What-a-Mess, the dog, is lassoed around a large planter her big puppy dog eyes searching the crowd for potential hand outs, back arched awkwardly and quivering. Betsy works on a pair of dry biscuits while I blow through some of the most sugar laden pancakes to ever transverse my gullet. So this, underneath these shade umbrellas and heavy dark trimmed buildings with windmills lurking, is Solvang- the Dutch enclave of southern California, now a formidable tourist trap.
The sun is hot and dry like my 11am coffee, which is only present upon the table to fight the weight of yesterday, so close and heavy. The drive down from Oakland was restricted only by the tail light gatherings of San Jose and its associated silicon fiefdoms, but still the drive was long upon the brain. The 101 at night was like most freeways at night; a tri-chromatic infinity of white lights, yellow lines, and red tail lights thrown up upon an infinite blackness of the earth's shadow. Somewhere after midnight we pulled into Buellton, the gateway town from the 101 to the Dutch town upon a hill, yet in a valley. Tony was tucked up in the Marriott with the other Team in Training members, so we found ourselves separated from him by only the distance of a McDonald's parking lot in the Motel 6. We unloaded and took the two pooches for a walk down McMurrry road to the Firestone Brewery and back. In the half moon, cars and a few freight trucks hugged the fence line next to an open field where Betsy and then minutes latter, Pao, had seen a fox play shadow to the night, here and gone, leaving only scent for the two dogs to scavenge. At the hotel, everyone in their respective beds, we began ou nights slumber or well attempted that slumber until the sound of masonry work came raining down from above. The carpentry work suddenly became rhythmic, accented with whimpers and then gentle screams and then not so gentle screams of passion. What-a-Mess's big brown eyes searched the room with a sort of tempered fear and me and Betsy began to laugh, partly from the awkwardness of the whole situation and partly because that girl upstairs deserved a fucking Emmy. Before long morning came ringing into the room through Betsy's phone alarm and we prepared ourselves to see Tony off on his 100 mile spin. Betsy showered and did all the things a girl does in order to face the day and I did likewise, but cut it down to putting some pants on, checking yesterday's shirt for an olfactory reason that might prohibit it from being used again, slipping it over my head and then capping it all off with shoes and my hat. I used the gap in our prep times to sort through the story I was hoping to capture through my lenses; the starting line full of bikes, detail shots of rows of gears-spokes-shoes, the gun triggering, a few shots along the course and then the finish highlighted with the times of riders as they finished. These images disappeared like the tiny atmospheric clouds upon my coffee at Paula's Pancake House. Cup three down the hatch and this is where I cut myself off before I can't hold a 60th of a second shutter speed. I sneak the little white a big brown eyed dog a piece of bacon after getting the go ahead from her master; Betsy. I know all to well that Pao shall be ravenously jealous upon our arrival back to Tony's 4-runner and she can smell the bacon off of What-a-Mess's hide. Despite What-a-Mess's demeanor and size compared to Pao, she is the ruler of the relationship, by nothing else more than sheer cunning instinct of how to draw human attention to herself and away from Pao.
