just riding along: Semi Epic week...but not riding

As was predicted last week, the weather this week turned (back) to crap. Cold, precipt, etc. It was not a good week to be a cyclist in these parts. I got outside Monday, but was inside the rest of the week. I lifted one extra day just to not have to ride inside. But all of this kept my weekly hours waaay low. About half of my "normal" hours right now, which are down form "in season" hours as is. Uggg. This week was basically a throw away. These things happen.
This past week was still in my "whatever" workout phase, so I'm not getting hung up on it being a crapper; it is still Feb. But now we're in the last week of Feb. Time to start looking ahead. I'm going to start up with some light intervals this week. Nothing crushing, just getting used to doing X effort for Y time (getting in the groove) and start the building.

So this all seems pretty boring crap, huh? So why do I have the "E" word in the title? Well let's rewind to Wednesday...Wednesday night to be specific. This is a loooong story, so I'll tr to compress it.
Lindsay went out for a night MTB ride. Somewhat out of character for her, but she's trying some new things, and I'm down with that. She was going with a friend of mine, not alone, but you still always worry a bit. And as such I went to bed with my phone which I don't normally do (I leave it charging in the other room). Well somewhere around 10:30 my phone rang. I was half asleep and didn't answer it, but when I looked at it I saw I had a facebook msg. I looked at the msg and it was from someone who I didn't know, but knew me through MTB racing. The msg said "Adam: the Jackson County Sheriff is trying to contact you. Call them at ______ or call me at _______." Then a text came in form the same person: "Adam, call the Jackson County Sheriff at _______ or me at _______." So I got out of bed and am kind of shitting myself at this point. Then a voice mail comes in (phone didn't ring though) and it was my mom: "Adam, call home as soon as you can." So I composed myself and called the Sheriff number first. No answer. So I called the dude who had msg'd me next. No answer. At this point I'm starting to get my cloths on and figure out how I can get a car to get out to where Lindsay is (she had our car). I was about 80% sure that I was going to be asked to come out and ID bodies. No shit. Then I was maybe 10% thinking that one or both of them were seriously hurt and I was going to have to deal with that.
So I called my mom next. Home number: busy. Shit. Cell number: answer! She answers "Adam? Where are you?" I say "home. What's going on?" She has the sheriff on the home phone and says that they "found" my car in the "middle of nowhere" (now the other 10% of my WTF has happened is maybe the car was stolen) and after running the plate, tried to call me (which was the call I didn't answer), then called the Clinton County police (our car is still reg'd in Clinton County), got my parents number, called them and basically told them that I was missing (they asked if my mom knew any friends who I would have last spoken to). That obviously sent my mom into full-on panic mode. I told her everything's fine and to tell the officer that Lindsay is out there night riding. She did, and hung up so the officer could call me. By this time the sheriff had completely blown this "situation" out of proportion and made it (which was nothing, a parked car) into something. So when he called me I told him my wife and a friend are out night riding MTB's and parked the car "there." He said "you do know it's 25degrees and 11o'clcok, right?" I said "yes, they're out night riding." He asked "are you sure they're okay out there?" I answered "well I have no reason to believe they're not okay, they're just out there riding." This type of back/forth went on for a minute or two because 1) he couldn't grasp the idea that people would be out doing stuff at night in the cold and 2) he had already made, I don't want to say a mountain out of a molehill, more like a molehill out of nothing. It finally got resolved when Lindsay and Erik got back to the car and saw cop cars surround it. They were given a fair amount of shit for no reason and the cops scared the crap out of numerous people for absolutely no reason. The car was parked in a very popular running/hiking area, but when it was "found", they assumed (I) was murdered and then started making phone calls based on the assumption. Bad deal guys. Besides, it's not like bad people walk around w/ hatchets. Just stoney good Samaritans.

So enough of that crap. Today (Sunday) Lindsay and I went to the birthday party for our (now) 1yr old niece, Daphne. She was born last year on leap day (Feb 29), so she only really gets a b-day every 4 years.