Another beautiful Saturday at the end of July—partly cloudy with winds out of the northeast, keeping temperatures right around 80 degrees. We slept in a bit later than usually, so we didn’t start out until around 10:30. But that’s because we decided we’d go ride and then head over to Surf Rider at Marina Shores for a yummy seafood lunch. Bill was treating me to lunch because plans to go to Surf Rider that night and listen to Lewis McGehee, a local music legend, had fallen through. We decided on lunch so we only had to drive out to VA Beach once today, and with the cool breeze and lovely day, it turned out perfect. But I’m ahead of myself; back to the ride.
As we turned onto the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood, we noticed a yard sale with lots of cars parked on the street. Very quickly we noticed a second yard sale across the street from the first, and one block up we discovered three more yard sales. Unbeknownst to us, we had arrived smack in the middle of the neighborhood community yard sale, the one Saturday a year when any and everyone in the neighborhood can have a yard sale with the advertising promoted through the civic league. There would be no cruising through the neighborhood on both bikes after my practice.
I just realized I was ahead of myself again. As we first pulled into the neighborhood, we passed by our erstwhile elementary school, the one we were asked not to use anymore for our practicing. The playground, basketball courts, and field were swarming with Americans of Indian descent purportedly there for a cricket match, though I don’t think the young men on the playground equipment could be said to be playing cricket. Their cars were all parked in the bus lanes of the school and included two motorcycles. Somehow this was acceptable by school personnel, but my practicing slow, safe skills on my motorcycle bespoke delinquency (note, I left off the juvenile).
Despite the hypocrisy, despite the yard sale crowd, we quickly strategized a similar practice to last week where I worked on U-turns and stopping/threshold drills on the dead-end street. Bill was sure there would be no yard sale at his house nor at his neighbors. And he was right. However, there was a yard sale at the last house on the block on the corner, a very popular yard sale based on the number of cars.
But we would not be deterred. Using the extra cars as additional awareness training, I worked on S turns (double U-turns) on the street. I would pull over when a car came near me to either turn up the street or do their own U-turn. I worked on feeling my weight shift onto the opposite peg from the turn. I quickly realized that the reason I was struggling with my right side turn was because I needed to more consciously shift my weight onto my left peg. I didn’t do much shifting of my butt, though. I’m not comfortable enough on the canted street yet to do too much weight shifting. I felt good pressing my foot onto the peg. So I worked on this pulling over 3 times for unpredictable traffic.
Then came “rush hour” where four vehicles headed up the street. Two of them turned up the intersecting road, one did a U-turn, and the fourth, pulling a 25 foot boat, parked on the street in the middle of my practice area. I pulled over by Bill laughing at the absurdity of it all. Clearly Murphy had it out for us today.
The restaurant became our silver lining, the way to rescue the day. Now living near the Atlantic means seafood restaurants are incredibly popular especially during the height of summer. This restaurant is also located adjacent to a Marina near a very spiffy residential part of town, so the well-to-do will have lunch and hang out looking out at the water and their boats. The parking lot was crowded, but we managed to get a parking spot super close to the restaurant with a jet-ski rental tent on one side. As we entered the restaurant, we noticed that it was still crowded even though we had arrived after 1:30. Still, we only had to wait while the waitress wiped down a table—outside right on the water.
So lunch saved the day. We had delicious tuna bites, salads, and steamed shrimp and crab (no fried because we had indulged in hamburgers and French fries the night before). As nice as lunch was, though, we are overdue for a break with our riding.
Flutterby Biker 