July 2022 in the Books

Riding

Well, July was an interesting month. I managed to ride 1,321 miles even while taking a week off because of travel and quarantine. All but 60 of those miles were part of my bike tour. I finished the tour with 3,449 miles, my second longest tour ever. And it sure felt like it. 66 is not the new 62.

The longest ride was 95.5 miles from McKenzie River to Corvallis. Corey had started the day joking about riding 100 miles. We nearly pulled it off.

This was my third month in a row with over 1,000 miles. I didn’t come close to breaking my month record which was over 2,000 miles on my 2018 tour.

For the year I have ridden 6,839.5 miles, on a pace for 11,776 miles for the year. If only I can squeeze in another tour, I might just make it. (Not gonna happen.)

Reading

After two months on the road I bought two books for my trip home. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien us about storytelling and about being a kid soldier in Vietnam. I was watching an episode of the old WWII TV show Combat! and one thing stuck out: all the actors are in their 30s and 40s. O’Brien’s book is about kids just out of high school. It’s also about the art of telling a story. Strangely the book works really well.

The other book I read was Larry McMurtry’s Horseman, Pass By. It was the basis for the old Paul Newman movie, Hud. I am now interested in watching Hud to see how much the original material was changed. It was McMurtry’s first book and he captures life and language on a ranch in north Texas with great skill.

I have a stack of reading – Adventure Cycling Magazine, National Geographic, and two books that arrived while I was away. It’ll take me all of August to get through it all.

Watching

I watched two movies this month. The Fundamentals of Caring. It has Paul Rudd. I’ll watch Paul Rudd in anything. The Bucket List is a weird buddy movie about two old guys on their last legs. It was directed by Rob Reiner. Mediocre with Nicholson chewing the scenery in every scene. The chemistry between the two leads was never quite right. Also, there were multiple continuity errors that were really annoying.

I have fallen behind all the Star Wars and Marvel shows. Once I can be in the same room as my wife (three more days of masking) I’ll cue them up.

Recovering

I am out of quarantine but still need to wear an N95 mask. My wife and I are living on separate floors to the extent possible. Next Thursday we can revert to normal. Unless I relapse.