Since I drove yesterday, Betsy mans the wheel today. We were a bit off schedule due to our lackadaisical stroll around Solvang coupled with our two attempts at breakfast (the first one failed due to having both dogs and then someone's third dog that turned into "puppy playtime" with Pao wanting to eat the other dog and us having to return without her). After some deft navigation skills on my part, we landed the rig at Los Alamos park on Drum Canyon road where checkpoint 4 was suppose to take place at the completion of mile 80. We waited in nervous anticipation to see Tony and his teammates come cutting around the corner into the park. The last time we had seen him was over 5 hours ago at the "start" which contained no gun, no line up of bikes, no timers, just a loose group of riders leaving between 6:45am and 8:00am. I had so thoroughly convinced myself of a sexy competitive start that I told Betsy all the riders that looked like they were starting were really just warming up. I have to say I was a little confounded that some of them appeared to be going up a very steep hill and then not returning for their warm up. At Los Alamos park we continued to wait. I collected acorns, threw some stones, over analyzed the light, took some pictures of cork oak trees and waited camera ready. A few bikers came through the checkpoint, a few more, some on tandems, some on laid-back bikes, a couple of beach-cruiser-mountain bike hybrids and still we waited. Finally after an hour and a half of our arrival Tony and company arrived just as we had imagined; full of energy but worn a little ragged around some of the edges. They broke for fluids and food and we got to catch up a bit on the ride so far. Tony was originally greeted with a hug from Betsy and a couple of tail wags and rubbings by the two canines. We took a couple pictures of the team and then they were back on their bikes climbing the last real climb in the heat of the day. I shot off a couple of frames and then ran back down to the escape vehicle and we took a new route out one of the event coordinators told us which put us on the 101 in 5 minutes instead of 20 like the way we came. At the hotel Betsy changed into lighter clothing and then we drove on to catch up to them head on. We found the team on the backside of Drum Canyon Road, so with Betsy at the wheel, What-a-Mess in the passenger seat, I piled into the back with Pao and begin shooting paparazzi style like the queen of England was on one of those bikes. The generous Tony soon moved out from the lead to allow others to get good shots of themselves leading the team.
We leaped frogged with the riders all the way back to Solvang where the finish line was well a place where other riders had stopped and not much more. The smiles ran off their faces like the sweat that the mid day heat had wringed out of them. After mellowing out, getting a couple of shots and allowing time for some of the other TnT teams to come through we went off to the hotel and then on to the Firestone Brewery. We had four entrees between the three of us, I eating nearly as much as the calorie deficient hero at our table. Maybe there is some truth to all the years of joking about eating for two; me and my tape-worm. Back at the hotel Tony and I got what we needed in order to go enjoy the amenities of the Marriott. Surprisingly we were the only ones in the hot tub or at least for a while until the muscular Mark and Katerina the mail order Russian bride showed up with a little bit of booze in a bottle and a bit in their veins. We entertained as best we could knowing full well that they had hoped to find the hot pool empty and ready like a watery nest for their escapades. Katerina quickly demonstrated to us how intelligent she was and how well she was at pussy whipping men like Mark. Despite being in her late forties she had no problem wearing a very revealing vertically split swim suit that let her breasts nearly fall right out, which they did at one point, just briefly as she pulled on her suit as if it were a pair of suspenders. Some how Tony convinced them to do a shock treatment into the cold pool and before long they were making out in the corner. They rejoined us and carried on some more chit chat until Katerina looked at Mark, whose hands were beneath the bubble laden surface and asked, "Are you touching your balls? Are you touching your big balls?" He might well of been touching his balls, who knows? All I know was that the air got a little thicker, but luckily Kat kept going with the conversation as if no accusation had ever occurred. After some dead silence and nibbling in the other corner, Tony and I took our leave to a gas fire pit where we were approached by a man in a raccoon skin hat who said some unmemorable commentary on there being a fire and then left to get a jacket to cover up his tight red long sleeved shirt and black suspenders. We rounded out the night with some scotch in the basement bar of the hotel and some wickedly quick and happy conversations with Mary Anne, a TnT-er, who kept telling us she could be our mother even though she barely looked a day past 38. At one point of the conversation she stopped and got very serious and told me that I had a very old soul. The scotch and the comment about my soul sat heavy upon me as we went back to Motel 6. We arrived just in time for the show next door. Much like the night before, but instead of on top we were getting it from the side this time and with much less padding which made the script much cleaner to understand. The whimpers, the shivers, the gentle screams followed by the not so gentle screams. The predictable orgasm and then the grumbling man-gasm followed by the post-coital conversation. Our room was silent like a play house waiting to hear Hamlet's last words, but instead we got business like murmurs and womanly shout of, "payment!"
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