Summer and I got up and out of the house today for a ride on the Shadow. I was back and forth on a couple of places to ride for lunch, but landed on the Ozark Cafe in Jasper. I had never been, and the reviews looked to be pretty good. We gassed up and hit Highway 7 out of town just in time to make it there by lunch time.
We stopped at the Rotary Ann for a break from the bad vibrations. The restrooms were nice and cool, and we got some toilet paper to stuff in our ears that made a huge difference in our ride quality. My whole head was ringing when we stopped, but the rest of the ride went great.
We pulled into town and walked right into the restaurant without having to wait for a seat. They had a lunch buffet that we opted for after a quick glance at their newspaper-style menu. I started with a big salad, and then moved on to a couple plates of what I would call southern comfort foods. I was anxious to try everything, so of course I was absolutely overstuffed by the time we left. Summer wanted to walk around a bit, so we went a couple doors down and visited an antique shop for a bit before heading back home.
I kind of wanted to stop at a couple more overlooks that I had never visited before, but I wasn’t sure how well the food would sit. We went up the road to a Dollar General to find some real earplugs, and then made it all the way back to the Rotary Ann for a quick break before making it the rest of the way home. I was a bit nervous about needing to stop for fuel, but I didn’t hit my reserve until we were about halfway home from Dover.
We got some gas once we were back into Russellville, and then we stopped by Summer’s for her swimsuit and to take a bit of a breather. My whole body was numb from the vibrations, and I was achy from the ride posture of that bike as well as the sunburn. After some rest, we got the cats inside away from the night’s fireworks, and made our way back to my house to trade up for the car.
I went next door to get some bánh bao that Bác Vân got from Linh, and then we went to my parents’ house for a swim. Mom was asleep inside while Dad was working out back, but he took a break to swim with us for a while. The water was nice in the shade, and I never got the shivers. When we were done, I loaded up on ice water for the night, and we came back to my house.
Summer sat on the couch on her iPad while I put on the last half of my Stranger Things episode. Once I finished with that, we watched the latest episode of Middleditch and Schwartz. That had me rolling as it usually does, and then I continued with a bit of a Ricky Gervais special I had started some time ago. Summer was ready for bed before it finished though, so we did a quick scan for brown recluses and went to bed.
Not enough Shadow to prevent star damage!