IN THE PINK
It's getting hot in Michigan! Yowzer. We had a nice ride today, leaving Bay City via Center Street past a parade of imposing mansions built by the lumber barons of the past two centuries. After that, we hit sugar beet farms and cornfields. We took a lunch break in Fairgrove, and got some hot tips for a different route which we jumped all over. We are headed towards St. Clair, but are putting our own stamp on this part of the thumb. Okay, first the librarian in LeRoy wanted to know if we ever stopped while riding cross country, and now MORE people have asked me that. No one has asked that before, yet it's an assumption in Michigan that we have been riding night and day non-stop for 8 weeks! I wonder why that's the assumption here---are these folks into endurance events, or marathons? Plus, they ask me at times when it should be fairly obvious that I not only stop all the time, but I'm lazy and eat cupcakes too. And, I also try every new candy bar I see. Here's a tip I'll pass along to anyone who reads this: The Almond Joy candy bar that is special edition, with the passionfruit coconut is to be avoided. I still need to try the other new Almond Joy, the one with white chocolate and key lime coconut, but based on the passionfruit one, I don't have high expectations. Kami is in charge of all the new KitKat bars, and I think she said they aren't as good. I'm not into KitKats, so I don't care so much what they've done to enhance them.
I'm riding cross country this summer with a lot of pink clothes, following a theory that I developed and that I think has been proven true several times. I wore one pink jersey(the one in all the photos)so much and washed it so hard and so many times that I had to retire it when we took our Minnesota break. It was still plenty pink, but it was also getting shorter and shorter and shorter. When I was a little girl, I despised pink and everything in the "pink ghetto" at the toy store---no dolls, no Barbie Dream House or even Barbie's Dream Corvette for me. I emulated my older brothers, and being Texas boys in the sixties, they were not into "pink". I chose to wear their clothes whenever I could---to read their books, listen to their music, swipe their bikes, and later drive their cars all the while turning away from pink and the oppression I associated with that color. It seemed so limiting. But, times change and so did my mind! I reclaimed the color, and made a conscious effort to bring as much pink clothing on this trip as possible---for two reasons: 1) it makes me happy and 2) I believe that women are treated better than men on the road and elsewhere, and I think that both men and women will give women a break that they won't give men. So, I want people to see me on the road, and know that I'm a girl wearing pink. This theory of mine was put to the test one morning in North Dakota when we were in a bit of a jam and I decided that the easiest way out of it would be to get some roadside assistance from a "car person". I assured Kami that everything would soon be back in order, and that I would stop the first car over the hill going in our direction. I put down my bike, took off my helmet and sunglasses and stood in the road in my pink shirt and waited. Pretty soon, the first car, which was a pick up truck with an extended cab, crested the hill. I waved hopefully at them, and was stunned when they not only PASSED me in my pink shirt, but seemed to accelerate a little bit. I stood there and watched them drive down the road, and wondered WHAT could I be doing wrong? How could someone pass a woman on the road in a pink shirt waving for them to stop in the middle of NOWHERESVILLE North Dakota? I decided that they must be having a medical emergency and be rushing to the closest hospital. What other reason would keep them from stopping? Before Kami could make a comment about my pink shirt theory, I saw the brakelights of that truck come on, and about 1/2 mile down the road they pulled off into a turnaround and made the journey back to me. I hopped across the highway, and the first thing I said when they rolled down their window was "Thank you so much for coming back to me". There were two men and two women in that truck, and the women later told me that they made the men come back to see what was going on. Bless them. They quickly solved our problem, and I asked them if I could give them some money or do something to pay them back, and they refused anything in return. Except, the driver said, "hey, when you get to Maine, remember the four of us" and I know that's going to be easy, because I think about them every day whether I'm wearing one of my pink shirts or not.
I'm riding cross country this summer with a lot of pink clothes, following a theory that I developed and that I think has been proven true several times. I wore one pink jersey(the one in all the photos)so much and washed it so hard and so many times that I had to retire it when we took our Minnesota break. It was still plenty pink, but it was also getting shorter and shorter and shorter. When I was a little girl, I despised pink and everything in the "pink ghetto" at the toy store---no dolls, no Barbie Dream House or even Barbie's Dream Corvette for me. I emulated my older brothers, and being Texas boys in the sixties, they were not into "pink". I chose to wear their clothes whenever I could---to read their books, listen to their music, swipe their bikes, and later drive their cars all the while turning away from pink and the oppression I associated with that color. It seemed so limiting. But, times change and so did my mind! I reclaimed the color, and made a conscious effort to bring as much pink clothing on this trip as possible---for two reasons: 1) it makes me happy and 2) I believe that women are treated better than men on the road and elsewhere, and I think that both men and women will give women a break that they won't give men. So, I want people to see me on the road, and know that I'm a girl wearing pink. This theory of mine was put to the test one morning in North Dakota when we were in a bit of a jam and I decided that the easiest way out of it would be to get some roadside assistance from a "car person". I assured Kami that everything would soon be back in order, and that I would stop the first car over the hill going in our direction. I put down my bike, took off my helmet and sunglasses and stood in the road in my pink shirt and waited. Pretty soon, the first car, which was a pick up truck with an extended cab, crested the hill. I waved hopefully at them, and was stunned when they not only PASSED me in my pink shirt, but seemed to accelerate a little bit. I stood there and watched them drive down the road, and wondered WHAT could I be doing wrong? How could someone pass a woman on the road in a pink shirt waving for them to stop in the middle of NOWHERESVILLE North Dakota? I decided that they must be having a medical emergency and be rushing to the closest hospital. What other reason would keep them from stopping? Before Kami could make a comment about my pink shirt theory, I saw the brakelights of that truck come on, and about 1/2 mile down the road they pulled off into a turnaround and made the journey back to me. I hopped across the highway, and the first thing I said when they rolled down their window was "Thank you so much for coming back to me". There were two men and two women in that truck, and the women later told me that they made the men come back to see what was going on. Bless them. They quickly solved our problem, and I asked them if I could give them some money or do something to pay them back, and they refused anything in return. Except, the driver said, "hey, when you get to Maine, remember the four of us" and I know that's going to be easy, because I think about them every day whether I'm wearing one of my pink shirts or not.
posted by Laurel @ 5:33 PM
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