OG

This past weekend I did something that I haven’t done in a while. I went home to North Louisiana. The familiar faces and way of life were welcomed till I realized that this place is boring. There is nothing to do. By nothing well I actually mean that there are a couple of things one can participate in. In almost any place on earth one can drink and the other shall remain unnamed.

So after going to my cousins wedding I started driving to Oak Grove. Two lane highways with twist and turns that progressively get tighter as one gets closer to Oak Grove reminded me of where I was heading. It is a place that has remained largely unchanged for my brief 26 years of life.

After I pulled up to my house in el norte I noticed a couple things that is one that is always missing and one that ever present in my daily life. Number one: in the country the only ambient noise is the wind; my house in North Louisiana is well over a mile from the nearest highway. The other is that when I got out of my car I was greeted by a black sky filled with little stars, not just the big ones that you can see from most urban places but the little ones that are drowned out in the ambient illuminations of the city lights. The small ones that are like specks of dust as you stand in front of a window that the sun warms you through, these are the ones that you miss in the city. I remember as a young child my love of the stars on a clear night. My father would take me outside and share all his knowledge of constellation names and folklore that he learned in college, through his traveling and his life. Orion, Little Dipper, Big Dipper, Scorpio and many others flooded my mind as I was reminded of a small fraction of my childhood that still remains innocent, pure and quite vivid in my memory.

There was no cycling this last weekend. I was tied up with the FAM and driving 8.5 hours there and back in two days. But the cycling miles will start to tick over again starting on Monday. Next weekend is my inaugural race of the year. Walberg on Saturday and then on Sunday, Pace Bend will be the ground breaking weekend of racing this year. I am optimistic that I will have descent legs thought I don’t think I will have great legs.

Till next time,

LAE,

JNR