6 May, 2018            Every single person was nice

All you can eat free cupcakes at the finish line. For like 2 hrs swimming, biking, running. Totally worth it.

Every single person I’ve met this week was nice. I flew twice at Heart of Virginia Aviation. I went shooting once at Colonial Shooting Academy. Evelyn and I had lunch at the Metro Diner, we had dinner at Lola’s Farmhouse Bistro – excellent food, terrific waitress. I have a friend with a disability; his recumbent bike has a flat tire and I took it to Endorphin Fitness for a repair. All the mechanics, the other employees, the customers – all nice. I did the PeasantMan Triathlon at Lake Anna this morning – every athlete, volunteer, race official spectator – all nice. I must have met a thousand people this week – or more – and they were all nice. It must be this pleasant Spring weather.

Speaking of pleasant Spring weather – a Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) has appeared on my feeders and seems to be staying around. I’ll watch for a female; this is a male:

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – isn’t that a treat?

All of my plane pictures look similar, but this is from when I flew Thursday. My instructor (John Doyon) was nice, and so was every other pilot, employee, student, instructor, visitor and administrative person at that airport: 

Not many things are more fun than triathlons – but this comes close

Evelyn has so many roses in bloom in our yard it’s difficult to decide which picture to use. Here’s one. There are at least five others equally or more beautiful:

More of Evelyn’s handiwork (plus the miracle that it’s even there at all)

Thursday I did the Sixth Annual Big Mike Biathlon. You can read about it there if you like – it’s a tradition I’ve kept up once each year in memory of my Dad. He died in late 2012. I ride my bike to the shooting range and spend a while shooting – just like my Dad did in the early 1950’s. Here is a picture of my bike at the range:

Perfect day for a bike ride

This year – you could never make this up – I found a restaurant ½ mile away that had a Big Mike’s BLT on the menu! Here’s the menu:

The menu

Prized item inside:

They named a sandwich after my Dad!

I can assure you Dad would be proud of his namesake sandwich: 

Yum! Great for refueling mid-Big Mike Biathlon. Especially since Ev met me for lunch!

The triathlon began this morning (my wave) at 9:08 AM – a civilized hour. Here’s the beach after the race:

Pano of the beach at Lake Anna this morning:

This image is also from today. The dog is wearing a finisher’s medal:

Random dog wearing finisher’s medal:

Also – I got a picture of a Red-tail Wednesday, on a church, being harassed by a mockingbird. This always surprises me:

Top of the food chain, everybody harasses you. Carefully.

More next week – although I don’t imagine I’ll have a week this busy! See you in a week,

Jay