We have some friends in Hastings, Maggie and Dave Coleman, who we have known for many years. We can’t say that we know absolutely everything about them, but they both grew up in Hastings, and you can’t break wind in Hastings without everyone knowing about it, and letting you know they know.

So we were surprised when we were out on our bike ride this morning to run across their winter get-away. If I had to guess, knowing the party animals that Dave and Maggie can be, I would have said their winter home would have been in Daytona Beach or Clearwater Beach, not in Pasco County. I’ve attached pictures of the house and their welcome sign. As you can see, it was a little foggy, but the place looks nice and neat.

You can see from the sign that they named their little spread “El Rancho de Coleman”. I wouldn’t have guessed they would have used a Spanish theme, but who am I to judge? I was a little “taken aback” by the sign itself. I know Dave and Maggie to be, as I am, racially open minded and sensitive to ethnic perceptions. So when I saw the color of the horseman on the sign, I wondered what that was about.

Some may say that it sends the same message as those little statues of black doormen that lined the driveways of wealthy landowners in the racially divided South in the fifties. But knowing how kind hearted Dave and Maggie are, I would guess that they had the picture commissioned by a local artist and didn’t have the heart to tell him or her to change the color of the rider to white. What kind of message would that have sent to the art community?

We rode 35+ miles this morning and the hills around San Antonio don’t get any easier. We started the ride after most of the people had left from the parking lot, but a couple guys hooked up with us and we rode together for seven or eight miles. They rode behind me talking to Jean for quite a while and then one of them rode next to me for a time.

I’m still a little nervous about riding in groups after the bike fiasco of 2003. The guy next to me rode with his handle bars about six inches from mine and I didn’t have a lot of room between my tires and the shoulder. A car came from behind so he cut in front of me missing my tire by what I thought was an inch and was probably more like a foot, but still too close for my comfort.

As he rode in front of me, I couldn’t help but notice that his bike shorts were about as old and as worn as my oldest pair and you could see right through them. I started laughing out loud thinking about what Larry and Bill would have said. “Hey Bill! How much caulk do you think it would take to fill that crack? Ha, ha, ha, ha.” I’ve heard that one so many times I finally got new bike shorts.

When we hit the hills on the North end of Culbreath and then across the whole length of Powell, they pulled away from me. Jean lagged back for a minute and then took off after them. She made another lame excuse about wanting to see if she could stay with them, but I think she may have liked the view a little too much. Anyway, she got her fill (no pun intended) and slowed down so I could catch up. She probably thought we were coming to a turn and she wouldn’t know which way to go.

We made it back and most of the cars had left the parking lot. I noticed that most of the license plates were Florida (duh!), any many were from Polk (Lakeland) and Pinellas (St. Petersburg) counties. It’s great riding and one of the few places in Florida where there are hills so I can see why people are willing to drive to get there. It’s about 45 minutes from Hudson so we add an hour and a half coming and going to the excursion. We’re a little spoiled about living in Hastings where you begin the bike ride in your own driveway, and within ten minutes you are out in the country on some great roads. If it wasn’t so cold there in the winter there wouldn’t be any reason to leave.

Just (The Weather Has To Get Cold Sometime) Jack