tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83994413334782190062024-03-13T07:38:20.770-05:00SPIN CYCLELife begins where your comfort zone ends
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100% is possible
100% of the time.</p></p>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-88889605208955901202012-08-09T21:49:00.005-05:002012-09-11T11:43:37.574-05:00A Journey of My Own--AlaskaMy last state....Alaska.....the end of my journey and as I sit in my tent the final night of riding the <a href="http://www.goldencircleroute.com/" target="_blank">Golden Circle</a>, I am serenaded by the soft pounding of rain on the tent canvas and the wind howling through the aspen. My thoughts are many, but primarily that it would a cold, wet ride in the morning. In that strange night 'sunlight', so common at the northern latitudes, where the night never really gets dark, I stare up at my tent top, willing myself to fall asleep. The hours slide away, and dawn quickly approaches; I need to sleep. The ride in a few hours will be steep, taking me up through the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilkoot_Pass" target="_blank">Chilkoot</a> Pass and into Skagway. I need to be well rested to meet that challenge.<br />
<br />
Drip, drip, drip. <br />
<br />
I toss and turn, tangled and uncomfortable in the mummy sleeping bag, so appropriately named, captive in its tight confines. The knee I had injured in a crash earlier in the week, aches, pain radiating up and down my leg every time I move into a different position....and moving was no easy feat in that sleeping bag. <br />
<br />
I must have fallen asleep at some point as the movements of my neighbors woke me as they struck their camps in preparation for this day's journey. Slow to rise, I staggered to the mess tent in search of a cup of coffee. Ah.....they know me well after 6 days.....they had it ready for me. <br />
<br />
While others ate a hearty breakfast, I nursed my coffee, rubbing my knee. I really didn't want to ride today. My knee and back ached, I was tired, cold and grumpy. Because other rides this past week had not been that long or challenging for me, I decided to forgo breakfast, and have more coffee instead. That would prove to be a bad mistake; had I paid attention to nature, I would have noticed and heeded the frothy whitecaps on the lake by our campsite, indicating the force of the winds from the north.<br />
<br />
The last to leave camp, I pushed my heavy hybrid bike the mile out of the camp site, up a 12% hill on a road of dirt and gravel; it was not safe to ride due to the deteriorated condition. By the time I had limped my way to the top, everyone else was long gone and I was sweating. Even though it was sprinkling, I took off my rain gear; I was more wet from the perspiration created by my waterproof gear than I would have been from the rain.<br />
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Turning north, the wind nearly knocked me over. It was blowing at 20 to 25 miles per hour, straight out of the north, which is the direction I would be riding all day. The climbing started almost immediately; the grades were long and moderately steep, but it was riding against the force of the wind combined with the grades that presented a challenge.<br />
<br />
Though riding in a headwind can be physically challenging, it is the constant roaring in one's ears that is most disconcerting. In this part of the country, the natives say the North wind will cause one to go crazy; they actually have a Native name for it saying as much. It never lets up. <br />
<br />
On and on I pedaled, alone with the wind and my thoughts. Eventually, I could see the colorful spots of other riders in the far distance as they rode up the mountain. Head down, I continued to pedal, soon catching one, then another, shouting words of encouragement over the roar. Slowly, I catch and pass the leaders, continuing on alone, with my focus on completing one more rotation of the pedal stroke.<br />
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So immersed was I in my task, that I had to mentally shake myself to shift my focus from the physical work to enoying the beauty of my surroundings; I most likely would never be here again, and despite the wind and light rain, I did raise my eyes from the road and savor the glorious mountains and lakes, giving gratitude.<br />
<br />
With climbing come descents....the glorious downhills that are the reward for working so hard to summit. But with those northern gales, what should have been an exciting rush of speed and rest was, instead, more work to keep a steady pace. There would be no rest on this ride and I was definitely feeling the lack of nourishment as my strength waned under the toil.<br />
<br />
On and on I pedaled, averaging a mere 10 miles per hour, including the downhills. The support van passed several times, going in the opposite direction to aid those behind me. Finally stopping to check on me, I asked how much further to the lunch spot, (the cue sheets weren't very good and mileage on them was often off). <br />
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"Mile 28", they said.<br />
<br />
I was at 25.... only 3 miles until I could rest and grab some food! Thank goodness--it felt like I was pedaling through jello! After a few more miles, my pedal strokes became even more labored and my speed continued to drop, despite the fact that I was working just as hard as earlier. Stopping, I discovered my rear tire had gone flat.....and with the lunch spot in sight! A few unsavory words entered my mind, but were quickly replaced with the thought that there was no way I was going to stop to change the flat now.....I pedaled the remaining quarter mile on the tire as it was. (FYI--There was enough air left in the tire to protect the rims). <br />
<br />
Once in a safe location, away from the traffic and sheltered a bit from the cold wind and rain, I changed the tire; it was the rear one, of course, which is the more difficult of the two to change. Inserting the tube, and re-inflating, I found it would not hold air. Arggggh! It was then I discovered that, in my fatigue, I had used the bad inner tube instead of the new one. Arrgghhh! By then, other riders were coming in......frustrated and tired, I knew it was time to just walk away, and allow the support team handle it. I was going to eat lunch and get warm.<br />
<br />
Huddled in the warm van with others, I wolfed down a hearty soup, listening to the others talk about their ride. Cold, wet and tired, many were throwing in the proverbial towel, taking a ride to the top of the summit, where they would then ride down. With my knee aching, my back in spasm and my saddlesores screaming, I wanted to join them. My little internal voices were having quite a discussion about that.....<br />
<br />
"Why push yourself....everyone would understand if you chose not to ride"<br />
"But I would know I didn't do it" <br />
"But what do you have to prove?"<br />
"That I can..."<br />
<br />
There is the point where one has to concede to physical exhaustion; I knew I was not there yet. If I didn't continue, it would be due to mentally quitting. For me, this was a mental ride, not a physical ride. Pushing past the excuses my mind was presenting, and with tears of conflict running down my checks, I gathered myself, leaving the warm van in search of my bike. This was a journey of my own; this was a journey of determination....a journey to complete because I decided I <u>could and would</u>.<br />
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Finding my bike was still being worked on, I watched as abandoned bikes were loaded on to the van for the shuttle to the summit and as a few other hardy souls left to ride the 20 miles to the top. Finally, with my bike repaired, I left in full raingear.<br />
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A long, 6% climb and the now familiar headwinds greeted me immediately and I soon began to shed layers, despite the temperature falling into the 40's. I was already wet, so I preferred riding in my shorts, jersey and armwarmers rather than sweating in the raingear. Unincumbered, on I climbed, acknowledging myself for 'sucking it up' and continuing. This truly was a ride I had to do by myself and for myself. <br />
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Pedal stroke after pedal stroke, head down against the wind, I went. By now, the big tour buses from the cruise lines were whizzing down the highway in the opposite direction, creating huge back drafts against which to ride, in addition to the headwinds. I wondered what the occupants of those warm, comfortable buses thought as they saw me struggling up the inclines in the wind and rain....probably thought I was crazy....they'd be wrong; I was determined.<br />
<br />
Eventually, I passed those that had left before me, shouting more words of encouragement as I went. Tired eyes greeted me as all of us struggled against the wind and steep grades. Alone again, I focused on my surroundings, and on maintaining my cadence without sacrificing my heart rate....this was a true test of putting all I had been taught to the test.<br />
<br />
Finally, relieved that I was at the top, I rounded a curve, only to be confronted with the road snaking up an impossibly steep mountainside. Unbidden, tears streamed down my face.... I wasn't done! Did I have enough left to get there?<br />
<br />
This is what I call my 'cry point'; it is the point where I have pushed myself further than I have gone before. It is the point where I know if I continue, I am breaking through the barriers I have placed on myself, and on what I thought was possible. I am not sure what the tears are about, but I have learned to acknowledge them when it happens....my cry point marks achievement and breaking past beliefs that have held me back. Tears mingling with rain, I rode on.<br />
<br />
Anticipation is often worse than the actual event, and this proved to be true here. Yes, that final climb was rather steep; yes, I was in physical pain; yes, I was tired, but I reached the summit without a problem. I had overcome my old beliefs, my doubt.<br />
<br />
This ride was, by far, the most challenging I have ever done, mentally and physically. Only four of us completed it. It would have been far easier had I cycled with the others; we could have pace lined, protecting each other from the wind. This, however, was a ride I needed to do alone. This was the ride that changed my beliefs about my abilities, and mental fortitude.....this was a journey of my own.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rain was a constant companion</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emerald Lake</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Egvdaa99hII/UDGf6-02fKI/AAAAAAAAKSA/7bTXl7RiKPc/s1600/day+6+8-8+(92).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Egvdaa99hII/UDGf6-02fKI/AAAAAAAAKSA/7bTXl7RiKPc/s320/day+6+8-8+(92).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The world's smallest desert</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DG-dtHZX5vg/UDGf8Vk57yI/AAAAAAAAKSI/4lwe224aIhQ/s1600/day+7+8-9+(28).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DG-dtHZX5vg/UDGf8Vk57yI/AAAAAAAAKSI/4lwe224aIhQ/s320/day+7+8-9+(28).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the way to Chilkoot Pass</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One Nation camp--making totem poles</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FFr8bC_fGt4/UDGhGoFLRXI/AAAAAAAAKS4/NXu_WQTQvbE/s1600/day+1+8-3+(26).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FFr8bC_fGt4/UDGhGoFLRXI/AAAAAAAAKS4/NXu_WQTQvbE/s320/day+1+8-3+(26).JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Forever optimistic--sunglasses and sunscreen</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes...bears do......</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pX0oNETkPN4/UDGhMFDsweI/AAAAAAAAKTY/z9w667_QYvM/s1600/day+1+8-3+(64).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pX0oNETkPN4/UDGhMFDsweI/AAAAAAAAKTY/z9w667_QYvM/s320/day+1+8-3+(64).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of our campsites</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sNlSx2AfOOk/UDGhNZ_DtwI/AAAAAAAAKTg/TYBVaFkx9C0/s1600/day+2+8-4+(17).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sNlSx2AfOOk/UDGhNZ_DtwI/AAAAAAAAKTg/TYBVaFkx9C0/s320/day+2+8-4+(17).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Million Dollar Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqIZz36mXnc/UDGhPHNFtaI/AAAAAAAAKTo/dsjTTiwxAX8/s1600/day+2+8-4+(27).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqIZz36mXnc/UDGhPHNFtaI/AAAAAAAAKTo/dsjTTiwxAX8/s320/day+2+8-4+(27).JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sun is out!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foraging grizzly</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tribal shelter</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goldrush Ghost town</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of many waterfalls</td></tr>
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<br />Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1Skagway, AK, USA59.458333299999993 -135.313888959.228913299999995 -135.67853689999998 59.68775329999999 -134.9492409tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-88271198172072630272012-07-13T18:19:00.001-05:002012-07-30T18:38:19.223-05:00Joining the 4H....MichiganOn to Michigan....land of the Wolverines..... land of the "Don't give a damn about the whole state of Michigan"...... <br />
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Being a graduate of <b>THE</b> Ohio State University, it seemed only appropriate to stop in Toledo to revisit those years with my college friend and sorority sister, Leslie. As college coeds, we didn't exactly get into trouble, but we did have a <u>whole</u> lot of fun. Interpret that as you may......<br />
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Pulling in at about 1 pm, we picked up exactly where we stopped thrity years ago.....with a drink in our hand. Over many hours of visiting, we sipped<a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/clam-diggers-25578" target="_blank"> Clamdiggers</a>, savored <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alex-garcia/mojito-recipe/index.html" target="_blank">Mijitoes</a>, and languished over wine. We laughed as we reminisced of our college antics, (asking the kids to leave to room before doing so), cried for friends no longer with us, and shared events that had passed, but forever changed us. We giggled like schoolgirls, reveling in a sisterhood unchanged by the years, planning a future Thelma and Louise getaway. After many hours of talking and drinking, we finally retired at the late hour of 11 pm. (We'll need to work on extending our hours if we are to be Thelma and Louise!). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TweEqm-q23o/UBcRlVUE_DI/AAAAAAAAJC4/7PTICnfku4g/s1600/leslie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TweEqm-q23o/UBcRlVUE_DI/AAAAAAAAJC4/7PTICnfku4g/s320/leslie.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span class="hasCaption">Leslie in the car we cruised in during college. It still runs! What fun we had in that car!!</span></div>
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Dressed to ride Michigan, I came down the next morning. Leslie was slumped in a chair, with a cup of coffee, reading.<br />
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<i>"Leslie," </i>I said, "<i>I'm hungover!"</i></div>
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<b>That's the first 'H'....hungover</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<i>"Oh, thank goodness," </i>she laughed, <i>"So am I! I was afraid you'd be fine and I'd be like this...."</i></div>
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<i>"Nope....I just can't do that anymore and not suffer. Guess we're getting old....older.", </i>I returned, wondering briefly why she thought I would be fine..... Things that make me go 'hmmmm'.</div>
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We drank our coffee and ate pastries in a post-drunken stupor, laughing at our inability to process alcohol and stay up until even midnight. All too soon, it was time to go.</div>
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As I drove away, I was feeling poorly....very poorly. Knowing that dehydration is a big cause of post-alcoholic suffering, I sucked water from my water bottle every few minutes, but it was a lost cause. I would suffer for yesterday's merriment. That's when the mental arguments began: </div>
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<b>Voice One:</b> <i>You don't have to do this.....no one would know.</i></div>
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<b>Voice Two</b><i>: I would know.....</i></div>
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<b>Voice One: </b><i>No one will know if you only do 10 or 15 miles...you still did it.</i></div>
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<b>Voice Two: </b><i>I would know.....shut up and drink your water.</i></div>
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A short drive later, I crossed over into Michigan....the voices started again.</div>
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<b>Voice One: </b><i>You don't have to drive all the way to the Irish Hills to ride. You can do it right here.</i></div>
