Texas Parks and Wildlife At Work

Rockport, Texas

It was an earlier than normal start to the day. From the number of folks out walking at the beach park, it was not early for a lot of walkers. A good parking spot was chosen near the you know whats that old men need all too often. The air was warm but the breeze was nice. Sturdy Steed was brought out from the Truck and ready to go. The only trouble is my riding gloves were at the Castle on the table. Time to get tough and get going.

Almost immediately the first slow down came up. A Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPW) fish trailer was at the Allegro channel putting some new fishes into the water. That has to be checked out, correct friends????
The fellow doing the work was extremely friendly. He took the time to tell me about the happenings and many other things. One of which is he has to hit the road at one am in the morning to go get the fingerlings and be where he has to be to put them into the water. The bunch today is redfish. He estimated the load at near 200,000 fish. They expect to get only near fifty percent to legal eating size.

Here is a bucket of them that he a few minutes later carefully released into the channel.
He picked up a few in his hands to let me get a better picture. They look like they are dead and lifeless in the pictures. Let me assure you they were a very active group of fishes. The pictures had to happen quickly or the little devils would have been scattered all over the place.
After a few minutes it was time to continue my exercise. The distance today ended at 10.2 miles. During today’s riding several thoughts went through my head. Sturdy Steed came with three chain rings in front and a seven gear cog on the back. Long ago right after Sturdy Steed came into my ownership, the front chain rings were changed out to gear Steed down for slower riding. Later, after that change, the derailleur was adjusted to NOT go to the largest chain ring. As my eyesight and reactions slowed with age, that chain ring went too fast for my own good.

The lowest chain ring was for extremely slow going like in loose sand. It was tried out today and no longer am I able to balance at the slower speeds. HMMMMMM Maybe it is time to do some more changes. After a couple of miles of experiments, it was determined that all the front gearing needed is provided by my center chain ring. Now when my new grips get here, the installation will include getting rid of some unused, or dangerous if my ego jumps up, items on Sturdy.

The excess chain rings, derailleur, grip shift on the left and a couple of brackets will be deleted. That is several items that require maintenance that will go away. KISS principal at work. That will leave me with a low end speed of 3mph and a top end speed of 18 mph in very even increments. For my situation in life nowadays, those seven gearings should be sufficient. If you want to go slower than 3 then get off and walk. We will see what else works out as it progresses.

My leg wounds are well on the way to healing thanks to the saltwater soakings. The long soaking yesterday seemed to do a huge amount of good.

Tomorrow is looking like a great day to try to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM