It's just a few days shy of my one year anniversary from coming home from Afghanistan to retirement.  Yeah, that hasn't worked out that well and it's all Gwyne's fault, so I'm going back to the salt mines.  She still works, so I've been her support, a kept man, if you will, except I still pay my half of the bills.  I cook, I clean, I do laundry and I look good in a sarong while taking care of household responsibilities.  'Cause that's part of my job as well.   I've had a few adventures,  a shortened bicycle trip down the coast of California (until I turned left and hit the mountains and nothingness that lies between CA and TX), reloaded and went a road trip with my bicycle in the back of the rental car.  We sold our house in TX, moved to VA, just outside of DC and there was another road trip from TX to VA.  I took a quasi bicycling trip to Thailand for a month where I discovered, yet again, I like to cycle through urban areas, where things like running water, electricity and mango smoothies exist in abundance.  I found my sweet spot for cycle touring.

     It took me a while to settle on another bicycle (I rented one in Thailand) because it all depended on where I was going and what I was going to be doing, and that's been up and down and back and forth.  Some zig and zagging as well.  Throw in a little hemming and hawing it's almost settled, I'm back in the saddle again, I bought the right bike for where I'm headed.  But all this coalesces just as I'm just getting into my groove in the DC area on a bicycle.  A 10 minute ride down to Arlington National Cemetery, a left hand turn and then you are looking at the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.  Every museum you could think of.   In a typical two hour ride, I cross the Key Bridge, ride along the C&O Canal in Georgetown, cycle along the Potomac, pass the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, then up to then Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Korean Memorial, Reflecting Pool, World War II Memorial, say how do you do to the Washington Monument and then pass by all of the museums on my way to the Capitol Building.  Or perhaps a ride to Old Town Alexandria along the Mount Vernon Trail, where I see all the other retirees on weekdays on their fancy rides.
     Yeah, it's all Gwyne's fault.  Because if she were able to retire, I wouldn't be whiling away the hours, waiting for her to come home, keeping house (and working on looking good in a sarong).  We'd be off on adventures, together.  She's still working on saving the pennies needed to not work, so I might as well go back and add a few more riyals to my account.  That's right, riyals, which means I won't be enjoying a beer after a nice ride at my new assignment, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It's a dry country.  But it is a fascinating place to live and work in a very exciting time.  That shift just got real...again.