The Dog Days of Vacation

Dear Blog Reader           

I hope that this finds you doing well. The rains have come to the Adirondacks, and I have finally learned to spell Adirondacks without any red squiggly spell check lines popping up showing me the error of my ways. With the arrival of the rains, the dog days of vacation have also arrived. We are not in Las Vegas, where when the rains comes everyone keeps pulling the one armed bandits and life goes on. Up here in the great outdoors everyone heads inside when the rain comes across the clearing between the woods and the cabin. With the five feet of warning, we headed inside, started to download movies, pull out the books and work on this devilishly difficult puzzle.

During this dearth of activity, I went and did it. I went ahead and signed up for the Ride Across Indiana. I have been toying with the idea since December. Each year since taking up riding 4 years ago, I have been taking on greater and greater challenges; the 4 miles around our country block, a thirty mile bike ride, 380 miles in a week during Cover Indiana for Habitat for Humanity last year, a century ride this past Good Friday, now this; 160 miles across Indiana in one day. 160 miles is a lot harder than 100 miles because the 1^st 100 miles is the easy part. After that, every mile just adds to the pain. I am not sure that I can make it. Being an eldest child “I’m not sure that I can make it” is a great motivator. It usually motivates me to not try. Failure is horrible for me. However, the dog days of vacation have overtaken me. I hit the submit button, parted with my $110 for a bike jersey and entry fee.

Last year, many of you came together to support Habitat for Humanity by pledging money in support of my ride. The RAIN is not a charity ride but that doesn’t mean that we can’t think outside the box and find a way to hook up your generosity with a good cause while I get to ride my bike. So, if you want to sponsor my ride across Indiana, 160 miles in one day, let me know via email rlsharritt@aol.com or Facebook message. We can work out the logistics of collecting your checks and such and get them to the Lafayette, Habitat for Humanity, and getting the receipts back to you for tax purposes. Last year, I provided that following incentive. Everyone who donated $100 could designate the blog theme for a day of the ride. Obviously, I don’t have time to ride 160 miles and write 10 blogs in one day. But I think that I could write a limerick about any topic you choose for a $100.00 donation. So make your pledges. The amounts can be any size and you will receive my undying gratitude. If they are for $100 or more, you need to send the limerick topic. I will be dragging my smart phone along, and all day long I will post limericks on Twitter and Facebook in recognition of your generosity. Don’t wait too long. The ride leaves on July 12^th. If you forget and send your donations after, I will get it to Habitat but I can’t post Tweets in the past; no matter how fast I ride.

Today’s blog topic was provided by the lovely Miss Beverly. It coincides perfectly with the dog days of vacation. Even though it is the 1^st day of the rest of summer vacation, living in the present is very taxing work. I love vacation, but I miss my garden, and my mostly flat 20 mile a day bike ride, and even getting up at 5:00 a.m. for meditation hour. So Wednesday is here and I find myself peaking at tomorrow and the next day and the ride home.

Bev’s topic? How does vacation in black fly country during black fly season remind you of a bible story? It reminds me of Job. After four days swatting these pesky deet drinking flies of death, I feel exactly like Job with those boils that at one point he decided to scrape with shards of a jar while his holier than thou friends failed at friendship.

For a couple of weeks early in the summer these small black flies emerge in hoards in upstate New York. I mean literally gazillions. At one point walking down a forest path, I looked down and could not see my tennis shoes because there were so many black flies between my eyes and the ground that they blocked all light transmission. And they bite. It is a sneaky bite though. It isn’t like a deer fly that circles endlessly around your head, deftly dodging your flailing hands in a vain attempt to swat them out of the air before they dive into exposed skin and attack. The deer fly bite hurts. It brings a quick welt but if you can let the histamines dissipate, the pain goes away pretty quickly.

But the black fly bite is so much more destructive. It doesn’t hurt as bad as the deer fly. The black fly gets in, eats its pound of flesh and gets away. But it leaves a welt that is small and hard and leaves one with the impression that it has left a parasite inside of you waiting to come crawling out sometime in mid winter after eating your internal organs. For my Indiana friends think billions of flying chiggers. I have been assured that I have no parasites inside of me that need clear nail polish applied to kill the black fly young. But the welt does not go away and suddenly the next day the skin sloughs away leaving a pea sized hole in your arm, your shin, or the back of your neck.

Yes, we are in the middle of the dog days of vacation, working puzzles, reading books, and picking at

the open sores on our arms.

Like Dorothy, we click our red ruby slippers whispering there’s no place like home, looking forward to tomorrow; the first day of the rest of our summer vacation.

Take care

Roger.