Superfund Clean Up

My daughter and I have been training together for the half-iron at Lake Stevens over the past months and I have no complaints, so far, so good. We lake-swim together, we occasionally run together and we ride together every weekend. Its a pretty good training partnership, all things considered. We don't yell, we don't bicker and we try to stay positive. No screaming aloud. All of that makes for a happy ride and a happy me.

I admit, once in a while I do the wrong thing. A couple weeks ago, we were riding and some semi-human troll with a garden hose and a big mouth assaulted us from behind a garden fence with his hydro-verbal double barreled weaponry. I responded with some foul language of my own, which didn't produce any desirable result. I should have just ignored the troll. Someday I will grow up, but not just yet.

Last Saturday, we rode from Black Diamond to Orting and back, 54.6 miles with just one hill, sort of a chit-chat ride, everybody had a good time. One difference I did notice about riding with young ladies instead of my usual band of misfits is that you need to mind your P's and Q's in a mixed gender ride. I can't utter my usual disgusting oratory in a mixed company ride. It's like the great Charlie Allnut said; "It's a great thing to have a lady aboard with clean habits. It sets the man a good example. A man alone, he gets to living like a hog.” True words, Charlie, true words.

Anyway, once we got to Orting, we pulled over to check a possible mechanical issue, which turned out to be nothing, then we looked up and found ourselves queued up in the line to get into the doughnut shop. Understand this, I had no idea they had a doughnut shop in Orting and if I had, I would have complied with the restraining order and stayed a least one hundred yards away. The existence of that doughnut shop was news to me, but once we were there, standing in line, I didn't want to not order doughnuts. That would be rude. So we went in.

They had a marvelous selection of doughnuts and brownies and cakes and all manner of good treats for road weary travelers. They had the cake type doughnuts that were sugar dusted (192 calories), Bavarian Kreme (210 calories), standard chocolate frosted cake doughnuts (270 calories), maple bars (220 calories) and a bunch of other, lesser doughnuts. I was zeroing in on the puff pastry with big sugar crystals sprinkled on top but I couldn't choose between the strawberry filled one or the apple pie filled one. I went back and forth, back and forth, eeny meeny miney mo, I just couldn't noodle out a tie breaker. Then, perched just inches away from the chocolate glazed eclair, I spotted an apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry with sugar crystals sprinkled on top. A winner. The angel of mercy behind the counter with the facial tic and the "My child is an honor student at Hogwarts" tattoo on her wrist handed my treasure over and pointed me to the cash register.

I don't know what my daughter chose because I was ever so gently holding my apricot  and cream cheese puff pastry up to my cheek, feeling it's still oven-warm sugary goodness. I could only concentrate on my apricot and cream cheese puff pastry. I yearned for that puffy pastry. I was drooling like the dog when I fire up the bar-b-que.

We got up to the register and they asked me what I wanted to drink. I said water. Somehow, my water order wasn't communicated correctly to the coffee girl and I ended up with a twelve ounce mocha with a really big thwack of whip cream and a double portion of chocolate sauce drizzle over the top. Then I started to eyeball a tower of elephant size self-serve cookies that were dipped in chocolate. I tried to wrap my lips around one, but I ran out of money and they made me put the cookie back. I didn't mind, I had enough cash for the mocha and the apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry, so I handed over my seven dollars and I sat down at the counter to eat my treasures. I sort of lost track of the next thirty minutes. My apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry and extra choco-mocha bounced me into a pre-diabetic sugar coma. I think now its a good thing that they took away my cookie. That cookie could have been terminal.

I came out of my sugar coma and found we were riding back up the trail, heading home, burning as much sugar off as quickly as we could. I was high on sugar and life, riding as fast as the wind, singing something from "Les Mis" when I saw in the middle of the trail three distinct piles of moose poop,  each larger and more formidable than the last.  I veered right, ducked left and cut hard to the right, slalom skiing through the poop ski-gates.  To be honest, I am not sure where it came from or what it came from, it might have been moose poop from a live moose, I just know it was the right size to be moose poop if the contributing moose was an overly large moose. Or a medium sized giraffe, maybe. Whatever, I had to go around it, riding through it was not an option.

A hundred yards later, I saw this guy being dragged down the trail by a huge black Hellhound with lasers on his forehead and iron caps on his teeth. I felt sorry for the guy. That dog was lunging at the end of an industrial strength chain, snapping at everything in eyesight: trees, babies in baby carriages, me. I got scared and tried to hide behind the baby carriage. I thought there was a good 50/50 chance the Hellhound might not eat the baby in the baby carriage before he ate me.

Today, as I recall that ride, it occurs to me that the poop in question might not have been moose poop at all, it could have been from the Hellhound. No matter who deposited it there, its a navigation hazard. The NTSB should get out there with the EPA and get that trail listed as a Superfund clean up site. Its going to take years before you can ride to get doughnuts in Orting again.