was pretty uneventful (but hot). Took some turns up front pulling in a rotating paceline, accelerating sometimes to see who would follow but then I remembered that there's always a stoplight 'round the corner so I stopped the self-inflicted interval workout in the heat. Whenever people would accelerate up a hill (just barely qualifies as a geographical anticline) I would go to the front and and spin the pedals just a wee bit faster. Nobody responded which was fine with me. My legs were still feeling the residual tenderness from the cramps on Tuesday's ride. On the ride we cruise by my high school alma mater and I see the band geeks practicing their drills. The road to my high school used to dead end, now it's a pretty major thoroughfare that connects Plano to Allen. I can use such an un-nice term because I was a band geek too. So I ask the peloton who else here is a band geek? and about 4 people raise their hands-too funny. I played the tenor sax during marching season and bass clarinet during symphonic season. First chair may I add? Thank you.
Note to self: a base layer is completely useless and is deleterious to normal, heat-shunting effects. I read somewhere that it helps wick the heat away quicker-BULL$HIT! What it is good for is for putting fabric between the (rare times the) shoulder strap rubs against the nipples (making 'em tender) when you wear bib shorts.
Everything is nice and built up from what I remembered back in the day (which was considered the sticks). The golf course which was kind of remote now have million dollar homes on its margins. It always surprised me why owners of such exorbitant homes would want their neighbors within spitting distance of their property. Why is dat? We ride next to my friend's property which was huuge back in the day and now the city of Allen bought it up and subdivided it after Kent's parents passed away. I remember hanging out with Kent and Rory at Kent's Mom and Dad's and making riding plans and general tom foolery to inflict upon the North Central Texas scene.
Before going to my folks, I detoured to catch up with Brent (because temporarily he's living real close to my parents). Saw his two chilluns: Abigail and Gabriel. Beautiful kids. We committed to seeing Colin tonight at a grill called Obzeets in between Frisco and Plano off of Preston Rd. We'll be taking our kids too so we won't be staying too long.
Riding in the Texas heat makes my brain lazy (as opposed to when you say?) but the endorphins from the ride are keeping me loopy. I'm like a happy drunk with nothing but white noise resonating in my brain and a $hit eating grin on my face cycling back to my folks' house. Saw a lot of new, built up stuff from a mostly grasslands ecosystem from what I remembered twenty years ago. I guess the city manager(s) did an ite job zoning all the (human) artifacts where animals and photosynthetic organisms used to reside harmoniously with others in the ecosystem for generations before they got ripped away by big-a$$ machines to be replaced by concrete and carnivorous (and potentially diabetic) hominds along with their various, synergistic polluting lifestyle perpetuating machines (if you like that kind of stuff). Uh-oh, I'm sensing sarcasm...