Long Weekends

Spoiler Alert: The Hawthorne game will be discussed. Read at your own risk.

Weathermen suck. All of them.

Shannon and I had planned to go to Hong Kong over the long weekend. We opted to not go for a few reasons, one of which was that three different weather sites were giving us three different flavors of rain for the duration. That, coupled with Shannon really needing to be present at work on Tuesday, we opted not go to.

It appears that no rain fell, per The Weather Underground. It was also supposed to be a crap weekend out in the Grampians. We got up early on Saturday to make a call for a backpacking trip. It was raining, and despite being packed, we skipped it. At least it rained 1cm or so there.

But, we made the most of it. We spent a lot of time on Saturday in the Richmond suburb, which is very Asian in it's own way. We went to many an Asian grocery, and had lovely pho for lunch. Beers were consumed. All is well.

Sunday, we went to the Hawthorne v. Sydney AFL game at the MCG. Despite a 2008 premiership for Hawthorne, they have really been horrible since. However, since Sydney sucks too, it was a good game. Really sloppy play, but fun to watch, and close. We were in the upper deck, where I've never sat before, and I have to say, the seats were great, especially for A$21. Very steep seating , so you can see a lot. Hawthorne was looking pretty good until the fourth period, when they tried their hardest to hand the game over. All the same, this was probably the best game to watch that I've actually attended. Good stuff.

Monday I headed up to Woodend to go for a ride because I had the day off, and it was supposed to be sunny and nice. So, naturally, I pull into Woodend, and it's cloudy and 10 degrees. I head out anyway, and the ride was pretty nice. I did have a flat that had to be changed, but not a problem. All was well until I got to Malmsbury. My route home turned from sealed to dirt, which isn't a huge deal, then to 4x4 track, which was a little much for a road bike. So, I turned around, and tried plan B. The issue here was that the actual roads didn't match Google Maps. Crap.

At this point, I bagged it, and headed to the train station. This is a tiny station, and there isn't even a timetable, much less a ticket machine. Luckily, two public servants were there, and one was able to pull a schedule up on his iPhone. Very nice gentlemen, and they let me know that I had nearly 90 minutes to get cold and wait. So, back into town, I went to the bakery and had a coffee and a steak and bacon pie. That was a damn good pie, as I had already been out for 75k or so. I'm also convinced that the owner gave me a deal. I got a pie and a coffee for A$5 after asking if they took credit cards. I believe that he realized I was close on cash after sitting on his porch for an hour in bike clothes. So here's to the Malsmbury Bakery. Cheers. That's the best link I can find.

Anyway, a quick V-Line back to Woodend and all was well. The weather on Monday did turn out all right. But really, no HK, no backpacking for various meteorological issues? This did reafirm one thing that I've learned in the past but occasionally need reaffirmation of - never base your plans on the weather. Just go for it and see what happens.