Social Distancing

So I wasn't able to ride last week because I had a cold. And before you ask, no it wasn't COVID-19 just a normal head cold. Based on the news the word of the day seems to be "Social Distancing" and I suspect it will be one of the top words of the year. It turns out I'm a natural social distancer. I work from home most of the time. I only occasional go to big gatherings like concerts or plays and haven't been to any in over a year. I have very few family gatherings. In fact the only regular social gathering I have is my weekly bike rides with the Insane bike posse. To some this may sound like a very solitary existence but its really not.

I spend at least 15-20 hours a week on web conferences usually with video talking to the 30 or so people I work with. I have known most of them long enough that we talk about our lives as well as getting work done. Web conferences are not a good as physically getting together but its close and gives me some social interaction with the people I work with. Besides The team I work with is dispersed all over the world so it is very hard to physically get together anyway so we have go use to interacting in this way.

Of course I also have my wife who will now be home a lot more now since the college she works at has closed and changed everything to online courses. Unfortunately this won't work for her since she teaches water aerobics in the pool so there is no easy way to teach that remotely since none of the student have their own indoor pool.

Both my wife and I being home full time should not be a problem as we will celebrate our 30th anniversary this week so we get alone just fine. I would offer some wisdom about what it takes to have a long successful marriage but won't for two reasons. First every couple is different so there is no "one thing" or set of rules to follow to have a good marriage. Two I'm not exactly sure what I did to make the our relationship last so long. I only know that I'm glad to still be with her after all these years.

Today I was feeling good enough to go for a ride. Jim had a ride out of Blackwell Mills but I'm still not at 100% and didn't want to have to push myself as his rides have become faster lately. I did a 35 mile loop around the backside of Allentown. The nice thing about doing a solo ride is that I can try a few roads that I won't even take the insane posse on. For example I know Breza Rd has some gravel but someone told me it was rideable where as others told me to stay away. So I tried it today.

There is a short unpaved stretch of about a half a mile with the usual random pot holes and occasional washboard gravel but it can be ridden. It is like Woods road. You can ride on it but probably shouldn't so I don't think I will try it again for a while. The other good thing about being on my own is that I tend to look around more and noticed this carving on Polhemustown Rd which I never noticed before.

I'm not sure if it is new or I just never saw it before. Somebody put a lot of work into it as it is one of the better carvings I have seen.

 It felt good to get out and ride after close to two weeks being stuck in the house with a cold. I no longer have cabin fever but do miss riding with other people. I should be a full capacity by next weekend so it will be good to catch up with everybody and see how they are handling the situation. For me the restrictions on gatherings and social interaction won't make a lot of difference in my day to day life especially because we had a good supply of toilet paper before this all happened.