Sharon Hawley

Sharon Hawley
Click on this map to open Michael Angerman's detailed map showing my current location. There, you can pan and zoom.. Thanks Michael

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Florida in Slow Motion





I have moved so slowly across Florida that Spanish moss has grown on the bicycle.  It flies out behind as I ride like hair in a convertible.

















And the restaurant I’d hoped to enjoy waited for me so long it could wait no longer.













Perhaps that fine old country restaurant was driven to closure by this excellent café /gas station, where the old men of Grand Ridge now meet for coffee and ask a stranger on a bicycle where she started.











The roads today were mostly gentle on the mind, meaning: few cars, pleasant pastoral setting, and perfect weather.  













I met the first cross-country cyclists today, a couple from the Netherlands, retired.  She had a flat, and we set out to fix it.  The trouble was that the tire and tube were slashed about a quarter inch, apparently by glass.  No patch will cover a hole that big in a tube.  They had a spare tube, but it would bulge out the slit in the tire and ruin in no time.  It was I who have seen this kind of trouble before and pulled from my pannier a piece of an old tire, which we placed between tube and tire for reinforcement.  Mama couldn’t teach me to sew, but Daddy showed me some things. 









At the motel in Chipley this evening I noticed a strange reconfiguring of my hair.

13 comments:

  1. I'm impressed that you could help fix such difficult situation. I'm also impressed with your new hairdo.

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    1. Thanks Keiko, my father was a mechanic and he taught me how to think mechanically. For many situations it gets me into trouble, but a flat tire is not one of them.

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  2. I'm learning to live better vicariously each day. Thanks Sharon!

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    1. Vicarious living, I do a lot of it. Hopeful thinking. Now its my chance to return some of the favors my friends have done for me.

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  3. Wonderful post Sharon!... I am seeing it on the fly before 10 am Tanka with Taura and then our trip to SB this afternoon. I LOVE your colorful Spanish mossy bike it definitely should pull up at the red door and I can say look for the flowery bike (or mossy colorful bike as the case may be) Yes that hairdo at Caltech will be greatly appreciated by scientists and poets alike. Love your peopled post, and the helpful skills you have. Glad for your "easy on the mind" day and that there was a good cafe to stop at in the end. Happy I could stop here at your blog spot in the midst of our flurry, and be inspired. My daughter Colleen has engaged her stylist to trim our hair tomorrow...so I will be sure to show her your Spanish Moss look... perhaps she can add this style to her repertoire. After all she IS a French forest fairy by birth, so it seems appropriate in some ways. Look forward to more from you soon! Think about sending a Spanish Moss Hairdo poem for Friday!!

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    1. I came into Chipley, Florida, yesterday under lovely skies. Last night was filled with crashing thunder and hard rain. This morning the forecast was for heavy rain and thunderstorms all day. So I am not riding today, but relaxing here in Chipley. Tomorrow is supposed to be a good day.

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  4. By the way!! Yay, Keiko and Dalton! So happy we can meet at the Sharon Cafe!

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  5. Piece of old tire. I like that. Better than an old garden hose.

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    1. An old garden hose would have worked, never thought of it.

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  6. An altimeter! Fancy! :o)

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    1. Not fancy, just part of the bicycle computer that keeps miles, speed, time, and anythoing computed from these.

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  7. Hello Sharon! How cool that you are out there rescuing cyclists. Soon tales will spread along the highways and bikeways, all the way to the Netherlands....
    Glad to hear hear you found our favorite kind of coffee shop, the talking kind. What are the topics of conversation in the tropics? You are looking rather tropical with your plant/human hair and have just disproved the "Rolling stone gathers no moss" theory..
    All is much the same here. We've had a beautiful winter. Baldy is still wearing snow.
    Following you fondly, Liz

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    1. “Topics in the Tropics” I must steal that from you, Liz. Maybe rolling stones gather no moss, but this curious rolling menagerie does.

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