Layin' Rock and other Weekly Happenings

So this week has been characterized by cutting plants in the garden pond, followed by falling into the pond, to be followed next by breaking the Communistesq sickle while chopping down the pond plants to be continued the next day with garden scissors, mowing grass, going to the dump and today laying down concrete with Heinz for the course tomorrow. Ohh yeah, I climbed a pretty steep ladder and drilled some holes. It definitely made me feel like home. The work we all put into the garden this week makes it look really nice. It also brings dark reminders of what owning a home with a yard requires. The pictures they paint of home ownership don't seem to describe too well the hours of work that go into maintaining your lawn. I suppose we are lead to believe that the picture at the garden store is static and no work is needed to maintain. The course for tomorrow's race is going to be quite a little dandy. Heinz and I laid concrete on the public street today, b/c you can do that here in Germany, to alleviate the potential damage the surface might cause.

So what is this race? It's the Baden-Württemburg Bergmeisterschaft, that translates to the state hill race championship. To appreciate the beauty of this course, you need to close your eyes then imagine this...You are surrounded by beautiful wine vineyards, there is a tiny road, wide enough to host one auto...this fairytale lane wanders up the mountain before taking some sharp turns to take the rider over a glorious view of the region, shortly later, this beautiful image is flushed down the toilet as a 23% golf cart path has arrows pointing up it...so you next slug your way up hoping that you don't get stopped by those too exhausted to make it up....then it's put on your seatbelt but then you remember that you don't have one on this bicycle because the descending is probably even more physically demanding than the climb up...the golf cart paths and tight turns don't give you much room for error. So then you cross the fine craftsmanship of myself and Heinz only to repeat this 10 more times or 13. Right now, I'm doing the C-klasse race unless my teammates convince me to throw my hat into the full monty 14 lap KT/A/B/C race. It's going to be hard no matter what but I have chance to do well in the C, with several big teams coming in the other field, it's likely to be rolling off the back and suffering.

On the food note, Gretel and her sister came by yesterday and made dampfnodel with vanilla soße and fresh apfel nuss(apple sauce). It was hammer! It was a tasty dinner treat following my day at the swimbad with die Kuhn and die Lagler. As I was walking to the pool, I got fingers and laughs from many, especially the young girls. What was it? As my brothers would say, "did you forget to take off your shirt?" Yeah, cycling tans on me are pretty intense. The young girls laughs were anything to worry about, it was the older dudes with more muscles in their pecs and arms than brains that bothered me.

Meow,
Bearclaw