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<b>Voice Two: </b><i>Now, that's the smartest thing you've thought all day. That's a good idea.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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So without a route in hand, I found an almost empty parking lot at a mega church, parked and went inside. {{<i>Ugh....I don't feel well</i>.}} Ahhhh.....the air conditioning felt wonderful. It was hot already---pushing 90 and the day was still very young.</div>
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<b>That's the second 'H' ........'hot'</b></div>
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Finding some people working there, I told them what I was doing, got permission to park there and left an emergency phone number in case my car was still there tonight. (meaning I didn't make it back). With water bottles filled with ice cold water, I dropped in the electrolyte tablets and went to unload my bike.</div>
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Emerging from that wonderfully cooled building was like stepping into the hot, damp cloth of a barber. The humidity was stifling; it felt like I was breathing the air of a sick room, with the vaporizer running full steam. Beads of water collected on my face, sliding down like tears and my cold water bottles dripped with condensation. </div>
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<b>That's the third 'H' ........'humid'</b>
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Ready to go, I pedaled towards the exit, noticing another cyclist geared and ready to leave also. I rode over and introduced myself. After talking a bit, she, Denise, invited me to ride with her. She was a triathlete out for a training ride. {{Gulp... Hope I can keep up with her!}} She was only riding 25 miles, so the second 25 would be by myself. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nORo7o63EZQ/UBcE2sPg_wI/AAAAAAAAJAU/h0I0ZgzE1-I/s1600/MI+701302012+(39)a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nORo7o63EZQ/UBcE2sPg_wI/AAAAAAAAJAU/h0I0ZgzE1-I/s320/MI+701302012+(39)a.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">With Denise at a country store.</span></td></tr>
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Off we rode through small town America. It felt like a step back into time--a time of simpler pleasures and a slower pace. The towns were still decked out in the patriotic finery from the Fourth of July and children cycled and played freely, without being tethered to an adult. </div>
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Stopping at a country store, I purchased my favorite refueling drink--V8. It's full of sodium and potassium to replenish that which I was losing through sweat and is also full of good, healthy carbs for energy. Because it isn't a sugared drink, the carbs will be absorbed more slowly, giving me a sustained energy boost instead of a big sugar spike. As I purchased the juice, I asked the cashier if she had any vodka to go with it. She howled with laughter..... had she known of the previous day's imbibing, she might have not have found it so humorous.</div>
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Twenty-five hot miles later, we were back at the church; it was time for me to say good-bye to my new friend and continue the final 25 alone. Waving a final farewell, I headed north. </div>
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It was hot; it was humid; I was still hungover. The roads were in horrible condition and a strong headwind started blowing, causing me to have to work harder and harder for each mile. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PYJ7W6rnd30/UBcLqZJvoFI/AAAAAAAAJBA/q9XFl-sBJ2I/s1600/MI+701302012+(19).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PYJ7W6rnd30/UBcLqZJvoFI/AAAAAAAAJBA/q9XFl-sBJ2I/s320/MI+701302012+(19).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Horrible roads.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--g7aCNREwQ0/UBcMFEZRZ6I/AAAAAAAAJBI/Rya9aMCu1Y8/s1600/MI+701302012+(17).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--g7aCNREwQ0/UBcMFEZRZ6I/AAAAAAAAJBI/Rya9aMCu1Y8/s320/MI+701302012+(17).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What does Michigan do with their tax dollars? Not road repair!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YEGnCrvjUb8/UBcMGNG2pCI/AAAAAAAAJBQ/CwK3GlpjBbk/s1600/MI+701302012+(31).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YEGnCrvjUb8/UBcMGNG2pCI/AAAAAAAAJBQ/CwK3GlpjBbk/s320/MI+701302012+(31).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Notice the flag...headwinds strong enough to keep it straight out and snapping. And it was a big flag!</span></td></tr>
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<b>That's the fourth 'H' ........'headwind'</b>
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The voices started again...... and this time, Voice One was very convincing. Shushing the conversation, I pedaled.....and pedaled, but yesterday's fun was bearing down on me. I had to quiet my mind and be present just in that moment. Stomach rolling, head pounding, I focused, internally coaching myself.</div>
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<i>"Can you go one more mile?"</i></div>
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<i>"Yes."</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Then I'd ride the mile.</div>
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<i>"Can you go one more mile?"</i></div>
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<i>"Yes."</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Then I'd ride another. ...and so it went for the last 10 miles. I pulled into the church half a mile short of fifty. Being a large church, it had an enormous parking lot; so large, in fact, that one ride around its circumference made up more than the half mile I was lacking.</div>
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Tired, hot, but pleased with finishing, I was done. I had ridden the 50 miles despite how I felt physically. The toughest part of the ride was not one of the 4 H's; it was the battle I had with myself. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z9YeW2qF4VY/UBcOV6Y8GxI/AAAAAAAAJBY/s0P14CPg5iE/s1600/MI+701302012+(25)a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z9YeW2qF4VY/UBcOV6Y8GxI/AAAAAAAAJBY/s0P14CPg5iE/s320/MI+701302012+(25)a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Fields and fields of golden wheat</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nTZhxDWby3I/UBcOWn_KnQI/AAAAAAAAJBg/KVAzcXXwjeU/s1600/MI+701302012+(29).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nTZhxDWby3I/UBcOWn_KnQI/AAAAAAAAJBg/KVAzcXXwjeU/s320/MI+701302012+(29).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">This was a huge grainery. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ka_8KC8jnII/UBcOYn4kvAI/AAAAAAAAJBo/aBOi_5x-ZR0/s1600/MI+701302012+(34).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ka_8KC8jnII/UBcOYn4kvAI/AAAAAAAAJBo/aBOi_5x-ZR0/s320/MI+701302012+(34).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Look at this countryside, then see the sign below</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V02iI_0BMkw/UBcOeIFCdzI/AAAAAAAAJCE/sDCKwC8iXKk/s1600/island+resort.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V02iI_0BMkw/UBcOeIFCdzI/AAAAAAAAJCE/sDCKwC8iXKk/s320/island+resort.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">'Island Resort'........where the heck are they going to get an island?</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sHrk2w5PNOA/UBcOZT8t_vI/AAAAAAAAJBw/0FvoCQZYXhs/s1600/MI+701302012+(36).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sHrk2w5PNOA/UBcOZT8t_vI/AAAAAAAAJBw/0FvoCQZYXhs/s320/MI+701302012+(36).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The flatness of the land contributes greatly to wind. There's nothing to block it.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C7JG1JX2aFo/UBcOdb514cI/AAAAAAAAJCA/dva6xn2KEGI/s1600/MI+701302012+(9).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C7JG1JX2aFo/UBcOdb514cI/AAAAAAAAJCA/dva6xn2KEGI/s320/MI+701302012+(9).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flat, flat,flat.</span></td></tr>
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<br /></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Lambertville, Bedford, MI, USA41.7529088 -83.62420141.7292173 -83.663683 41.7766003 -83.584718999999993tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-74038862208307714802012-07-07T21:45:00.021-05:002012-07-30T13:10:38.924-05:00Masses in MassachusettsAs already discussed in <u> </u><a href="http://seesuespin.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-would-duane-do.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">What Would Duane Do?</a>, the <a href="http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/southeast/ccrt.htm" target="_blank">Cape Cod rail trail</a> was swarming with people eager to ride, walk and run. So many people were utilizing the path that it was reminiscent of the Oregon trail during the Great Migration! There were people of every size, shape and age on vehicles of the same ilk. Even in the rain, the crowds did not diminish. So many people using this resource was wonderful sight to behold, yet one that presented hazards, as any high traffic situation.<br />
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The planners of the trail obviously anticipated such usage, as the trail was designed like more of a mini-highway than a rustic roll through the woods. Crisscrossing the many intersecting roads, riders and walkers had the right-of-way. Road traffic had stop signs at these intersections, allowing the hikers and bikers to cross unhindered, (though it was wise to stop and check before crossing....not all drivers heeded the signs). There were even rotary circles...... ROTATORY CIRCLES.....on a bike path(!), with arrowed signs pointing to the various towns and sights. This signage reminded me of those in small European towns. Pubs and restaurants advertised their establishments, with paved off shoots leading to their front doors and valet bike service. The smell of frying seafood was tantalizing.<br />
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The trail runs 22 miles, ending at the beach. Bikers with boogie boards and floats strapped to their bikes and backs flowed in that direction, like spring melt-off rushing down a mountainside. Ladened with their oversized burden, many were ungainly on their bikes as they pedaled in flip flops and swimsuits. Children were plentiful, learning to ride with training wheels, as parents guided them. Older citizens rode adult trikes, often porting a small dog in a basket. Fresh water beaches interspersed the trail, offering lockable bike racks and a cool respite from the riding. And yet, despite all of this traffic, small bike groups, in full kits, raced up and down the trail, weaving in and out of the clumps of weekenders.<br />
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Awestruck is the word I would use to describe my reaction to this trail. There is much talk about the sedentary lifestyle of Americans, but this proves that the public will support and use resources like this...if available. We need to see more of it!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riders hitting the trail at one of the many trailheads...despite threatening weather</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GhpUqVPbP6E/UBbG1-wVZqI/AAAAAAAAI8Q/p-bNVW7HFw4/s1600/DSCF0679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GhpUqVPbP6E/UBbG1-wVZqI/AAAAAAAAI8Q/p-bNVW7HFw4/s320/DSCF0679.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">On the trail at last.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qb-NmSQZU94/UBbG6MvBGII/AAAAAAAAI8Y/Kdw_9E8O7M4/s1600/MA+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qb-NmSQZU94/UBbG6MvBGII/AAAAAAAAI8Y/Kdw_9E8O7M4/s320/MA+(1).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Audrey and Lisa from RI, who ran into me and provided comfort as I received the news about <a href="http://seesuespin.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-would-duane-do.html" target="_blank">Duane</a>. Thank you.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zKFHZj-ESwU/UBbG_OaBsFI/AAAAAAAAI8g/g6uM82aAArc/s1600/MA+(10).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zKFHZj-ESwU/UBbG_OaBsFI/AAAAAAAAI8g/g6uM82aAArc/s320/MA+(10).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Bikes parked as riders take respite at a restaurant.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DVnPSi3ulLE/UBbHC-texWI/AAAAAAAAI8o/_N4QNN4cUBQ/s1600/MA+(11).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DVnPSi3ulLE/UBbHC-texWI/AAAAAAAAI8o/_N4QNN4cUBQ/s320/MA+(11).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Taking a break from riding.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-syokcUhWYmo/UBbHFU3t3nI/AAAAAAAAI8w/fFwxIZfwwKU/s1600/MA+(12).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-syokcUhWYmo/UBbHFU3t3nI/AAAAAAAAI8w/fFwxIZfwwKU/s320/MA+(12).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Historical cemeteries.....</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wJHfhiA7gMU/UBbHJTKYhcI/AAAAAAAAI84/CiBal2Jowrs/s1600/MA+(14).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wJHfhiA7gMU/UBbHJTKYhcI/AAAAAAAAI84/CiBal2Jowrs/s320/MA+(14).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">More cushioned dirt path for runners and horses.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N9Vl6MhI8Bo/UBbHMbS_cfI/AAAAAAAAI9A/NdSYuIXtiDU/s1600/MA+(17).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N9Vl6MhI8Bo/UBbHMbS_cfI/AAAAAAAAI9A/NdSYuIXtiDU/s320/MA+(17).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What would a high traffic area be without advertising ?</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pJf2Jh07eiI/UBbHQosbISI/AAAAAAAAI9I/K-JlT25HE-o/s1600/MA+(21).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pJf2Jh07eiI/UBbHQosbISI/AAAAAAAAI9I/K-JlT25HE-o/s320/MA+(21).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Groups regathering and socializing.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EBEsmQYoMOo/UBbHWFg8qCI/AAAAAAAAI9U/vN6CHZS9SBE/s1600/MA+(24).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EBEsmQYoMOo/UBbHWFg8qCI/AAAAAAAAI9U/vN6CHZS9SBE/s320/MA+(24).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Almost had the trail to myself....</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G3YiC916-Hw/UBbHbb3gx_I/AAAAAAAAI9c/eAbW62UF2M4/s1600/MA+(26).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G3YiC916-Hw/UBbHbb3gx_I/AAAAAAAAI9c/eAbW62UF2M4/s320/MA+(26).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Drink and ride?? Don't think so. One of many pubs.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-04_5Y7G5HBw/UBbHezM8EuI/AAAAAAAAI9k/aDX4TjccXys/s1600/MA+(28).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-04_5Y7G5HBw/UBbHezM8EuI/AAAAAAAAI9k/aDX4TjccXys/s320/MA+(28).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A rotatory circle!!</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EiaG6LLzsss/UBbHjCHJ8EI/AAAAAAAAI9w/AtMJsLDrMnU/s1600/MA+(7).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EiaG6LLzsss/UBbHjCHJ8EI/AAAAAAAAI9w/AtMJsLDrMnU/s320/MA+(7).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I kept thinking this said "Smile." I was!</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k5UmR89YEkE/UBbHoD5zOyI/AAAAAAAAI94/uw7CpnPjEY0/s1600/MA+(8).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k5UmR89YEkE/UBbHoD5zOyI/AAAAAAAAI94/uw7CpnPjEY0/s320/MA+(8).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pretty freshwater pond</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-biQRufgUsPk/UBbHtnThlMI/AAAAAAAAI-A/RzgjopV3jxU/s1600/MA+(9).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-biQRufgUsPk/UBbHtnThlMI/AAAAAAAAI-A/RzgjopV3jxU/s320/MA+(9).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Need a bike repair? This trail-side bike shop can help.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DDvAlDFEIPQ/UBbL_5yL-PI/AAAAAAAAI-w/WVHxWaG0mlg/s1600/MA+(16).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DDvAlDFEIPQ/UBbL_5yL-PI/AAAAAAAAI-w/WVHxWaG0mlg/s320/MA+(16).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Riders stop to chill and eat clams.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T0NYtvv4gtc/UBbMNgKRQyI/AAAAAAAAI-8/zT_-9r2Jkas/s1600/MA+(25).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T0NYtvv4gtc/UBbMNgKRQyI/AAAAAAAAI-8/zT_-9r2Jkas/s320/MA+(25).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Lemonade for sale.....rain or shine.</span></td></tr>
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<br />Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Dennis, MA, USA41.7353062 -70.19394290000002541.6792497 -70.255441900000022 41.791362699999993 -70.132443900000027tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-11690456078254063372012-07-07T18:13:00.000-05:002012-07-30T11:00:17.057-05:00What Would Duane Do?Saturday morning in Massachusetts held the promise of humidity and heat as I searched for the trail head of the Cape Cod Rail Trail, a paved 25 mile railroad conversion. Poor planning had brought me to the Cape on the Fourth of July weekend, and traffic was a nightmare. It appeared as if everyone from the city was now headed to the beach. Being safety conscious, I changed my plans from a road ride to riding on the trail. Little did I know that the traffic on the trail would rival any found on the road.<br />
<br />
Eager and anxious to ride before the day's heat became intolerable, I found myself growing increasingly impatient with the stop and go traffic, as it was mostly stopped....in other words, road rage was beginning to develop. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, slowly bubbling up as traffic crawled, then abruptly halted as someone tried to make a left hand turn against the long stream of oncoming traffic. My right hand moving reflexively to the horn.<br />
