Heat, Humidity, Hills (not really, central Illinois don’t ya know) and Headwinds are the 4-Hs of the Apocalypse that I am referring to.  Three of the four were faced on Trailnet’s Strawberry Ride, on Sunday.  Summer rolled into Saint Louis this weekend and Sunday was hot.  How hot was it?  Well, it was so hot, that you actually preferred a headwind over a tailwind, because that extra bit of breeze was like having a fan blowing on you, right in front of your face.

Anne does not like the heat and humidity that inhabits Saint Louis every summer.  Lately, she has taken to fleeing Saint Louis all together and hiding out in the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on the shores of Lake Superior.  Even there though summer’s heat and humidity sometimes finds her, but the lake is always cold.  Up there, it is easy to adjust your environment’s apparent temperature, simply by adjusting the depth that you wade out into the lake.

From the pictures above, you can see that although Anne’s face was red, it was nowhere near as red as the strawberries.  We each had strawberries and ice cream, vanilla, over angel food cake.  We did the medium length ride and got 28 miles.  Pictured below is the female half of a pair of barn swallows that had a nest inside the main picnic shelter.

Also inside the shelter, a boy had a baby robin in his hand.  He wasn’t trying to mistreat it, but you knew that it wouldn’t end up well.  Anne donned her superhero persona, Super Teacher, (She already had the spandex on.) and went over to speak with the boy.  I don’t know what she said, but it kind of worked.  He gave up the bird to his older sister.  May is the cruelest month.

Team Kaldis was well represented at this ride.  We were supposed to have a nine o’clock mass start, but our team captain must have overslept?  Here are a few of the team members that I saw and whose names I know, they are listed in the order that I remember seeing them, Stu & Nancy, Gary, Dennis, Kelly & his new bride, Karie, Tom & Audrey, Phil & Mary, Mark & Merri, Mike and his kids and Captain Don.  There are people who I have left out.  I apologize.  I need to learn your names too.