Tails From The Road

Wow!  Today's ride was simply beautiful.  We had two rather scary looking climbs, but they turned out to be 2.5 mile steady pulls that got over pretty quickly and were followed by fun 40-mph decents down the other side.  There was also a wonderful 15 mile ride into Ashville, NC.  Weather was perfect.  I was sad today's ride end.

I thought I'd fill you in on how some of my buddies are doing...

Kevin almost got in the van yesterday.  He has a strong fear of dogs and has been chased a lot on this trip.  Lorie and Jim talked him out of quitting and promised to ride with him and shield him from the dogs.  Kevin is very easy to like and once described himself as 'pathalogically sociable'.

Bill ran over a squirrel.

Jim and Lorie got really lost two days ago.  They finally realized the error of their ways and got back on course, about an hour behind everyone else.  Trek Travel has us mainly on back roads, so they studied their maps and found a more direct short cut down a highway and ended up only riding a couple extra miles.

I almost got hit today by a pickup truck (I thought I'd bury this tidbit to distract my wife).  I rode through a green light.  A truck was coming the other way and out of no where decided to turn left, right at me.  He broke hard just before me.  Despite my optic yellow jersey, he told Denis (who was behind me) he just didn't see us.

It turns out I had to wait 45 minutes yesterday for a new wheel because Sallie, 67, got hit by a teenage driver.  Sallie signaled a left turn and was in the process of turning left, when the car behind thought she had waived her around.  So, it accelerated, past her on the left and then turned right.  Sallie crashed over her handle bars and was shaken up a bit.  Several other cars stopped and drivers jumped out to assist her.  After a couple minutes, she wanted no more attention and rode off.  The teenager called her father, who caught up with Sallie about a mile down the rode and appogized.  Sallie got some bruises, a black & blue thumb, and a good story to tell her friends back home.  As I noted previously, Sallie can take care of herself.

No, I didn't mispell today's blog title.  I'm just now getting to the end of the story.  Kevin loves Butt Butter, which comes in a large 8 ounce tubes, one of which is always in his jersey pocket.  Last week at a van stop, we noticed that a good bit of it (ping pong ball amount) worked it's way through his bike pants and and was forming up on the outside.  He laughed and said that the directions said to 'apply liberally'.  He's now on his 7th 8-ounce tube.  Besides dogs, I think he has an unnatural fear of  saddle sores.  

We reached NC!