Another Yucca, sketch

My sketch today, yuccas. I just like them and they are very prevalent here. Micron 005 pen in my watercolor sketchbook. I was going to color it, but decided I liked it the way it is. It is just about the same view I painted plein air the other day. They have lost their delicate blooms and have the seed pods that are green. They will dry to a brown color and become hard like a nut shell and open to look like bells.

Today Gene went on a pretty long bike ride. He is trying to get in shape for his birthday ride. He rides his age in miles. Year before last he rode 100 miles, no he is not ancient, he will be 66 this year. He says that if he rides over his age, he can put some in the bank for when he is too old to ride his age. Like at 80, will he be wanting to ride 80 miles? He has been behind in his total miles this year and feels a little out of shape. He did 36 miles today in the wind and much uphill so maybe he is near ready. Only a couple of weeks to go. I go along as his SAG (Service, Assistance, Gears) car, sort of. I drive past him and then wait for him at a designated spot, then he can decide to go further or quit. My wait can be for a few minutes or hours, depending on the ride.

In Canada, he would ride the trails they have converted from narrow gauge railroad tracks. I would leave him off at one end and go to the other, maybe 50 miles away, and wait for him. Whiling away the time is no problem for me. Usually I paint plein air. When my wait time is shorter, as today, about an hour, I sketch. Of course on shorter spurts, like on his birthday ride, I usually do crosswords and sketch. I don't want to get to far away on these long highway rides so only have 30 - 45 minutes at a time.

In Canada there were a couple of times that our ideas got crossed up. Once in Nova Scotia, he was going cross country on a trail and he told me to just go to his final destination, a small town. I told him that I would probably stop about half way and paint somewhere near the trail and he could stop by and I would follow him later. Well, I stopped at a nice place where the trail crossed the highway and sketched the ocean/bay, read, napped, etc. It got later and later and rained. I decided we had missed each other and he was going to be at the end in the small town, wet and tired of waiting. As it happened, the map of the trail was wrong. Much further than he thought. He came dragging to the halfway point and just as he came onto the highway, he saw the tail lights of the van going UP the mountain. Aargh. When I got to the appointed place, I was pretty worried ... no Gene! We both tried calling, but "no service". I couldn't go back as the train trail was some distance from the road, and I might miss him. In the meantime, Gene decided to finish on the highway in case I came back. Much harder ride, up and down the mountains and in the rain and traffic. It was getting dark and I was about to go report him missing so that I could go back to look for him, when he came pedaling in. Very wet and tired. Oh why didn't I wait five more minutes. That became the new rule .. anytime I think I have waited too long, wait 5, no make it 15, more minutes.

Today he left to ride towards Deming. I was going to leave in about 1 1/2 hours, catch him and decide where to go from there. I left earlier, deciding that I can get engrossed in the computer and forget to leave on time. I knew I could pass him and stop and sketch down the road. I did catch him just past Hurley. He said to go on to the turn off to the City of Rocks and he would decide from there what to do. (He is riding a loaner bicycle as his is being worked on. He has over 20,000 miles on his bicycle.) I did that and sketched for about 40 minutes. He showed up, a little tired as he was facing a headwind. He said he would start back and to give him about 20 minutes and pick him up. He then, would have ridden for about 3 hours. I got out a crossword puzzle and set to work. About 30 minutes later I realized I had gone past the time and took off. He was wondering if the pickup wouldn't start or what. He rode an extra 20 minutes or so. About 36.6 miles. But we loaded up and came on back to the house. And so the saga goes ... We usually have an adventure, no matter what we do or how we plan. Ain't life interesting?