<br />
{{<i>Sigh</i>}} <i>"Calm down, " </i>I told myself<i>, "the trail will still be there when I arrive....enjoy the moment, find the positive....I will never pass this way again, nor will I ever live this moment again. Do I really want to live it in a haze of anger and frustration?"</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
....My hand eased off the horn and hid in my lap until I found the trailhead and claimed the last parking spot. The place was packed and it wasn't even 9 AM yet! <br />
<br />
Unloading quickly, filling water bottles and slathering on 70+ sunscreen, I was ready to ride in record time. Wanting to get verification about the trail, I rode over to two women, who appeared to have just come off the trail. Meet Audrey and Lisa from Rhode Island; they were friendly, confident and a great source of information. Taking in their advice and information, giving them hugs, just because it felt right, I was soon on my way.<br />
<br />
Pedaling at a brisk pace, I was enjoying the rush of the ride, when my phone did it's little '<i>de-de-de-de-de" </i>scale run, alerting me to a new text message. Normally, I wouldn't read it until I stopped for a break, but today, for some reason, I read it immediately.<br />
<br />
It was from a friend of mine, Mark, with whom I ride. He texted that a serious accident had occurred during the Saturday morning bike club ride that I typically ride when I am home. My stomach flew to my mouth. Fingers flying, I returned the text....... <i>"what did serious mean.....who was it...what happened?" </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
As is typical in these situations, the details trickled in...each one carrying worse information than the previous. The downed rider was Duane....a strong and skilled cyclist, who has promoted the sport, embraced and looked after the newbies and was an icon in addressing safe cycling. It seemed unfathomable that he was involved in the accident. Another rider had gone down in front of him, and Duane was catapulted over top of him, landing on his head. It happened so quickly, he never had time to even react. Duane would not recover from his injuries.<br />
<br />
I stood on the edge of the trail, straddling my bike on a bridge overlooking a tranquil pond as I received the news. Tears streamed down my face, mingling with the sweat. <br />
<br />
The biking community is a tight one; the love for the sport binds us, creating a camaraderie unlike one I have ever known. We are a family. Though I did not know Duane well, I had ridden with him on several occasions. A strong, proficient cyclist, he took care of those with whom he rode. He would block the wind for me when he saw my strength failing, give me pointers on being more efficient or shout some words of encouragement as he passed me on a hill. He was like that for everyone; he was a big brother. He embraced life and lived it on his terms.<br />
<br />
Part of me wanted to turn around and quit my ride, but a voice in my head said '<i>What would Duane do</i>?" Duane, of course, would have said "Ride your ride and enjoy the moment!" and I did...riding it for Duane.<br />
<br />
The line between life and death is so fragile....so tenuous.... it is imperative to live each moment to its fullest; whether momentous or seemingly unimportant, savor it. Savor each breath, the taste of your coffee, the warmth of the sun, the pinch of your new shoes. Savor your relationships, savor the love, savor the fights.....drink in where you are in that moment because the next may not come.... don't wait. Live your life today, whether it is riding a bike across the country or standing in line at the grocery store, <u><b>live your life</b></u> and give gratitude for that moment. Find the beauty and revel in it. Live passionately; live deeply.<br />
<br />
That's what Duane would do.<br />
<br />
Rest in peace, my friend. Thank you for the final lesson.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GlL8OqFDKaw/T_yvylWPDcI/AAAAAAAAHpw/N28041NitcA/s1600/duane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GlL8OqFDKaw/T_yvylWPDcI/AAAAAAAAHpw/N28041NitcA/s320/duane.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-29170876654828611642012-07-06T16:46:00.001-05:002012-07-30T13:23:17.664-05:00The Road I Rode in Rhode Island<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have to say that despite the high population density of the area, it is nice to be able to drive from one state to the next in 45 minutes. In Texas, that wouldn't even get me from Dallas to Ft. Worth!</div>
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After the frustrations experienced in Connecticut, I was glad to get in my car and depart. I <b>can't</b> say that I was sorry to leave. Roads were clogged with holiday traffic as I made my way to Rhode Island. causing me to worry a bit about finding a place to stay. Additionally, I planned to visit and stay in ritzy Newport; I had heard so much about this old and well-heeled town that I wanted to spend some time exploring it. I did NOT have a reservation, but if it came down to it, I would camp. <br />
<br />
Now, my idea of camping is opening the back of my SUV, pitching a tent over the tailgate and putting the bikes in a pup tent. They could spend the night on the ground, not me. With dark rain clouds lurking on the horizon, camping was not an ideal option. However, this was the consequence of not adhering to the <a href="http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/PPPPPP" target="_blank">PPPPPP</a> theory, so I'd camp if I must.<br />
<br />
Driving to the campground that Manny (from New Jersey) suggested, I passed a motel....yes, I said motel.....with a red vacancy sign flashing. I stopped to check it out; after inspecting the room, which was old and worn, but sufficiently clean, I decided to stay. Upon exiting the motel office, I happened upon a tatted woman/child bouncing a baby on her knee; the baby had more teeth than she did.... She said she lived there all summer and it was 'real nice.' Hmmmm...... If the cost reflected that proclamation, I would have been inclined to agree; I guess everyone has their own definition of 'real nice'. Expensive for what it was, I would be grateful for a roof over my head if the weather produced the storm the skies advertised.<br />
<br />
A ride down into town offered an explanation for the exorbitant price for the motel room; the <a href="http://www.gonewport.com/events-calendar/fairs-and-festivals/ocean-state-tall-ships-festival-2012" target="_blank">Tall Ships Festival</a> was taking place. I have to be honest....I wasn't sure what a Tall Ship was, but a ride around the wharves offered an explanation. The ships were beautiful; the area was teaming with tourist.<br />
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The houses there....oh my! They were all so old--1700's and preserved beautifully. The looked like they could have been built yesterday. It was such a treat to admire them, and so humbling to 'feel' their history.<br />
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I will add, here, that many of the big estates and summer homes were for sale. Estate after estate had "For Sale' signs posted in their yards. Surely as sign of the times.....<br />
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The next morning's ride was fairly uneventful, so I won't spend much time on it. It was hot and humid, as usual. And, as usual, I got lost.<br />
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I don't know why I am so directionally challenged, especially with all the electronic aid I have. I just can't seem to go the right way! If the map says, left, I always turn the wrong direction........(that would be right, which isn't right). I just don't get it, and probably never will.<br />
<br />
I was sitting at an old Grist Mill, that had been converted into a coffee shop, trying to figure out where I was and the route back, sweat pouring off me as it was another sweltering and humid day. A motor scooter pulled up, ferrying a mother and her daughter. They were kind enough to give me verbal directions, also adding 'don't turn here, don't turn there.' After a long and pleasant visit, I was off and they went into the Mill for refreshment. I had pedaled 10 miles or so, up some steep hills, when I realized I wasn't seeing the things they said I should pass. Stopping, I was consulting my Garmin when I heard the 'putt-putt-putt' of an under-powered motor bike. Turning, there they were, Frappucinos in hand. My saviors...... they were checking on me, suspecting that I would miss the turn. Laughing, they redirected me, leaving their phone number.....just in case. I made it back to my start point, with no further detours.<br />
<br />
I will leave you with pictures..........other than my constant 'detours', this was an uneventful, though beautiful ride. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsZAv9ZzHY4/UBaki-CM1NI/AAAAAAAAI34/Kpgv0B_Ajuk/s1600/BAE34800-6B90-423A-97BA-982410381653.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsZAv9ZzHY4/UBaki-CM1NI/AAAAAAAAI34/Kpgv0B_Ajuk/s320/BAE34800-6B90-423A-97BA-982410381653.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Buzzer at the clam house where I ate a massive mound of fried clams....cute, huh!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WlKiZIVpgNo/UBak7w1JqXI/AAAAAAAAI54/04QEFUQVwNQ/s1600/RI+%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WlKiZIVpgNo/UBak7w1JqXI/AAAAAAAAI54/04QEFUQVwNQ/s320/RI+%25286%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Wait for it......</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z3gR3d8gzzw/UBakmcLQYsI/AAAAAAAAI4I/ePcTYleFnM0/s1600/RI+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z3gR3d8gzzw/UBakmcLQYsI/AAAAAAAAI4I/ePcTYleFnM0/s320/RI+%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Geese, not ducks.....To-<u>mae</u>-to, to-<u>maa</u>-to...</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NfkA6JAQ0wQ/UBaku2MvYzI/AAAAAAAAI4w/eYys4TW-2TY/s1600/RI+%252831%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NfkA6JAQ0wQ/UBaku2MvYzI/AAAAAAAAI4w/eYys4TW-2TY/s320/RI+%252831%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Fields and fields of breathtaking hydrangea</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8X4_dccVKqc/UBakpbTkTnI/AAAAAAAAI4Y/u8xPn0K5fvM/s1600/RI+%252824%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8X4_dccVKqc/UBakpbTkTnI/AAAAAAAAI4Y/u8xPn0K5fvM/s320/RI+%252824%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGfZfmdOTBE/UBaks8ZuAxI/AAAAAAAAI4o/vnysRZs2yoM/s1600/RI+%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGfZfmdOTBE/UBaks8ZuAxI/AAAAAAAAI4o/vnysRZs2yoM/s320/RI+%25283%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A real well!</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z80Kg93pxBc/UBakvXcz1WI/AAAAAAAAI44/cdrZh3aclwk/s1600/RI+%252835%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z80Kg93pxBc/UBakvXcz1WI/AAAAAAAAI44/cdrZh3aclwk/s320/RI+%252835%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The ocean....knew it was there, somewhere</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bbrRfAGgz4U/UBak1r6uaKI/AAAAAAAAI5Y/uDNH0KQGGEE/s1600/RI+%252853%2529a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bbrRfAGgz4U/UBak1r6uaKI/AAAAAAAAI5Y/uDNH0KQGGEE/s320/RI+%252853%2529a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w4sXU2k-1Fo/UBa0GJ0HYcI/AAAAAAAAI7g/jCiE7zMa1oY/s1600/RI+%252855%2529a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w4sXU2k-1Fo/UBa0GJ0HYcI/AAAAAAAAI7g/jCiE7zMa1oY/s320/RI+%252855%2529a.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Proof that I did find the ocean~</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JQHBJ18uQwM/UBak3z6kZqI/AAAAAAAAI5o/M8iK3TVZEfg/s1600/RI+%252856%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JQHBJ18uQwM/UBak3z6kZqI/AAAAAAAAI5o/M8iK3TVZEfg/s320/RI+%252856%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Waving proudly.....</span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yC_S6lBwdyA/UBak5zrkwwI/AAAAAAAAI5w/9LC5f3brjs0/s1600/RI+%252857%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yC_S6lBwdyA/UBak5zrkwwI/AAAAAAAAI5w/9LC5f3brjs0/s320/RI+%252857%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Newport, RI, USA41.4901024 -71.31282850000002341.4530044 -71.351459500000018 41.5272004 -71.274197500000028tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-67790196201457232722012-07-05T20:08:00.000-05:002012-07-26T20:32:25.900-05:00Can't in Connecticut'Can't' isn't in my vocabulary. 'Challenged'....yes, but not the word 'can't'. In Connecticut, however, the phrase <i><b>"</b>I<b> can't"</b></i> seems to be part of the venacular.<br />
<br />
Checking into a national chain hotel, I requested the room rate shown online, which was $30 cheaper than the rate the young lady was quoting me. Showing her the rate on the small Iphone screen, she shrugged her shoulders, smacked her gum and said,<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"I <b>can't</b>"</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"But it is published right there." </i>I countered.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"I don't care. I <b>can't</b> do it." </i>she sniveled, cracking her gum again.</div>
<i><br /></i><br />
Now, it wasn't so much that I couldn't get the lower rate that irked me, but her apathetic, "<b>I can't</b>" attitude. After such gracious hosts the last several days, this smacked me in the face like a wet tuna. It stank!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Well,"</i> I said, trying to enroll her to help me, <i>"How do we go about getting this rate? Surely others have come in using this site with this rate. What can we do to make this work?"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"I don't know. I <b>can't</b> do it"</i>, she answered, never looking up from her computer screen.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Is there anyone here that can?"</i> I queried.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"No."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Ok. Do you have availability for tonight?"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Oh, yes. There aren't too many people staying here tonight."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Hmmmm......</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"If you have empty rooms, does it make sense to rent me a room at this price rather than letting it stand empty?"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"No....I <b>can't</b>."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Why not?"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"<i>It's not in the computer."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>"Ok, thank you."</i> I replied, and left.</div>
<br />
Out in my car, I fired up my netbook, and jumped on the internet. Finding the booking site, I made a reservation, closed the computer, then re-entered the hotel. After a brief wait, the same girl, smacking the same gum, emerged from the back office and took her position in front of the computer screen.<br />
<br />
<i>"I have a reservation,"</i> I said, handing her my drivers licence.<br />
<br />
Consulting the computer screen, she checked me in....at the lower rate.<br />
<br />
<i>"Enjoy your stay,"</i> she said handing me the keys as if our previous conversation had never transpired.<br />
<br />
After stowing my gear, I went next door to a restaurant. Ordering, I requested that the french fries be substituted with broccoli, which was also on the menu.<br />
<br />
<i>"I <b>can't</b>,"</i> answered the young waiter, "It comes with french fries."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>{{Sigh}}</b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
Not wanting to go through the whole<i> "I can't'</i> thing again, I took the french fries.<br />
<br />
Early the next morning, I parked far out in an almost vacant strip shopping center parking lot. As I was preparing to ride, someone walking by came over. I greeted him with a friendly <i>"Good Morning", </i>to which he replied <i>"You <b>can't</b> park there." </i> Not wishing to argue, I moved across the street, parking in an equally empty shopping center lot.<br />
<br />
Once on the road, I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the area. Surprised to discover that tobacco was a big crop, I watched the migrant workers toil under the hot sun while teenagers splashed in a pool next to the fields. I wondered if the workers felt any resentment. I also wondered if any of them fell out of the transport vehicle, which was a school bus that had the all of its sides removed and rows of benches fastened to to the floor. I suspect it was hidden somewhere when OSHA came to inspect.<br />
<br />
Powering up a steep hill on a somewhat busy road, I shifted wrong and dropped my chain. Unable to get it to catch while still riding, I stopped, moved off the road and into the edge of a yard. I had done a good job of jamming it, and was diligently working to fix it, sweat pouring down my face, when I felt someone's presence. <br />
<br />
Turning around, a middle-aged man, drinking a Coke, was observing me. <br />
<br />
<i>"You <b>can't</b> do that here"</i>, he said, pointing at my bike with his Coke can and walked away. There was no explanation....just that word again....<b>"can't"</b>. I watched him retreat, finished setting the chain and left. I was starting to feel as if someone was pranking me.....<br />
<br />
