Saturday, April 21, 2007

Oops, I did it again


The photo is how Carl looks after 11 1/2 hours on the bike. It was taken on our second trip together in the RV, the 2007 MS 150, the first trip being the one where we broke the skylight. In between there were two solo chick trips where I broke nothing at all. After this trip, we don’t have an awning any more.

Before you make any unfair inferences connecting Carl to the tragedy, I have to take full responsibility for this one. I didn’t anchor the support legs and the wind whipped the awning up and over the top of the RV. There were at least a dozen witnesses on the MS 150 team who could have come to the rescue, but they were all just as amazed as I was when it went sailing. We think Carl can repair the brackets and replace a couple of broken pieces for a fraction of the cost of the new skylight.

The RV was a perfect vehicle to take as MS 150 support. Although the fog was so thick Saturday morning I drove to Katy at 20 mph with white knuckles, we made the rendezvous in time to rescue everyone who needed a flushy before riding off at 7 am. After spending our first few trips using the flushy for emergencies only, we really broke it in this trip with 16 riders and 4 support crew. And we left it all that flushy stuff in Austin at the end of the trip. I am now Vice President of the RV, and Carl says the Vice President gets to hook up the dump hoses. I checked for other officers who might want the job, and apparently, I am the only officer.

Saturday night we slept in the RV near Smithville at our host family’s lovely country home, and Sunday morning when we started moving around in the RV, we startled the resident border collie named Cowboy. He let loose a round of barking at that darn thing shaking in his driveway. Cowboy, by the way, is in love with a golf cart and sleeps by it in the garage whenever possible, so it is my theory that he was afraid the golf cart might get hurt by the monster parked nearby.

I drove the RV 384 miles this weekend. I’m thinking of bus driver as my next career. At one time I had 8 passengers, another time I had 6 bikes. Another time I had three bikers sleeping. What a versatile house on wheels.