when almost none of the pictures come out

You'll see below - that's the best of a bad lot of pictures. I've already deleted more than half of 'em.

I needed this ride. I'm just back from Buffalo from visiting my mother, who's old enough to be my mother and who's developed a bit of age-related memory loss (a fall and ensuing probable concussion last spring didn't help matters), and my sister and brother-in-law. Sister is charged with the care of my mom; she's pretty much ensured that I have nothing to do with my mother's care except to listen to the two of them complain. I'm grateful for the quality of the care my mother is getting, and I'm sure I could not do any better than my sister is doing, but it's uncomfortable to be so completely left out.

There's also the fact that our family life was not idyllic. The quality of our family relationships appears to improve as the distance between us increases, and to deteriorate as we are more and more in contact with each other. It's not as bad as those depressing and tedious plays by the likes of Eugene O'Neill, but I'm glad I don't live with them any more.

So we just got back yesterday. I'd listed this ride once I knew the weather was likely to hold, and I hoped some folks I knew, or others I would like, would  come along. I wasn't disappointed.

Laura OLPH, Winter Larry, and John W came out, as did Rama K, who hadn't done a B-rated ride before, and Cindy H, a non-member who spent a lot of the ride off the front.

I got a number of pictures, most of which didn't come out, mostly due to my impatience. Below are the least-worst of the lot:

I like the pics for the blog posts, but they aren't the most important part of the ride (they certainly weren't today). More important is that, after almost 50 miles on the bike, 35-or-so of it with (mostly) club members, I'm somewhat less wacky than I was on the drive home after seeing family for the past several days, sleeping in an unfamiliar place, eating things I'm not used to on someone else's schedule, and so on.

This ride was great for me. At one point, we were joking about the traffic and asking why these people weren't in church of a Sunday morning, and (I think it was) John W said, "This is church for me". That's not exactly true for me, but it's closer than a number of other things I cold have said.

Ride page. Includes my rides to and from the start.

At least one of the next two weeks, I won't be able to lead this ride; family conflict (this one's on The Excellent Wife [TEW]'s side of the family). I hope to dragoon a substitute leader. We'll see.