Hot and tired, I stopped about 35 miles into the ride at a convenience store. A cold drink sounded very refreshing! In fact, a Slurpee sounded even better! Filling a small cup full of Wild Cherry Slurpee, I went to the register and pulled out $2 to pay for the $1.50 charge. Sucking on the straw, the cold, sweet fluid tasted like Ambrosia, instantly bringing down my body temperature. MMMM--it was good! Wincing from the brain freeze that also instantly hit me, I put money down on the counter.<br />
<br />
<i>"I <b>can't</b> take that,"</i> said the older lady at the register.<br />
<br />
I looked at her expectantly, thinking she was going to show mercy on me and just give it to me. but she continued to explain:<br />
<br />
<i>"The computer is down and I <b>can't</b> ring you up."</i><br />
<br />
Oh..........<br />
<br />
<i>"I've already had some of it."</i> I acknowledged.<br />
<i>"I<b> can't</b> ring you up."</i><br />
<i>"Then, what if I just gave you the money, and you keep the change?</i><i>", </i> I offered.<br />
<i>"I <b>can't</b>"</i><br />
<i>"Then, may I just have it? I've already started drinking it.", I </i>pleaded hopefully.<br />
<i>"No, you<b> can't</b>. I <b>can't</b> ring you up"</i><br />
<i>"Then, what should I do?",</i> I asked, drawing more of the wonderful coldness through the straw.<br />
<i>"I don't know. I <b>can't</b> ring you up."</i><br />
<i>"Well, here, let me leave my money, and ring it when you're up and running again.", </i>I again offered.<br />
<i>"I can't"</i><br />
<br />
Now, a local man in line behind me was listening to this Abbott and Costello exchange. Stepping forward, he intervened....<br />
<br />
<i>"Look, Betty, just let her have it and I'll pay for it the next time I am in."</i><br />
<i>"I <b>can't"</b></i><br />
<br />
He tried to convince her for several more minutes, but to no avail. Finally, he said<br />
<i>"You've got to be able to do something. She's already started drinking it....let one of us leave some money."</i><br />
<i>"I <b>can't</b> ring it up.",</i> the woman again said, then turned an got a smaller cup, <i>"but she can put it in this and drink it. I won't charge her."</i><br />
<br />
Bewildered at this 5 minute ordeal, I accepted the small cup, poured the remaining Slurpee into it and thanked both of them. The gentleman then put his purchases down and pulled money out to pay.<br />
<br />
<i>"I <b>can't.</b>"</i> , the woman began again, getting quite agitated.<br />
<br />
He and I just looked at each other, chuckling at the insanity of it. <br />
<br />
I still shake my head at that whole exchange.....it's one of those things that make me go "hmmmm". <br />
<br />
I heard the word<b><i> 'can't</i></b> used so much during my brief stay in Connecticut, that I wonder if the nearby University of Connecticut, also known as UConn, shouldn't be called UCan't instead.<br />
<br />
Sorry..no pictures. My camera broke.....I think it had a case of the<i> "I <b>can'ts</b>".</i><br />
<br />Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Manchester, CT, USA41.7759301 -72.52150089999997841.732680599999995 -72.581370899999982 41.8191796 -72.461630899999975tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-61437199530289683562012-07-04T21:46:00.338-05:002012-07-26T15:34:53.525-05:00The Big Bang Theory.......New Jersey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I entered New Jersey with a host of assumptions about its residents, based primarily on hearsay of that wonderfully educational show, "Jersey Shore". I expected a rude, self-centered population; when my Warmshower hosts called, cancelling my stay with them so they could attend a party, I was not surprised. It aligned with this perception. </div>
<br />
As the sun set, I found myself looking, unexpectedly, for a place to sleep. On this hot holiday weekend, I had little hope of finding a hotel that:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>had availability </li>
<li>was not outrageously expensive</li>
<li>was clean. </li>
</ul>
I was an hour from New York City, 40 miles from Brooklyn and 30 minutes from Staten Island......that close to the city, I was concerned. Pulling out my trusty Iphone app, I repeated the process I had gone through two days earlier....letting the Hotels.com app guide me to the perfect place at the perfect price. Call after call confirmed my fears; hotels were full and they were expensive. <br />
<br />
Continuing to drive towards the start point of the morning's ride, I passed a posh-looking, independent hotel in a small, but obviously wealthy community. With nothing to lose, I stopped. Travelling comfortably, I was not exactly presentable; donned in a tshirt, (that might have had Cheeto crumbs clinging to it), gym shorts and that ever-present blue baseball hat, I would have fit in better at the Texas State fair, where fried Twinkies are considered a delicacy. By all appearances, this was a hoity-toity establishment, filled with wonderful antiques, and feeling very much like an 'old money' institution. Expecting the worst, I approached the well-groomed older gentleman behind the mahogany reception desk. I truly anticipated a snooty, condescending attitude, with a price tag on the room to match. I got neither!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>**BANG** Assumption number one shattered!</b></div>
<br />
The place was inexpensive and the man was very cordial. When he told me he did not have laundry facilities onsite, he offered to wash my dirty, smelly bike clothes in the hotel's commercial machines, suggesting I grab something to eat while he did so. At one time, this would have mortified me, but I accepted his offer with great appreciation, warning him of the unpleasantness of the laundry bag's contents. Unruffled, he took the bag, and sent me to a nearby restaurant. Upon my return, the laundry was done and neatly folded. Wow! <br />
<br />
Ensconced in my very fine room, I attempted for the second time that day to contact the ride leader of tomorrow's ride. I had arranged to ride with a local bike club's, the <a href="http://cjbc.org/" target="_blank">Central Jersey Bicycle Club</a>, Fourth of July century (100 miles) ride. Other than an email from Manny weeks earlier, acknowledging my request to ride with them, I had heard nothing from him. Receiving no answer, I left another message, assuming I was being stood up and on my own tomorrow.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>**BANG** Assumption number two shattered!</b></div>
<br />
With in minutes, he returned my call, welcoming me to New Jersey, confirming that he was expecting me and gave details of the morning's ride...... 7 am, rain or shine, at the Brookdale Community College, Lot 7. He even had a support vehicle and SAG spots set up.<br />
<br />
Morning arrived with black clouds hanging ominously in the pinkish-red morning sky. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eJ2nLsIdwWU/UBGTRs8T1rI/AAAAAAAAIz0/-mycd9cn77Y/s1600/NJ+(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eJ2nLsIdwWU/UBGTRs8T1rI/AAAAAAAAIz0/-mycd9cn77Y/s320/NJ+(1).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Red sky at night, sailor's delight; </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">red sky in the morning, sailor take warning."</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Heeding this warning, I packed my rain gear and headed out. Gentle droplets bounced benignly off the windshield as I made my way to the start point. Upon arriving, others were already dressed and ready to ride in the rain. In the half hour that followed, the sun played hide and seek and we, in turn, put our rain jackets on, then took them off; it was just to hot and humid to leave them on if it wasn't raining. Introductions made, I was welcomed into the group as if I had always been a member. Then we were off.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Riding abilities varied widely and I soon found myself riding with the front runners. Knowing I was only riding half of the century, I could afford to pick up my pace. Being New Jersey, I expected heavy traffic and a densely populated urban area.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>**BANG** Assumption number three shattered!</b>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Most of the ride took us through small towns, past cornfields and by enormously large horse farms and homes. The pavement, though wet, was smooth and traffic this early was still sparse. At one point, the skies opened and dumped rain on us as though a pipe had broken. Very warm at that point, no one bothered to don rain jackets, reveling instead in the wonderfully cooling bath. </div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--St0EiDe_vM/UBGWPVDEGXI/AAAAAAAAI0A/x_X5qxLPxzw/s1600/NJ+%252816%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--St0EiDe_vM/UBGWPVDEGXI/AAAAAAAAI0A/x_X5qxLPxzw/s320/NJ+%252816%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 19.16666603088379px;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...."</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
I rode with Marianne and Chris. Marianne is a scientist for a big pharmaceutical company and is training for an Ironman. Chris is from Kenya and relatively new to cycling. Both are very strong riders. My suspicions that they were lowering their pace for me were confirmed at the 25 mile SAG stop. Knowing that I was returning, they planned the remainder of their ride....</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chris: <i> "I'm ready to pump this up a bit" </i> (in his accent twinged English)</div>
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Marianne: <i>"I am, too. What did you have in mind?"</i></div>
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Chris: <i>"Why don't we average 20 mph and take turns pulling."</i></div>
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Marianne: <i>"Sounds good to me."</i></div>
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<b>**BANG** Assumption number four shattered!</b>
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HA! I actually thought I was 'hanging' with these two super athletes....that'll teach me to give myself high fives!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Chris, from Kenya</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JGkiY_NeRqA/UBGe18fjnYI/AAAAAAAAI00/-oQfmdEA6z8/s1600/NJ+(14).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JGkiY_NeRqA/UBGe18fjnYI/AAAAAAAAI00/-oQfmdEA6z8/s320/NJ+(14).JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Marianne, the Ironman</span></td></tr>
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Despite numerous request to continue the ride and stay for lunch, I had to say good-bye to all my new friends from the bike club. I needed to complete my mileage, then head on to the next state, Connecticut. <div>
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As they refueled their bodies, I thanked them for the wonderful ride and fellowship, then departed. Waving good-bye, I knew they were the true representatives of aptly named New Jersey....the Garden State. <div>
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<b>**BANG BANG BANG BANG**</b></div>
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<i>Because, after all, it is the Fourth of July....</i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Central New Jersey Bicycle Club, and one happy Texan</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0hfUzbNfvik/UBGgq2p16EI/AAAAAAAAI1I/mUF2MgG1_Dk/s1600/NJ+(20).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0hfUzbNfvik/UBGgq2p16EI/AAAAAAAAI1I/mUF2MgG1_Dk/s320/NJ+(20).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">SAG stop at mile 25</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6hByLjQHs30/UBGgzMNpXaI/AAAAAAAAI1Q/2G8TefFSTsM/s1600/NJ+(23).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6hByLjQHs30/UBGgzMNpXaI/AAAAAAAAI1Q/2G8TefFSTsM/s320/NJ+(23).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">This ambitious soul is riding all 100 miles on her <a href="http://www.elliptigo.com/" target="_blank">elliptical cycle</a></span>!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Y_3agmhwxk/UBGg5zh8U9I/AAAAAAAAI1Y/yV8my6lHF-E/s1600/NJ+(3).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Y_3agmhwxk/UBGg5zh8U9I/AAAAAAAAI1Y/yV8my6lHF-E/s320/NJ+(3).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Horse farms galore. Big money!! (Bad pic, sorry)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TP2IAbrNxkQ/UBGiGbgNv0I/AAAAAAAAI1k/iPD3UdEyXH4/s1600/NJ+%252826%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TP2IAbrNxkQ/UBGiGbgNv0I/AAAAAAAAI1k/iPD3UdEyXH4/s320/NJ+%252826%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">This house needs a haircut.....</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p1KPxCMAWL8/UBGiPeXfQII/AAAAAAAAI1w/W9cKfFVY2Jk/s1600/NJ+%252827%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p1KPxCMAWL8/UBGiPeXfQII/AAAAAAAAI1w/W9cKfFVY2Jk/s320/NJ+%252827%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pretty lakes</span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fsLw8XSV3mQ/UBGi0twD8oI/AAAAAAAAI2Q/ZzSPNONJSA8/s1600/NJ+%252834%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fsLw8XSV3mQ/UBGi0twD8oI/AAAAAAAAI2Q/ZzSPNONJSA8/s320/NJ+%252834%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eXIZo6Xn5X8/UBGi8yRV0RI/AAAAAAAAI2c/pKk0yqPC5Ng/s1600/NJ+%252837%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eXIZo6Xn5X8/UBGi8yRV0RI/AAAAAAAAI2c/pKk0yqPC5Ng/s320/NJ+%252837%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lkAwe2AfJ88/UBGjsCDa2pI/AAAAAAAAI2o/Rv8nz3R5VCA/s1600/NJ+%252824%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lkAwe2AfJ88/UBGjsCDa2pI/AAAAAAAAI2o/Rv8nz3R5VCA/s320/NJ+%252824%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">More horse farms.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYL46u0enGM/UBGjtDyfILI/AAAAAAAAI2w/Bz2D0niLgBo/s1600/NJ+%252828%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYL46u0enGM/UBGjtDyfILI/AAAAAAAAI2w/Bz2D0niLgBo/s200/NJ+%252828%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-boe3So0-x50/UBGjtiQUuXI/AAAAAAAAI24/PxIG8GPSLLA/s1600/NJ+%252829%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-boe3So0-x50/UBGjtiQUuXI/AAAAAAAAI24/PxIG8GPSLLA/s200/NJ+%252829%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">These stores made me laugh.....do you think they are 7-11 knock offs!</span></div>
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Colts Neck, NJ, USA40.2876108 -74.172365240.238146300000004 -74.2342217 40.3370753 -74.1105087tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-41658164516382444622012-07-03T21:45:00.464-05:002012-07-26T09:08:16.267-05:00"Some Beach"..........Delaware<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A sharp rapping on the window awakened me from what felt like a drug induced slumber. More rapping, then</div>
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<i>"Hey Lady, lady.....are you all right?" </i>came a disembodied voice.<br />
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Tugging my ever present blue ball cap back into place, I bolted upright in the drivers seat, and was greeted with a concerned face peering in at me. Sheepishly, I rolled down the window. Standing there was a buxom, red-faced woman, with four young children, who stared wide-eyed at me with undisguised interest.<br />
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<i>"Yes," </i>I replied, <i>"Just catching forty winks. Thanks for asking!"</i><br />
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<i>"Well, ok, "</i> she returned, <i>"You had me worried! A woman shouldn't be out here all alone, sleeping in the car. Somethin' bad might happen!"</i><br />
<br />
Thanking her and acknowledging her concern, she nodded at me gravely, gathered her offspring and continued on her way.<br />
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Yes, indeed, something bad could have happened, but fatigue had overwhelmed me, and I had to stop. I had to stop to take a power nap, for as I drove from Cumberland, I could not fight the drooping eyes and nodding head that were stronger than my will to remain awake. Knowing that lack of food contributed to this state, I stopped for nourishment at Subway, but it hadn't helped. I needed to sleep. So sleep I did, in the parking lot of a Bob Evans restaurant--just a short, 20 minute power nap. But it was enough....enough to rejuvenate me and also raise the concern of an unknown stranger.<br />
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The pace and energy required for this trip has taken me by surprise. Riding three or four hours in brutal heat and humidity, then packing the car, driving 200 to 400 miles, followed by unpacking, doing laundry, caring for my 'riding wounds' (a painful task), working on my bike, reviewing my route and preparing for the next day's ride was taking its toll. I was tired and my body was letting me know it. This was, yet again, another reminder for me to slow down....to shift my focus from my goals to enjoying the journey...and to take care of myself.<br />
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By early evening, I arrived at the home of my Warmshowers hosts, Ina and Ronnie, in Delaware. With great warmth, Ina welcomed me, offering food, company and a big glass of ice water. Sheepishly, I had to tell her I had already eaten when she offered me a locally renowned treat, a big Italian sub from their store, <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/yoders-country-store-greenwood" target="_blank">Yoder's Country Store</a>. A short while later, her husband, Ronnie came home and we settled comfortably in the living room to chat. The evening turned to night as the three of us visited, sharing stories like long lost friends, finally retiring in the wee hours of the night......11 pm for this old timer.<br />
