Joe and I bailed on the others and rushed to the starting line literally less than a minute before it started, but as we crossed the street near some Trax tracks (haha, tracks-tracks?), the tandem's front tire caught the track and we fell over. I almost took some lady down with me, it was very amusing. Anywho, once we shook off the scrapes and bruises, we made it to the line and started the ride. The most entertaining part was that it was raining - everyone had this wet streak up their backs from the back tire that looked like babies when they... well, ya know.
Anyway, not long after passing the 8 mile mark, I heard a pop. Not feeling anything, I asked, "Was that us?" It was. So we pulled over and started taking the tire off. I found the tear in the tube, and it was pretty impressive. Joe called his dad. We had a repair kit on the tandem, but there was no way to patch that thing up. So we told his siblings to ride on, and we just waited for Kevin. We finally called him after a while to find out that he thought he was behind us when he was actually ahead, so he'd been riding in the wrong direction. In the meantime though, we fell back on our usual form of entertainment while we wait for things. The goat ladder video.
Eventually, Joe's dad got ther
e, we pumped up a new tube, fiddled with the off-center brake for a bit, then took the bike out into the road. It was easy, since the rest of the bikers were long gone. The second I sat down, I heard an all too familiar popping sound. I stood up, felt the back tire and yelled out, "THAT just happened!" At that point it crossed the funny mark and became just downright hilarious. So we felt ALL over the rim and tire for anything tearing the tubes and found nothing. We took the risk and pumped up a third tube, but this time it was inside the tire and on the rim before we pumped. As it inflated, the tube pushed out through a rip in the tire. Yep, that had to be causing it. I was so glad to find out that I hadn't gained 1,000 pounds since I woke up!Joe's dad rode back to the van and we waited for him to come back. In the meantime, we sat on the curb and watched the marathon runners. One of them sneezed, I yelled "bless you!" and some lady threw us a shirt and told us to throw it away (Uh, yuck?). Some guy was wearing Kiss make-up and an 80's rocker wig, another guy dressed like a flower, one was in a shirt and tie... it was good fun, haha. Oh, and there were many mean jokes about Ethiopians as the ones who were dominating the race ran by - mostly inspired by Billy Crystal's joke in When Harry Met Sally. Anyway, after maybe an hour, Kevin came back and took the above picture for us.
Since the bike tour failed, there was really only one obvious solution: spontaneous zoo trip. But first we stopped at a grocery store and bought bagels, cream cheese, and strawberry milk. We ate that in the zoo parking lot, then headed in for the first time in a very long time for both of us. We got mooned by a gorilla! I'd never seen an ocelot before, so I cooed over that for a while, and kept squealing "KITTY!" like Boo in Monster's Inc. Joe's response? A playfully condescending "Okay, let's go get a drink out of the giant lion head." Hehe. Love to!
Anyway, the zoo's the zoo, and the zoo is awesome. After all that, obviously it was nap and shower time, so I drove home and did just that. After an hour and a half (what's wrong with me?), I got dressed and we went for a real bike ride on the Jordan River parkway, sans killer tandem. After a long, relaxing ride and some dinner at The Pie that felt like swallowing a delicious brick, we went to Nick and Weenie's to play for a bit. Weenie, Nick, Joe, Jake and I walked over to Macey's, grabbed some movie food and, for some reason, more cereal than any human could consume in a lifetime, and headed back to watch 1408. That about concludes the day. Partying it up with friends and eating the Western Family version of Samoas, which I nicknamed Tongas.
Yep. That answer your question?
