Monday, June 04, 2007

Monday night ride, going car-free, and plans for tomorrow

Photo: We re-group at a stop light. Click for full album.

So, after driving my wife to work with my bike on the truck, I rode to Daily Dose for some quick refreshments and relaxation time before heading to the Monday night recovery ride. Between going to the Dose and hitting the recovery ride, I put on a little more than 15 miles. On my way there, my dad called me and took me up on an offer I made him yesterday. He's been having car problems, and I told him he could borrow my Focus if he needed to. So, I'll be loaning it to him until he gets things sorted out with his car.

The recovery ride had a great turn out, with a diverse crowd as always. Retro grouches, a tandem team, a 7-year-old, racers, commuters, clydes, athenas, and everything in between. We were all united in the fact that we enjoy cycling, though. And most of us were united in the fact that we love Mark Jilka's awesome homebrew concoctions!

I rode back home from the recovery ride, and readied my Focus to be handed off to Dad. Mostly, this consisted of pulling my mountain bike out of the back, ejecting my CD of mind-bending techno music from the CD player, and checking all the tires, oil, and all that. Since my wife absolutely HAS to get to work and can't ride a bike all the way there, that means I am going voluntarily car-free until my dad returns my Focus.

Those of you in KC and maybe those elsewhere may have heard about Kelsey Smith, a teen that was reported missing on Saturday. Kelsey's father is a co-worker of my wife, both of them work in the public safety department at JCCC. Tonight, I geared up my Sorrento. I'll be heading out tomorrow to help the family however I can. I may comb nearby fields and woods for clues, or I might end up going door to door handing out flyers. Either way, it's a really sad deal. Breaking news says that there is a man who may have forced her into her own car in the Target parking lot near Oak Park mall. Later, the car showed up about 1/2 a mile away. Anyhow, I'm going to help however I can tomorrow. It's my last day of vacation, and I don't know of a better way to spend it. If you pray, or send positive energy, or cast spells of protection or whatever, just please keep Kelsey and the Smith family in your thoughts.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only good thing about Mark's beer is that its free!

amidnightrider said...

That Monday recovery ride is something I really envy.

I like the options that are available with large groups of riders.

I hope your the one to find the young girl, safe and sound. Put you both on CNN.

Frogman said...

One sad part about the disappearance of Kelsey is that we (Noah and I) were at the mall unaware with friends and associates at the time it happened. Of course so were hundreds of other people who also didn't know of anything happening.

Frogman said...

Oh wait, now that I pay attention to the day and not the date, it was the day before that we were there. Not that it makes anything better, but still - correction made.

Warren T said...

This has been a tough week. Kelsey is a friend of my daughter. We're praying and praying.

Jett said...

Thanks for posting about Kelsey. The more people who see this, the more likely we'll pick up clues.

Privacy Policy

This site is driven by software that uses third-party cookies from Google (Blogger, AdSense, Feedburner and their associates.) Cookies are small pieces of non-executable data stored by your web browser, often for the purpose of storing preferences or data from previous visits to a site. No individual user is directly tracked by this or any other means, but I do use the aggregate data for statistics purposes.

By leaving a link or e-mail address in my comments (including your blogger profile or website URL), you acknowledge that the published comment and associated links will be available to the public and that they will likely be clicked on.