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The next morning, dressed and ready to ride, Ina and I picked up where we had stopped the night before. Eating the large and delicious breakfast Ina had prepared, we engaged in lively conversation and exploration of their life and beliefs as Mennonites. From this exchange, I learned much about their religion and was surprised to learn that the Amish are an off shoot of the Mennonites. To our mutual delight, we discovered we both hail from the same part of Ohio and knew many of the same places.<br />
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Appetite satiated, I soon left to ride, albeit much later than planned. However, after yesterday's lesson, I savored the time spent in such pleasurable and interesting company rather than fretting about staying on a time schedule.<br />
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Turning left out of the driveway, I headed towards the Atlantic Ocean. Except for the flatness and sandiness of the land, nothing indicated its close proximity. Fueled with good food, I shot down the road, travelling at a 20 mph average, enjoying the sun on my face and the wind at my back. I flew past some interesting yard art, then backtracked to take a closer look....life sized sculptures made entirely from horseshoes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ralph</td></tr>
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The artist was puttering in his yard, weeding the flower beds. Asking his permission to photograph his work, he bashfully agreed. Shy he may have been, but he was soon talking openly in a soft voice, telling me about the sculptures and why he was tending to the flowers. The flowers were his wife's passion; she had passed away during the winter. He lovingly cared for them as she would have. How he missed her, reminiscing about the time they had spent together creating their country paradise. As the sun climbed higher into the sky, and temperatures rose, I listened with open heart as he poured his sadness and loneliness out to me, a passing stranger. (Ina--if you read this, please go visit him).<br />
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Once on the road again, I thought of Ralph, hoping that time would heal his heart....recognizing what a gift he had been given to have found the love of his life, and what a gift she had received to have been so cherished.<br />
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With the sun straight up, a shadow passed over me. Above was a sea gull, flying in the same direction as I was riding. Stepping from my contemplative state, I became aware of my surroundings. The air had that unique tang found only near salt water and smelling sweet, like clams. Farmland full of corn still claimed the left side of the road, but the right side was a swampy wonderland, filled with plethora of plants and wildlife. Turtles and snakes basked on stony protrusions, as herons and storks stabbed their long, sharp beaks into the water at some unseen prey. Kingfishers darted out of the sky, bombarding the water in unsynchronized hunting. Black flies swarmed, flying in a cloud of chaos, interrupted only by the hunting acrobatics of a handful of swallows. Cattails swayed, and large leafed water lilies floated tranquilly on the murky black surface, giving the frogs a gentle ride. In the far distance, I could see a huge nest in the top of a dead tree. I would like to think it was that of a bald eagle, but given the number of heron and storks, it was most likely one of theirs. The swamp, a wildlife nature preserve, extended for as far as I could see. I wondered vaguely, how one side of the 'highway' could be the host for corn, while the other was this wild and wonderful world of marine life. <a href="http://www.fws.gov/northeast/primehook/">(</a><a href="http://www.fws.gov/northeast/primehook/" target="_blank">Prime Hook National Wildlife Preserve</a>)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vgk59J5vU5U/UBBcejGGXaI/AAAAAAAAIwU/uOClBa1b44U/s1600/delawaretoday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vgk59J5vU5U/UBBcejGGXaI/AAAAAAAAIwU/uOClBa1b44U/s1600/delawaretoday.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(courtesy of delawaretoday.com)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_A9qWknCkVA/UBBckPHlCdI/AAAAAAAAIwc/5F9QtymwQZ4/s1600/Prime-Hook_Small_Realm_coastalnewstoday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_A9qWknCkVA/UBBckPHlCdI/AAAAAAAAIwc/5F9QtymwQZ4/s320/Prime-Hook_Small_Realm_coastalnewstoday.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">courtesy</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> of coastalnewstoday.com)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fCoA4rvcv0U/UBBcnXJy1aI/AAAAAAAAIwk/PIyGOdMy0YM/s1600/1024px-Prime_Hook_NWR_2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fCoA4rvcv0U/UBBcnXJy1aI/AAAAAAAAIwk/PIyGOdMy0YM/s320/1024px-Prime_Hook_NWR_2010.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">courtesy</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> of Wikipedia.com)</span></td></tr>
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Approaching a T in the road, I was presented with a long row of houses, travelling down the far side of the intersecting street; there seemed to be no end to them. I also heard the unmistakable sound of waves as they came into contact with land. I had reached the ocean! Now...how do I get there? It appeared that all the beach access points were on private property. In fact, I couldn't even see the ocean, though I knew it lay directly behind those homes! Not to be deterred, I pedaled up and down the road until I found a public access....but, my oh my, what a name: <a href="http://www.townofslaughterbeach.com/" target="_blank">Slaughter Beach</a>!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7x7TLMEk7QA/UBC0qLNwtZI/AAAAAAAAIzY/a5PzyL6Xzkw/s1600/DE+7+3+12+(21).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7x7TLMEk7QA/UBC0qLNwtZI/AAAAAAAAIzY/a5PzyL6Xzkw/s320/DE+7+3+12+(21).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Prickly pear cactus.</span></td></tr>
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Walking awkwardly on the heels of my bike shoes to avoid getting sand into the clips, my legs began to sting as sweat trickled into the slashes made by the razor sharp grass that stood between me and the beach. As I balanced precariously over large colonies of prickly pear cactus, (cactus on the beach??? Who would have guessed!), I swatted away vicious and voraciously hungry black flies that thought I was a walking smorgasbord. Beginning to sport large welts and cuts on all exposed areas, I decided I had seen enough of the beach. Time to leave.<br />
<br />
This morning, Ina had suggested that I ride a different route than the one I had planned; the roads on which I had chosen to ride were very busy. She offered some suggestions, then gave me a county map. Today, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Since I always get lost anyway, this method might actually be easier and more worryfree! <br />
<br />
Leaving Slaughter Beach, I headed north, following the coastline. It was a pretty and uneventful ride. Entering Milford, I discovered a lovely old seaside town, complete with old architecture and aged cemeteries. As I explored it, I failed to pay attention to the road surface, and ran straight through a pile of broken glass. Upon examination of my tires, which were unscathed, I noticed that something didn't look right with my rear wheel. Not sure if it was supposed to be like this, I returned to a bike shop I had passed earlier. Lucky for me, the owner called himself "The Tire Doctor'. He looked at it and gave me the thumbs up....all was well. As we chatted, he told me he was in Houston last year for the Senior Olympics; he had placed 11th for his age group in cycling! He was in his 70's; I would have guessed early to mid-sixties had he asked. To me, that is just more proof that cycling, or any exercise, is the key to the fountain of youth!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--FpcN_pGWAo/UBCkVUmsNDI/AAAAAAAAIxc/MkjOJPJkQDE/s1600/DE+7+3+12+(42).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--FpcN_pGWAo/UBCkVUmsNDI/AAAAAAAAIxc/MkjOJPJkQDE/s320/DE+7+3+12+(42).JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Jack Sheaffer, 11th place, Sr Olympics 2011</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3iG1vNuw_xU/UBCkJ72NP8I/AAAAAAAAIxQ/Z2yaSsID2dc/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252841%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3iG1vNuw_xU/UBCkJ72NP8I/AAAAAAAAIxQ/Z2yaSsID2dc/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252841%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 19.16666603088379px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Does anyone know what kind of architecture this is? There were many buildings constructed this way.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Finally leaving the shop, it was past noon. I needed to be getting back; I had at least 25 miles of riding to do so. The wind had picked up considerably, and the lovely tailwind from this morning was now a headwind. With the temperatures hovering around 98 and the humidity high enough to create condensation on the shop windows, I knew I was in for a challenge. After half an hour of hard riding, I was surrounded by fields of corn being irrigated. Large sprays of water overshot the corn and landed on the road.... Overheated and dripping with sweat; I decided to take advantage of this watering maladjustment and cool myself. AAAAHHHH....did that drenching ever feel good!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ghgOCPISc08/UBCuzGk3mSI/AAAAAAAAIx0/YDyZl4ZxSEg/s1600/DE+7+3+12+sprinkler+(61).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ghgOCPISc08/UBCuzGk3mSI/AAAAAAAAIx0/YDyZl4ZxSEg/s320/DE+7+3+12+sprinkler+(61).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Wait for it....wait for it....aaahhhhhhh</span></td></tr>
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<div>
Two hours later, I was lost and still riding. It's obvious I would never be mistaken for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea" target="_blank">Sacagawea</a>; Lewis and Clark would still be out there if I were. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Out of water, I stopped at someone's home to ask if I could get water from their hose. No one was home; I went around to their backyard to fill my bottles anyway and discovered a beautiful coy pond full of fish! What a tranquil spot!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dmlrrJYuw_Y/UBCq0AM4_AI/AAAAAAAAIxo/93TE7KlyMw4/s1600/24C1E307-6534-409F-8A6C-8B37FE4175E4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dmlrrJYuw_Y/UBCq0AM4_AI/AAAAAAAAIxo/93TE7KlyMw4/s320/24C1E307-6534-409F-8A6C-8B37FE4175E4.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Can fish be spoiled? As soon as I walked to the edge of the pond, they began begging.</span></td></tr>
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<div>
Bottles filled and refreshed after drinking some of the cold hose water, I was ready to finish this ride. Tired and hot, I forsook the scenic route, riding instead the most direct one--straight down the shoulder of the highway. It was loud: it was busy:it was less than optimal, but it got me back more quickly than the zigging-zagging country lanes.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Back at last, I took a quick shower, stripped the bed, putting the dirty linens in the laundry room, gave Ina a big hug and thank you, then hit the road for New Jersey. But, first, on the way out of town, I stopped at Yoder's Country Store to say good-by to Ronnie and get a big cup of latte. MMMM-mmmmm. No falling asleep on the road today!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E1qcwm1kXvY/UBCxhk7d79I/AAAAAAAAIzE/2iu9-1SqzcU/s1600/DE+7+3+12+(78).JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E1qcwm1kXvY/UBCxhk7d79I/AAAAAAAAIzE/2iu9-1SqzcU/s320/DE+7+3+12+(78).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tjfidU7XX-k/UBCxkfqzdrI/AAAAAAAAIzM/XX20VZNY950/s1600/DE+7+3+12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tjfidU7XX-k/UBCxkfqzdrI/AAAAAAAAIzM/XX20VZNY950/s320/DE+7+3+12.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Yoder's Country Store</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxAoZ4Oxqgg/UBCw-uNrx-I/AAAAAAAAIyA/B1qVEFTWnmQ/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252811%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxAoZ4Oxqgg/UBCw-uNrx-I/AAAAAAAAIyA/B1qVEFTWnmQ/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252811%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Delaware has it all....crops, beaches, swamps and woodlands</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HEFtQoLtXmU/UBCxOc2g5pI/AAAAAAAAIyU/sqtmESBblMY/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252840%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HEFtQoLtXmU/UBCxOc2g5pI/AAAAAAAAIyU/sqtmESBblMY/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252840%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I passed this guy with extreme caution!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ymr_01PpUCg/UBCxVSHfnlI/AAAAAAAAIyg/76EOow_MJj0/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252865%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ymr_01PpUCg/UBCxVSHfnlI/AAAAAAAAIyg/76EOow_MJj0/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252865%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith's_Chapel" target="_blank">Griffith's Chapel, 1850</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jCO3XS0_gDU/UBCxGh_mrGI/AAAAAAAAIyM/uly-jtw3ijA/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252837%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jCO3XS0_gDU/UBCxGh_mrGI/AAAAAAAAIyM/uly-jtw3ijA/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252837%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Yummy! I want to go!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cXZpBjGVn5o/UBCxYQtiAPI/AAAAAAAAIyo/5p1nVgDAyrs/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252874%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cXZpBjGVn5o/UBCxYQtiAPI/AAAAAAAAIyo/5p1nVgDAyrs/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252874%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Salt encrusted bike shorts, at testament to the heat and my level of exertion.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mHBkjoO5tyI/UBCxZvHCvLI/AAAAAAAAIyw/pfyQOzo6VTU/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252875%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mHBkjoO5tyI/UBCxZvHCvLI/AAAAAAAAIyw/pfyQOzo6VTU/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252875%2529.JPG" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ronnie and Ina</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qVLK0_oyNGM/UBCxbDrURaI/AAAAAAAAIy4/wcSVW-RA97E/s1600/DE+7+3+12+%252876%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="234" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qVLK0_oyNGM/UBCxbDrURaI/AAAAAAAAIy4/wcSVW-RA97E/s320/DE+7+3+12+%252876%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A kiss good-bye. Thank you for your excellent hospitality.</span></td></tr>
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<br /></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1Greenwood, DE 19950, USA38.8070578 -75.59131530000001938.8003938 -75.601098300000018 38.8137218 -75.581532300000021tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-31189732536641467842012-07-02T21:44:00.003-05:002012-07-31T09:50:16.303-05:00"If You Miss the Train I'm On...." Maryland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After spending a leisurely rest day in West Virginia, tromping around the haunts of my ancestors, I moseyed on over to Maryland. As I transversed from one state to the next, I pondered why one state might carry a reputation for being 'backwoods', while the neighboring one does not. Without a big metal '<b>Welcome'</b> sign on the road, I would not know when I had left one state and entered the next. There is no big yellow line marking the state boundaries as one sees on a map. That being the case, from where do these conceptions arise, and on what are they based?<br />
<br />
Travelling through the various states, each geographical area seems to have it's underdog; that state where the sophistication and intelligence of its residents are a target of ridicule. The Northeast picks on Maine: the Mid-Atlantic coastal states snigger at New Jersey; of course, West Virginia is always the butt of the Cletus jokes, as is Kentucky. Arkansas and Oklahoma seem to gather the attention for the breadbasket states, and we won't even mention Louisiana. It rather reminds me of the high school cafeteria, where the cool kids are at one table, and the hierarchy descends from there. I suspect that, like much in life, worth is erroneously based on wealth.<br />
<br />
Anyway........<br />
<br />
Travelling into western Maryland afforded me beautiful views of the Appalachian mountains. On this very hot and humid day, I was headed to Cumberland, where homes and business were still without electricity due to Friday's Derecho storm. Not having a <a href="http://www.warmshowers.org/">Warmshowers</a> host here, I was staying in a hotel; I had faith that I would find one with its electricity intact. <br />
<br />
Downtown Cumberland on this Sunday evening was dead. Many of the businesses had signs in their windows, informing customers they would be closed until power was restored. Like a tornado, the outage seemed to skip some business, while hitting others. After the hotel experience in West Virginia and the absolute emptiness of the streets, I began to wonder if a hotel, one in which I would be safe, was available. Pulling into a deserted street, which felt like the set of the Twilight Zone, I pulled out my phone, tapping the Hotel.com app. As the results materialized on the screen, I let the electronic voice guide me to that night's refuge.<br />
<br />
Standing tall and modern among the old buildings in historical Cumberland, the green Holiday Inn sign beckoned me, like a lighthouse in a storm.<br />
<br />
<i>Uh-oh......the parking lot was full. Not a good sign for me, but at least there must be electricity AND air conditioning if so many people are there! </i><br />
<br />
Wiping the red Crystal Light mustache from my lip and entering the reception area, I was greeted with a roomful of sweaty, muddy men in bicycle gear--by the looks of them, grooming my mustache was totally unnecessary! This was a motley, yet happy, crew; they had just come off the <a href="http://www.bikecando.com/default.aspx" target="_blank">C & O Canal Towpath Trail</a>, which runs from Cumberland to Washington DC. They were obviously ecstatic to be in a hotel and not camped on the wet ground.<br />
<br />
<i>Double uh-oh...full parking lot, and now all these guys.... hope that I would get a room was dimming. </i><br />
<br />
Taking my place in the long check-in que, , I chatted with the guy in front of me, a loud Alpha male, about the path and their ride. Telling him I intended to ride that trail in the morning and was on a carbon road bike, he looked at me as if I had just fallen off the turnip truck. He informed me, in very simple but explicit language, that the Towpath had taken a pretty bad beating from the storm, suggesting that I take the <a href="http://gaptrail.org/">Great Allegheny Passage</a>, (also known as the GAP), instead.<br />
<br />
The C & O goes south to Washington DC, and the GAP runs north to Pittsburg; they join in Cumberland, creating 300 miles of biking trails! Biking heaven....but that would be a trip for another day.<br />
<br />
He also gave me a lot of useful information, such as:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>take a light--there are long tunnels</li>
<li>wear mosquito repellent</li>
<li>the GAP follows the train track, so I could race the train to the top</li>
<li>the first 25 miles are uphill</li>
</ul>
<br />
Next in line, I was able to check in, eager for the morning's ride, until I turned and saw all those muddy men looking at me, obviously discussing the folly of riding a carbon road bike on the trail. Oh well...they just don't know that I believe '100% is possible 100% of the time'. It might not be easy; it might not be fun, but 'can't' just isn't part of my vocabulary. As a friend of mine likes to say "Maybe you can't because you won't."<br />
<br />
The weather for the following morning was forecasted to be another high 90's day, with possibility of reaching 100, and accompanying high humidity. <i>Ugh</i>. With weather like that, I knew I had to be up and riding before 7 and I was. Good thing, too--it took a full 30 min to find the trailhead. Ah......isn't it great to be so directionally challenged!<br />
<br />
<b><u>The Ride</u></b><br />
<br />
Folks--each ride just gets better and better. I thought I had seen unbelievable beauty on previous rides, but the trip on the GAP was breathtaking in the early morning light. The trail, again, was wonderful hard packed earth with that kitty litter fine gravel, running next to the railroad. As the morning light gently filtered through the trees, casting a magical hue, the only sounds I heard were the crunching of my tires and the birds calling to each other. All around me, the underbrush rustled with small creatures scurrying to hide as I made my way up the mountain. Rolling through their territory, Eastern towhees called out<br />
<i></i><br />
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><a href="http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/eastern_towhee/id">"Drink you tea, drink your tea"</a></i></div>
</blockquote>
Unbeknownst to them, I had already had my skinny hazelnut latte at Starbucks. No tea was necessary to power my legs; if the coffee wasn't enough, the majesty of my surroundings was. The towhees' beautiful song was a wonderful accompaniment to the locust singing in the canopy. Rounding a corner, I startled a doe and her two young fawns as they grazed on the succulent grass growing along the side of the trail. They sauntered away, as if they hadn't a care in the world. I knew how they felt. <br />
<br />
Up and up I went, unaware that I was actually climbing. At times, I felt I was actually descending, but a look at my bike computer confirmed that I was still climbing. This sometimes happens in mountainous areas and is called a false grade. It is the illusion of going downhill, when the road is actually going up. It can be frustrating at times, as one wonders why pedaling is so laborious on a descent; I always think it is me, that I am out of shape. It is a comfort to be able to look at the computer and realize that Mother Nature is playing tricks.<br />
<br />
Onward I went, stopping only to take in the magnificence of the views in the high vistas. Looking out over the panoramic scene of the Appalachian mountains, I watched as the day awakened, mist hanging in the valleys like a comforter gently placed on a sleeping child. If one did not believe in God, this would surely be convincing evidence. And all around me, I was bathed in the 'silence' of the woods and the songs of the towhee. The tranquility, the solitude and my sense of serenity was so great, that the old folk song, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwB2A9HHaCU" target="_blank">500 Miles</a>, sprang into my mind, escaping from my lips; I sang it as I climbed, savoring my surroundings, with the birds providing harmony.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6J49JCb5YEY/UA855TvImoI/AAAAAAAAIso/Kwl8SFx_2Ns/s1600/MD+%252865%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6J49JCb5YEY/UA855TvImoI/AAAAAAAAIso/Kwl8SFx_2Ns/s320/MD+%252865%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tranquil farms nestled in the valleys</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-V7gJ9Pn2Q/UA86vW9NndI/AAAAAAAAIt8/Cv6KR7QBhvg/s1600/MD+%252886%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-V7gJ9Pn2Q/UA86vW9NndI/AAAAAAAAIt8/Cv6KR7QBhvg/s320/MD+%252886%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sun is slowly rising</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ViuP70q3M7Y/UA85G5qLOOI/AAAAAAAAIrY/MdODTN7uMO0/s1600/MD+%25284%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ViuP70q3M7Y/UA85G5qLOOI/AAAAAAAAIrY/MdODTN7uMO0/s320/MD+%25284%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">America, the beautiful</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Up...up...up... past the Mason-Dixon line, which divided the Northern states from the Confederacy,...past the Eastern Continental Divide. Still I climbed, through tunnels and passing others now joining me on the trail.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnE9Z2aT6BU/UA86-S3WKXI/AAAAAAAAIuQ/WbwPE7jBylw/s1600/MD+%252888%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnE9Z2aT6BU/UA86-S3WKXI/AAAAAAAAIuQ/WbwPE7jBylw/s320/MD+%252888%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Eastern Continental Divide</td></tr>
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Ah....the tunnels. From out of the sunlight, I entered my first tunnel, taking off my sunglasses and flipping on my light. I was as blind as a new born kitten. It was DARK! Three of the four tunnels were unlit, so I proceeded with caution...lights on, as well as my red rear flashing light. Signs warned of not entering the tunnel if a train was present; I cannot imagine the sound and vibration that must be occur if one were to be in the tunnel with a train!! The fourth tunnel was daunting; it was long....very long. Long enough that dim lights were hung from the ceiling and the end looked like a pin prick in a piece of black paper. I pedaled very slowly, waiting for my eyes to adjust. I pedaled for what seemed an eternity, but the end never seemed to get closer. Was I on a treadmill? Finally, I felt myself being drawn to the light; I imagined that this must be similar to a near death experience. At last, I arrived at the terminus; emerging into the brightness of day. I now know what a mole must feel like coming out of its hole.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wKnZ7iGiTUs/UA86VvgoqkI/AAAAAAAAItU/qSWCH9fbr5M/s1600/MD+%252874%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wKnZ7iGiTUs/UA86VvgoqkI/AAAAAAAAItU/qSWCH9fbr5M/s320/MD+%252874%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A short, picturesque tunnel</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light at the end of the tunnel.</td></tr>
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Summiting the mountain, my mileage read 25 miles. Though I wanted to ride on, I knew I needed to check out of the hotel, then drive over 250 miles to the east side of Delaware. It was time to return. Riding more of the GAP would have to wait for another trip (anyone want to go?), so with remorse, I turned and started back. The good news? It was all downhill!!!<br />
<br />
Down I flew, glad that I had taken time to enjoy and savor the serene beauty on the way up. The ride was exhilarating, and stopping was not on my agenda.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Wheeeeeeee", </i> I shouted gleefully, sounding like the Geico pig.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Riders sweating their way up, looked at me with envy....<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Wheeeeeee". </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
Hopefully my obvious exhilaration encouraged them, or at least made them laugh. It took my a third of the time to descend as it did going up. All too soon I was at the bottom, with time to spare.<br />
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I took advantage of this extra time to explore the C & O Towpath trail. I wanted to see just how rough it was. <br />
<br />
I am not sure what the men I met yesterday encountered, but the trail I rode on was more than doable. It was a flat, easy ride, with some potholes, mud puddles and roots, but easily navigable. Stopping at a bike shop where the trails converge, the owner told me I could have ridden it on my road bike without difficulty--that the challenge was more mental than physical. <br />
<br />
Regardless, today's ride was one which reminds me of how blessed I am on many, many different levels.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7EaiioS0wTs/UA84Yth3J6I/AAAAAAAAIqU/HGkfTJ66phI/s1600/MD+%252812%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7EaiioS0wTs/UA84Yth3J6I/AAAAAAAAIqU/HGkfTJ66phI/s320/MD+%252812%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early morning light filters through the trees.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t7DBCthKvTU/UA84fc6cYxI/AAAAAAAAIqg/r9vBGCIJ2U0/s1600/MD+%252824%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t7DBCthKvTU/UA84fc6cYxI/AAAAAAAAIqg/r9vBGCIJ2U0/s320/MD+%252824%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sharing the bridge.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8ff_LH7yCUw/UA84mcVBH5I/AAAAAAAAIqo/3RcxdG7l2OI/s1600/MD+%252825%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8ff_LH7yCUw/UA84mcVBH5I/AAAAAAAAIqo/3RcxdG7l2OI/s320/MD+%252825%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<i>If you miss the train I'm on......"</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B3vesGozY9c/UA841rpb0SI/AAAAAAAAIq8/DCKsp2SKezk/s1600/MD+%252833%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B3vesGozY9c/UA841rpb0SI/AAAAAAAAIq8/DCKsp2SKezk/s320/MD+%252833%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small town access to the trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e-JduuxRziA/UA85DaZOFWI/AAAAAAAAIrQ/HllGA6-EuH8/s1600/MD+%252835%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e-JduuxRziA/UA85DaZOFWI/AAAAAAAAIrQ/HllGA6-EuH8/s320/MD+%252835%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A farm nestled in the valley</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U63MDak-LHI/UA85blm1uxI/AAAAAAAAIr4/6tXm9b93BUk/s1600/MD+%252854%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U63MDak-LHI/UA85blm1uxI/AAAAAAAAIr4/6tXm9b93BUk/s320/MD+%252854%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LWSfQOagTJo/UA85pKm_voI/AAAAAAAAIsM/wVMVgRkOQ0M/s1600/MD+%252856%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LWSfQOagTJo/UA85pKm_voI/AAAAAAAAIsM/wVMVgRkOQ0M/s320/MD+%252856%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GSefC4-fQfA/UA85sAfCX-I/AAAAAAAAIsU/L1sM1XrBCxg/s1600/MD+%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GSefC4-fQfA/UA85sAfCX-I/AAAAAAAAIsU/L1sM1XrBCxg/s320/MD+%25286%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The climb; not as daunting as it would appear.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dQORL6ziZE4/UA86GZmmEUI/AAAAAAAAItA/VGcd6a8PVAE/s1600/MD+%252871%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dQORL6ziZE4/UA86GZmmEUI/AAAAAAAAItA/VGcd6a8PVAE/s320/MD+%252871%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My ride up; no grades were over 3%, but that is 3% for 25 miles</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wro87zv-DbM/UA870DrQpfI/AAAAAAAAIvc/TiYuplpo1hc/s1600/MD+%252899%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wro87zv-DbM/UA870DrQpfI/AAAAAAAAIvc/TiYuplpo1hc/s320/MD+%252899%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The canal, the trail, the train......</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IUuZabqNphI/UA87svL1B1I/AAAAAAAAIvQ/UT_Mel-2_BA/s1600/MD+%252896%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IUuZabqNphI/UA87svL1B1I/AAAAAAAAIvQ/UT_Mel-2_BA/s320/MD+%252896%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extremely well marked trails</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6_l8j_0rbpk/UA87llLUd2I/AAAAAAAAIvI/olTmn9Ce11M/s1600/MD+%252895%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6_l8j_0rbpk/UA87llLUd2I/AAAAAAAAIvI/olTmn9Ce11M/s320/MD+%252895%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-To4SPziaoFY/UA87b-avsNI/AAAAAAAAIvA/fQL16l-SJYM/s1600/MD+%252894%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-To4SPziaoFY/UA87b-avsNI/AAAAAAAAIvA/fQL16l-SJYM/s320/MD+%252894%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I may have exceeded the speed limit.....</td></tr>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2nA7dp6q1wU/UA87Y36x_zI/AAAAAAAAIu0/66txIXAZbOU/s1600/MD+%252893%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2nA7dp6q1wU/UA87Y36x_zI/AAAAAAAAIu0/66txIXAZbOU/s320/MD+%252893%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ro667A5tZG4/UA86ErD4W_I/AAAAAAAAIs4/mjL-_2VDgmw/s1600/MD+%25287%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ro667A5tZG4/UA86ErD4W_I/AAAAAAAAIs4/mjL-_2VDgmw/s320/MD+%25287%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plaque giving the history of the canals and G Washington's involvement.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dhr2cwNOA8I/UA85ygMqe9I/AAAAAAAAIsc/eQed8z7Ay80/s1600/MD+%252864%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dhr2cwNOA8I/UA85ygMqe9I/AAAAAAAAIsc/eQed8z7Ay80/s320/MD+%252864%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early morning berry pickers. I thought they were feeding the wild turkeys I had just flushed off the trail.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vn3g0tQ6BOU/UA84B7dzrmI/AAAAAAAAIp0/b6I_LYy291U/s1600/MD+%2528108%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vn3g0tQ6BOU/UA84B7dzrmI/AAAAAAAAIp0/b6I_LYy291U/s320/MD+%2528108%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The canal on the C & O portion of the trail. Swim, anyone?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eJKMX3-iQhU/UA84RtVknBI/AAAAAAAAIqM/B9l_NMLpdOQ/s1600/MD+%2528111%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eJKMX3-iQhU/UA84RtVknBI/AAAAAAAAIqM/B9l_NMLpdOQ/s320/MD+%2528111%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old mill</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NtooZj2G7zA/UA87Cro7qZI/AAAAAAAAIuY/vC0LFXomg8s/s1600/MD+%25289%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NtooZj2G7zA/UA87Cro7qZI/AAAAAAAAIuY/vC0LFXomg8s/s320/MD+%25289%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My purchase for the day.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qWXputFvvsk/UA83sxV-05I/AAAAAAAAIpY/HI17Qs2x33E/s1600/MD+%2528100%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qWXputFvvsk/UA83sxV-05I/AAAAAAAAIpY/HI17Qs2x33E/s320/MD+%2528100%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which way do I go?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SCyVV1r8-tY/UA83zwzOLhI/AAAAAAAAIpk/Jjr-Id7bdm0/s1600/MD+%2528102%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SCyVV1r8-tY/UA83zwzOLhI/AAAAAAAAIpk/Jjr-Id7bdm0/s320/MD+%2528102%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The C & O portion. This is the Potomac River.</td></tr>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxEkUHfsFlU7EhK3lmrxuPwB-1LM2TN8CmxdEI0fcVuiczkeCK0-GasrakIVw8mexQbO9_6oApdlFe-SGgQPw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Take a ride with me.</div>
<br />
Oh....by the way....I didn't get to race the train. It didn't start running until noon, long after I had completed my ride. Oh, well.
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<br />Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1Cumberland, MD, USA39.6528654 -78.762518539.6196964 -78.8132705 39.686034400000004 -78.7117665tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-29024117122408413552012-06-30T19:01:00.004-05:002012-07-22T00:25:19.722-05:00Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh MY! WV<div class="MsoNormal">
Having survived that freakish storm, night was in full force. Not seeing well at night, I thought it prudent that I stop for the night, especially since I was leaving the highway and getting on local roads; I did not want to navigate wet, winding West Virginia roads in the dark. I pulled up to a Holiday Inn, only to find it full. Many others were also taking refuge for the night. That left the Super 8, where the only room left was a business<br />
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I won’t go into that story now, but that was the hotel from Hell! Enough so, that I requested and got token refund on the room and also spent time writing a negative review on Trip Advisor….something that I don't normally spend time doing, but people needed to be warned…. After a multitude of other events, what finally broke this camel’s back was when I was awakened at 1 am by a woman pounding on my door and trying to get in. </div>
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“<i><b>What do you want</b></i>?” I yelled.<br />
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<i>“It’s the hotel staff,</i> “ came the reply, “<i>We just needed to find out if this room was occupied.”</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<b style="font-style: italic;">"Go away....it is occupied!", </b>I retorted.</div>
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<i><br />
</i></div>
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Are you kidding me? I approached the desk the following morning and told them what happened. The woman said, </div>
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<i>“Oh, that was me. The boss told me to do that.”</i> </div>
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To which I replied,<i> “You’re luck you didn’t get shot. I sleep with a loaded gun on the nightstand!”</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nFdYxIsCrHw/UAsdA6_VWfI/AAAAAAAAIlA/ecGZxjLicCU/s1600/RI+(87).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nFdYxIsCrHw/UAsdA6_VWfI/AAAAAAAAIlA/ecGZxjLicCU/s1600/RI+(87).JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't mess with Texas</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
She visibly paled. I think that might have had something to do with receiving the discount. </div>
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Not sure where I was exactly, I left the hotel early, and with time to spare; I was to meet a group riding from the courthouse in downtown Morgantown. After plugging the address into the Gramin, I was chagrined to discover that I was 5 short miles away from destination. I could have spent a comfortable night with my WV host, Tracy. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Like a good mother hen, Tracy called to check on me as I was driving around downtown Morgantown. She must have good instincts because I had been driving around and around the same block trying to find that stupid courthouse!</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>“It’s right by <a href="http://www.pathfinderwv.com/go.asp?id=cycling" target="_blank">Pathfinder</a>, the bike shop where my boyfriend works.”</i>, she instructed</div>
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And I looked….I had been past Pathfinders several times….this time I saw the BIG red brick courthouse; it was in plain view. How I never noticed it before, I have no idea…..things that make me go ‘hmmm’. No matter; I was there with time to spare.<br />
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Ten o’clock came and went; no one showed. Now what….. </div>
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I am finding on this trip that one has to be flexible and change plans on a dime. In an odd way, this has been quite liberating. I had planned to ride the Decker Creek trail tomorrow, but I could do it today, if it wasn’t trashed by the storm. I could cross that bridge when I came to it, though. </div>
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<br /></div>
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First, I was going to go to the bike shop and see if they carried cleats for my shoes; mine had worn out and were being held to the shoe by a hangnail of metal. (That was a scary discovery; the result of that clip failing could have been disastrous.) I had been unable to find anyone that carried that clip in my last two stops and riding with it in that condition worried me. <br />
<br />
Not seeing any on display, I approached the young, long-haired, friendly bike mechanic. I showed him my shoes and clips; he visibly shuddered, but pulled out exactly what I needed. Bingo….I hit pay dirt. He even had the tools to remove the old one, which required a Dremel tool as the screws were so worn that a screwdriver was rendered useless. Yippee! I could ride safely now! <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5SPFyOracz4/UAsgJf8dG1I/AAAAAAAAIl0/CZScLyQ9GOk/s1600/IMG_2348a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5SPFyOracz4/UAsgJf8dG1I/AAAAAAAAIl0/CZScLyQ9GOk/s320/IMG_2348a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This cleat should have looked the same on both ends. As you can see , there is nothing left of the top.</td></tr>
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As the drill sang "zing, zing, zing", cutting through the worn screws, I got a status report of the trail—one of the mechanics had just cycled in on it. A few downed trees, but it was in good shape. Double yippee! An hour later, I was on my way.<br />
<br />
The trail was beautiful. Once out of the city, the pavement stops and the trail surface becomes packed dirt with gravel the size of kitty littler. A bit nervous to be riding a full carbon bike with skinny tires (23s) on a trail, I rode at a cautious pace, gingerly navigating the trail. I truly had nothing about which to be nervous; the trail was wonderful and very stable. </div>
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<br />
Alone on the vacant trail, all I heard was the crackling crunch of my tires as they rolled over the fine gravel, the rushing water of storm swollen Decker Creek and the birds singing throughout the forest canopy. I cruised past a huge working quarry, that looked like something out of Starwars, abandoned mines and coke ovens, passing wonderful rustic churches, all the while being serenaded by the water of the creek and the birds. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zSLrLgxpAEE/UAsk5Pf6ORI/AAAAAAAAIms/wU9HJsJvS1E/s1600/IMG_2313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zSLrLgxpAEE/UAsk5Pf6ORI/AAAAAAAAIms/wU9HJsJvS1E/s320/IMG_2313.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful packed gravel path</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3RG7upYSkbY/UAsm5WOC_FI/AAAAAAAAIoQ/pFyIfDZPmdU/s1600/WV+decker+(23).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3RG7upYSkbY/UAsm5WOC_FI/AAAAAAAAIoQ/pFyIfDZPmdU/s320/WV+decker+(23).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rushing Decker Creek</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MmLLnlySVA/UAsnEQNpQWI/AAAAAAAAIoY/TXp_BElFqrA/s1600/WV+decker+(25).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MmLLnlySVA/UAsnEQNpQWI/AAAAAAAAIoY/TXp_BElFqrA/s320/WV+decker+(25).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old church, still in use</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PWKXXO0AOZA/UAsnk2_2yxI/AAAAAAAAIo4/mlktXxX6H4k/s1600/WV+decker+(30).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PWKXXO0AOZA/UAsnk2_2yxI/AAAAAAAAIo4/mlktXxX6H4k/s320/WV+decker+(30).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waterfalls</td></tr>
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</div>
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As I let my mind drift, I became aware of just how alone I was....<i>all alone...all alone...all alone</i> Those words beat a cadence in my mind and my imagination jumped onboard, expanding on all the possibilities those words held, batting them around like a cat plays with a mouse. The mind is a powerful thing, and as those words bounced around inside of my skull, I began to feel the tendrils of fear creep into my peaceful ride. All sorts of "what if's" began to pop up.<br />
<br />
I have had a number of nay-sayers pepper me with their fears and concerns about my traveling and riding solo. Until this moment, I had shrugged off their suggestions of danger lurking around every corner, but now those voiced opinions and concerns came tumbling off the shelf on which I had placed them, like plates in an earthquake. Anxiety welled in my chest. I felt like Dorothy walking through the Haunted Forest in the Wizard of Oz, waiting for the Flying Monkeys to appear. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>....All alone....all alone....lions and tigers and bears...oh my....</i></b></div>
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<b><br />
</b></div>
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As in Macbeth, I mentally shouted "Out, damned spot!" to those words and fears........(I'm not sure the context was right, but the intention was clear....) and they sulkily crept away. I knew they would be back if I let them, so I turned my focus back on the ride and the tranquility of the woods.</div>
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Successfully keeping my fear subdued, I continued down the trail; unfortunately, I was unable to ride to the end. The storm had taken down trees, which blocked the northern portion. I hiked around a few of them, but finally came upon a fall that was beyond navigation. Turning my bike, I headed back the way I came. Having only ridden a few miles, I ran into a crew clearing the trail. I must say, I was quite impressed with how quickly the issue was addressed. These trees hadn't even been down eight hours...that would not have happened in Dallas.....<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TO6s9sO3zVM/UAshR452lYI/AAAAAAAAIl8/nJ2Nx7flyhA/s1600/WV+decker+(32).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TO6s9sO3zVM/UAshR452lYI/AAAAAAAAIl8/nJ2Nx7flyhA/s320/WV+decker+(32).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fallen trees from the <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/storms-mid-atlantic-power-outages-could-last-days-2407106.html" target="_blank">derecho storm</a> that hit the area</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ8V6B0Fkrs/UAshbx-sxEI/AAAAAAAAImQ/bKTcQ0l_BLw/s1600/IMG_2312.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ8V6B0Fkrs/UAshbx-sxEI/AAAAAAAAImQ/bKTcQ0l_BLw/s320/IMG_2312.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crew clearing the way less than 8 hours after the storm.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My untimely return left me a few miles short of the self-imposed mileage I needed to accomplish my goal. To up my mileage, I continued on the path as it wound through downtown <a href="http://www.morgantown.com/overview.htm" target="_blank">Morgantown</a>.<br />
<br />
Now, let me tell you a little about Morgantown; the hills there are equal to those found on the streets of San Francisco. As I approached the particularly steep and well renowned climb, Spruce St, I stopped and watched two lithe, well-muscled young men, in full matching kits, struggle up the steep grade. When one went down due to his slow pace and inability to unclip fast enough to save himself, I did a U-turn. Not that I couldn't do it, mind you....I just didn't want to embarrass the boys by passing them. (if you believe that, let me tell you about some land I have in Florida....) <br />
<br />
I was on my Pinarello, affectionately known as "Baby"..... (Most people think that is her name because as I climbed steep grades, they would often hear me shouting "Come on, Baby!", mistakenly thinking I was talking to the bike.......I am really referring to myself. Sheepishly, I have let that misinterpretation stand).......and the gearing on that bike is meant for flat, performance riding. There was no way my engine (aka my legs) had the power to get up a 20% grade with that set up. I wasn't going to even try; I had nothing to prove and much to lose.<br />
<br />
I turned and flew down the hill I had come up to reach Spruce St, through the <a href="http://www.wvu.edu/" target="_blank">WVU</a> campus, and back on the FLAT trail that ran along the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monongahela_River" target="_blank">Monongahela River</a> (try saying that three times when you're drunk). Mileage complete, I was tooling along, well aware that my saddle sores were not happy, wondering what I was going to do about it, when I came upon a bike shop tucked in under bridge. Odd, but clever place for it....I assumed it catered to people wanting to rent bikes for the trail. I buzzed by, but something beckoned me back....namely the pain of my sores. Perhaps, just perhaps, they would have bike shorts with a chamois my current ones lacked and that would relieve the chaffing.<br />
<br />
Well, today I hit the trifecta in good fortune; this was a full-fledged bike store, carrying higher end brands. (<a href="http://www.wamsleycycles.com/" target="_blank">Wamsley Cycling</a>) What an unexpected surprise! With the help of owner, a petite, cordial woman, I found some shorts that just might do the trick; they had a chamois extending well down the leg, with little padding and high tech fabric. They also had a high price; Deborah graciously discounted the shorts to effectively give me a two for one price......and threw in a free water bottle on top! I just love free stuff! Thank you, thank you, thank you! West Virginia certainly excels in friendliness!<br />
<br />
So, what started out as ride that continuously threw curve balls in my planning, turned out to be a wonderful and enjoyable experience. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMOpnuDJ3XQ/UAsl5vYkaII/AAAAAAAAInE/RDSLIrLPJ5c/s1600/IMG_2342.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMOpnuDJ3XQ/UAsl5vYkaII/AAAAAAAAInE/RDSLIrLPJ5c/s320/IMG_2342.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deborah, my saddle sore savior, and head mechanic, Colin.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9PSrLSfmqxQ/UAsl9cFyO0I/AAAAAAAAInQ/S5c--tmFw44/s1600/IMG_2343.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9PSrLSfmqxQ/UAsl9cFyO0I/AAAAAAAAInQ/S5c--tmFw44/s320/IMG_2343.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chip, Deborah's husband</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wuLpqSjdo8/UAsmDmmo7gI/AAAAAAAAInY/dtA0n-xvZt8/s1600/IMG_2347.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wuLpqSjdo8/UAsmDmmo7gI/AAAAAAAAInY/dtA0n-xvZt8/s320/IMG_2347.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And, of course, I stopped to take a picture....</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVZSssp0dDQ/UAslud92KQI/AAAAAAAAIm0/cU7QbZc-Ic8/s1600/IMG_2310.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVZSssp0dDQ/UAslud92KQI/AAAAAAAAIm0/cU7QbZc-Ic8/s320/IMG_2310.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned railroad trellis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7pkS89WZe4o/UAslz0kZhxI/AAAAAAAAIm8/8QfN_A3A5Q4/s1600/IMG_2314.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7pkS89WZe4o/UAslz0kZhxI/AAAAAAAAIm8/8QfN_A3A5Q4/s320/IMG_2314.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More scenic beauty of the trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jUnfq7dLI1g/UAsmJrTa9sI/AAAAAAAAIng/ghDYxVfecGM/s1600/IMG_2352.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jUnfq7dLI1g/UAsmJrTa9sI/AAAAAAAAIng/ghDYxVfecGM/s320/IMG_2352.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tracy's dog wasn't sure about me</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--7fhm9MtELk/UAsmPLaIQcI/AAAAAAAAIno/nbLmIaT40PA/s1600/IMG_2353.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--7fhm9MtELk/UAsmPLaIQcI/AAAAAAAAIno/nbLmIaT40PA/s320/IMG_2353.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tracy and BJ, hostess extraordinaire</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rTlwP2vtMPE/UAsmVZAHjnI/AAAAAAAAInw/KvwiS_SXsr4/s1600/IMG_2354.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rTlwP2vtMPE/UAsmVZAHjnI/AAAAAAAAInw/KvwiS_SXsr4/s320/IMG_2354.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What a nice welcome!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0CLrRllItRY/UAsmi-Y3muI/AAAAAAAAIn8/WairPjTfvs0/s1600/WV+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0CLrRllItRY/UAsmi-Y3muI/AAAAAAAAIn8/WairPjTfvs0/s320/WV+%25281%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trains are everywhere</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X1DNliEW57c/UAsnaXICBCI/AAAAAAAAIos/AlJt3dYcn28/s1600/WV+decker+%252827%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X1DNliEW57c/UAsnaXICBCI/AAAAAAAAIos/AlJt3dYcn28/s320/WV+decker+%252827%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gravel quarry</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Jz7tOXcKV4/UAsnPvab6FI/AAAAAAAAIok/EiAkA1icu74/s1600/WV+decker+%252826%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Jz7tOXcKV4/UAsnPvab6FI/AAAAAAAAIok/EiAkA1icu74/s320/WV+decker+%252826%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of the quarry system. It was huge.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f8m0ildjdl0/UAsnnOlt6dI/AAAAAAAAIpA/AG-U7xtoUWY/s1600/WV+decker+%252838%2529a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f8m0ildjdl0/UAsnnOlt6dI/AAAAAAAAIpA/AG-U7xtoUWY/s320/WV+decker+%252838%2529a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old coke ovens</td></tr>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwJQkhKEHDBcWXb3GQG4OUB58TfUHAemI-tymHV7C7wt5ciQDi74mVh_H0wtEl8LXIa8HuwDiZuFiyLSEe85g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Come, take a ride with me on the Decker trail</span></div>
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Morgantown, WV, USA39.629526 -79.955896839.58952 -80.000591300000011 39.669532 -79.9112023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-14347052468584604502012-06-29T21:41:00.001-05:002012-07-24T22:13:12.069-05:00Take Me Home, Country Roads... WVWhen I say, 'Take me home country roads', I truly mean it. My parents were both raised in West Virginia, so going there has a special meaning for me. My mother grew up in the Morgantown area, which is where I was headed. Getting there, however, proved to be as much of a challenge and adventure as riding Alp D'Huez!<br />
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I left Winchester,VA late because I tried, unsuccessfully, to get some mechanical issues fixed. Letting my host for the weekend know, she returned my text, warning me of powerful storms moving into the area and to be careful. Not having access to the weather report, I remained blithely ignorant of the developing situation, driving west with nary a care, sucking down a 32 ounces of water as I went. --Gotta stay hydrated, you know!!</div>
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With just ten miles left to travel, and the sun gently sinking behind the mountains, a big splattering raindrop hit the windshield....then another....and another. Plop...plop...plop...plop plop plop plop. The sky lost all light, as if someone had flipped the switch, and the heavens opened up, dumping water like a broken fire hydrant. It happened very quickly; I couldn't see anything beyond the windsheild.. The wipers were useless; they simply could not keep up. I was very aware of the danger I was in due to the lack of visibilty and the speed at which I was travelling. Flipping on my hazard lights, I took my foot off the gas to de-accelerate. praying those behind me would see me and do the same. I didn't want to use my brakes for fear of hydroplaning. Unable see anything but a sheet of silver gray water washing down my windshield, I felt my way to the shoulder by riding the rumble strip. Never did I think I would be grateful for that bone-jarring ride! As trucks and cars continued to splash by, and I just prayed they would see me. Finally with wind howling and torrents of rain coming down and being blown like a hurricane, all traffic stopped; everyone was pulled over, waiting for the monsoon to stop.</div>
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Sure I was in the epicenter of the storm, I covered my ears as the thunder rolled over the car, shaking it. The lightening strikes were close enough to raise the hair on my arms, cracking like whip as it ripped through the air. The wind was blew furiously, shaking the car sideways,and as the water rushed down the mountain, it pushed the car forward. I felt like I was on a carnival ride. I was scared, but I knew I was going to be okay. I just had to sit it out.</div>
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The storm raged on and on and as it did, that 32 ounces of water I drank....well, you can imagine. Couple that with listening to water all around me, and I was in a world of hurt. How much longer was this storm going to last? I didn't dare get out of the car nor would it have been wise to drive it to find a gas station. Oh my....it's times like these I wish I was a man!</div>
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The storm finally passed, and people began to drive again. I made a beeline to the first exit I saw and headed straight to the ladies' room. The closer I got, the more the pressure built. </div>
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<i> "oh please, oh please, let me make it!!"</i></div>
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I barged through the door, and.....THERE WAS A LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Standing like a picnic table, I weighed my options, then headed to the Men's room. Knocking, no one answered, so in I went. Pushing the seat down with my foot, I sought relief, and was about to emerge from the stall, when a man entered the bathroom.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">Zzzzzzip........</span></div>
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Oh no, now what am I going to do? Should I put my feet up so he doesn't know I'm there? I just sat there, as quiet as a mouse.</div>
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The door opened again, and another man entered. The two grunted at each other, then, 'zzzzippp'....there he went, too, neither of them speaking. I've always wondered about etiquette in the Men's room, and now I know....they ignore each other...they also don't wash their hands! </div>
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Finally,business concluded, they left. I bolted out of there before someone else entered, dashing right into the t-shirt clad gut of some big guy coming in. <br />
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Ah....the embarrassment. What does one say in this situation....."don't forget to wash your hands?".....</div>
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<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57465407/derecho-storm-creates-path-of-destruction-at-lighting-speed/" target="_blank">Derecho storm</a></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Morgantown, WV, USA39.629526 -79.955896839.580608 -80.0348608 39.678444 -79.8769328tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-9806998401654988922012-06-29T21:30:00.001-05:002012-07-26T16:59:12.416-05:00EGADS! Say it isn't true! ....VirginiaLeaving North Carolina, I was in bad shape. I cannot begin to describe the discomfort and pain that these rascally saddle sores were causing. Additionally, my knee had shooting pain through it..... But the worse was the mental flogging I was giving myself for quitting the ride before completing the full fifty.<br />
<br />
"<i>Come on</i>!" "The Critic" in my head chided.... <i>"It's only 50 miles! You wimp. Couldn't you suck it up for another 12 mile?!"</i> This ugly dialogue continued as I drove mile after mile into Virginia, so much so that to make myself feel better, I stopped and got a bag of potato chips; I ate the whole thing. I tried to convince myself that I needed the extra salt, but The Critic wasn't buying it and the criticism began again.<br />
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<i>"Stop the presses........." </i>I thought... "<i>This self flagellation has to stop...NOW!", </i>and I began to have a stern mental conversation with myself.<br />
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Yes, it is true; I did not ride the entire 50 miles. But that does not mean that the ride was a failure and nor was I. It simply means I had the sense to know when my body was telling me to slow down.<br />
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The last time I did not pay attention to what my body was trying to tell me, I was taken off a ski slope on a rescue sled. That was in February. I had never been skiing before; on the second day out, I just didn't feel right. I felt hung over, but I thought it was my mind playing games with me because I was scared... scared of hanging in the air on the ski lift, scared of falling, scared of going too fast and crashing, scared of getting hurt. So I ignored all the physical symptoms that were appearing, thinking I was just manufacturing them so I would have an excuse to quit. I even vomitted, but kept going. After an hour or two of playing this mental game, my body shut down, and the ski instructor had to call the rescue squad to come get me. It is very frightening experience to hear the EMS personnel speaking over her walkie talkie saying she had a middle aged woman with a possible stroke. At that point, I couldn't breath and my hands were paralyzed into crab-like appendages. I couldn't move them at all! Hauled off the mountatin, I ended up in the little hospital hooked up to IV's, oxygen and a heart monitor. (my <a href="http://www.roadid.com/Common/Default.aspx" target="_blank">Road ID</a> came in handy to get in touch with my travelling companions, and access my medical insurance and medical history) In turns out, I had severe altitude sickness, which can be fatal. But I ignored what my body was saying to me, allowing "The Critic" to push me beyond my physical limits.<br />
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And here I am doing it again. My body is clearly telling me to slow down.... it is tired and taking a beating in the heat and in the saddle. Regardless of the aches and pains, I was up bright and early the next morning to ride my 50 in Virginia. I did, however, take my condition into consideration and chose to ride the <a href="http://www.railstotrails.org/news/recurringfeatures/trailmonth/archives/0812.html" target="_blank">Washington-Old Dominion bike path</a> instead of the steep and challenging Blue Ridge Parkway.<br />
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Off I went, pedaling at a high RPM down the pathway. Since I didn't seem to be getting the mes-sage my body was sending, serendipity stepped in to say her two cents worth--my bike computer would not work. Without it, I had no way to figure speed, distance or a multitude of other data that I like to monitor as I ride. Today, I would be riding Virginia naked (OK--all you perverts get your mind out of the gutter)....meaning riding without any instrumentation to record my performance.<br />
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<b>EGADS!</b> <b>Say it isn't true!</b></div>
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Frustrated, I had no alternative but to let go and just ride, unencumbered by having to perform to some standard that I made up. So I puttered along, spinning at a leisurely pace and explored the neat little colonial towns through which the trail meandered. I even stopped, had a coffee and people watched in one of the towns. Eventually, I headed back, saddle sores still complaining, but it was the most enjoyable rides I have had in a long time.<br />
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Today, I realized that this trip is not about the miles or riding in all 50 states by a certain deadline. It is about experiencing the experience...embracing the journey. The saddle sores, the aching knee, the broken Garmin were a means to this discovery. With my tunnel vision on completing the task, I was missing the most important part of doing this tour.....just being in the moment and appreciating the journey. So, while I may still be in pain, I will ride the remainder of this tour for the experience, not something to check off a list.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLNupboMKig/T_OiE5Dub_I/AAAAAAAAHnQ/N9KLtdl5diw/s1600/VA+(11).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLNupboMKig/T_OiE5Dub_I/AAAAAAAAHnQ/N9KLtdl5diw/s320/VA+(11).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All sorts of riders on the trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-japSb6EUIAc/T_OiIozW4LI/AAAAAAAAHnY/wKFPgX_mNDg/s320/VA+(12).JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Built ca 1780, Leesburg, VA</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0XSsgzG7_M/T_OiLwcsoSI/AAAAAAAAHng/C8i7nPib95g/s1600/VA+(19).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0XSsgzG7_M/T_OiLwcsoSI/AAAAAAAAHng/C8i7nPib95g/s320/VA+(19).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Overpass on the trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xXrc1vjvG60/T_OiPL6lSwI/AAAAAAAAHno/BY35b0GxdJo/s1600/VA+(21).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xXrc1vjvG60/T_OiPL6lSwI/AAAAAAAAHno/BY35b0GxdJo/s320/VA+(21).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken from Blue Ridge Pkwy vista point. Smoke from forest fires is evident.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--uWcYwL58sE/T_OiSqKIQGI/AAAAAAAAHn0/C-WRQRkQ-W4/s1600/VA+(3).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--uWcYwL58sE/T_OiSqKIQGI/AAAAAAAAHn0/C-WRQRkQ-W4/s320/VA+(3).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old church and cemetery....somewhere in VA</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXc0TXUFsD0/T_OiWN-SUOI/AAAAAAAAHn8/rSbDwtz-0so/s1600/VA+(4).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXc0TXUFsD0/T_OiWN-SUOI/AAAAAAAAHn8/rSbDwtz-0so/s320/VA+(4).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Washington-Old Dominion Trail. Paved, runs from Purcellville to Washington DC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VW6aSADWbwg/T_OiZSXopNI/AAAAAAAAHoI/Bdz_7JLJ_Fc/s1600/VA.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VW6aSADWbwg/T_OiZSXopNI/AAAAAAAAHoI/Bdz_7JLJ_Fc/s320/VA.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original cabin from early settlers</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://visitshenandoah.poweredbyindigo.com/images/gallery/150/Wayside-Inn--Middletown-SQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://visitshenandoah.poweredbyindigo.com/images/gallery/150/Wayside-Inn--Middletown-SQ.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wayside Inn, Middletown, VA., the oldest continuously run inn in the USA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Winchester, VA, USA39.1856597 -78.16333409999998639.1487782 -78.195223099999993 39.2225412 -78.131445099999979tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-7307737744711846582012-06-29T20:34:00.021-05:002012-07-26T16:58:16.651-05:00Carolina on my Mind...North CarolinaI have always said I was going to move to North Carolina. Somehow, I just never got there, so I was eager to ride in that state. My hosts here were Wendy and Gary. Friends from Dallas, they moved to Raleigh about 4 years ago. Both are avid cyclists; in fact, Gary owns and operates a bike shop, <a href="http://www.tlc4bikes.com/" target="_blank">TLC for Bikes</a>. <br />
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When I arrived at Gary's shop around 6:30, he promptly pulled my bike from the car and began giving it TLC. He tweaked this, and adjusted that, while I had waddled around the corner with his friend, Tom, for a quick bite and a glass of wine. I say 'waddle' because that is the only way I could walk after sitting on those saddle sores all afternoon. I need that wine for anesthesia! By the time we returned, Wendy had arrived and whisked me away for a whirlwind tour of the area. <br />
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Raleigh is beautiful! With a multitude of outdoor sports at its doorsteps: cycling, mountain biking, kayaking, canoeing, fly fishing, sailing, camping, hiking, backpacking....one only has to travel an hour and half either west or east to be in the mountains or at the ocean, respectively. The climate is typically temperate and plants grow with ease, as if in the tropics. Well planned and meticulously maintained and respected, the area is a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts. No fake tans here....<u>everything</u> is natural.<br />
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Concerned about my saddlesores, Wendy gave me some bike shorts to wear the next day. They were men's shorts, and had a much bigger chamois, that was as soft as kid leather. She started wearing men's shorts when she had a similar problem, finding the women's chamois fit the saddle, but didn't protect the soft inner thigh like the men's short do. At this point, though, so much damage had occurred, that nothing short of an epidural would snuff out the pain. It might, however, prevent further damage and solve my perpetual sore issue.<br />
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The ride the next morning was, again, a magnificent ride on magnificent roads with magnificent scenery. Gary apologized for the headwind, laughing when he said it. It was blowing all of 5 mph, now and then; anyone riding in Dallas knows we celebrate when it is only blowing that hard. For Dallasites, chipseal and wind are our mountains! So, despite the prevailing 'headwind', we rode; up and down the rollers we went, with Gary giving me instructional hints on how to ride them. As a flatlander, I appreciated the coaching. Riding hills and riding flats definitely require different techniques.<br />
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My 'injuries', however, grew more and more persistent in calling attention to themselves, and I finally had to quit ignoring them. Not half way through the ride, I cried 'uncle'. To continue would have been stupid. We turned around, and though we didn't ride 50 miles, we did do 38; given the conditions, that is good enough for me.<br />
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Gary and Wendy--thanks so much for the wonderful TLC you gave me and my bike! I will be back to North Carolina and Raleigh. Don't be surprised if you see me move there.....<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OC62M56bj6I/T_ECqn-DEeI/AAAAAAAAHmo/bpKJzKzkNfU/s1600/IMG_2281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OC62M56bj6I/T_ECqn-DEeI/AAAAAAAAHmo/bpKJzKzkNfU/s320/IMG_2281.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary feeding Shadow, one of their two Great Danes</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K08aK4E2CDs/T_EErl5BRHI/AAAAAAAAHm4/E3MTjQetTMY/s1600/NC+(6).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K08aK4E2CDs/T_EErl5BRHI/AAAAAAAAHm4/E3MTjQetTMY/s320/NC+(6).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary leads the way</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n_zhHa2S2Q4/T_EEsVY9mbI/AAAAAAAAHnA/8LOSk0e8Bug/s1600/wendy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n_zhHa2S2Q4/T_EEsVY9mbI/AAAAAAAAHnA/8LOSk0e8Bug/s320/wendy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Speedy queen, Wendy.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Raleigh, NC, USA35.772096 -78.63861450000001735.644135999999996 -78.812607500000013 35.900056 -78.464621500000021tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-69700871332174806742012-06-27T18:27:00.004-05:002012-07-26T16:59:39.644-05:00It is the Journey....South CarolinaI left Dallas to escape the heat, knowing full well that the southeastern states would also be warm, but not the scorching heat of Dallas. Unfortunately, the high temperatures have followed me, making these states unseasonably hot, and also very humid. I find myself riding in temperatures higher than those I left. As such, I adjust my riding schedule accordingly.......I ride as the sun is coming over the horizon. It does help, but I am always surprised at how quickly the mercury rises once the sun has risen. <br />
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South Carolina was a pretty ride, well marked by the local bike club. To my misfortune, I did not have a key to symbols left on the pavement, so I found myself going in circles on many occasions. Around and around she goes, 10 miles here, 20 miles there, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. It doesn't matter; the roads were smooth, the dogs were few and I was enjoying myself....mostly.</div>
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With this awful heat and humidity comes problems besides staying hydrated (and on route). For me, it has been the re-occurrence of those awful saddle sores discussed and experienced in 2010.......... UGH. All I can say is that I know how a baby with severe diaper rash must feel. Is it all right for me to cry like a baby? UGH. It is painful to walk; maybe that is why babies crawl. It even hurts to sleep. UGH. I'll just have to deal with it, one way or another. </div>
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Rushing back to the hotel before the check out witching hour, I showered, medicated my 'mess', then hit the road, leaving Greenville, SC before noon. I hadn't even hit the city limit sign when my good friend, Mike Keel, called. Telling him where I was, He suggested I stop by<a href="http://www.hincapie.com/" target="_blank"> Hincapie Sportswear.</a> My first inclination was to say 'no', that I needed to get to my next ride destination; then it occurred to me that I was doing what I always do.....I get tunnel vision.</div>
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Part of this experience is for me to slow down and enjoy the journey instead of focusing only on the goal. So noticing that I was falling into an old habit....a comfortable habit.... I pushed down my anxiety of not getting to my next venue and detoured to the Hincapie Headquarters. I got to meet some interesting folks, look at all of the yellow jerseys (how appropriate with the Tour just beginning) and leave with a Hincapie water bottle. Upon leaving, noting that the excursion took all of 45 minutes, I noticed that the sky hadn't fallen, the earth was still in orbit and I had had an enriching experience. </div>
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Yes, life is indeed the journey, not the destination. That gets to be my mantra for this trip.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just me and my shadow....</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Check out this beautiful pavement and scenery!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZNxMVGGzJ1I/T_Dz1nHl1JI/AAAAAAAAHlo/kbL4QYlosiM/s1600/DSCF0164.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZNxMVGGzJ1I/T_Dz1nHl1JI/AAAAAAAAHlo/kbL4QYlosiM/s320/DSCF0164.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I thought this tree was striking in it's solitude.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aEti_cvnW7s/T_Dz4ZlM3uI/AAAAAAAAHlw/XYfLRy4JtXM/s1600/DSCF0167s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aEti_cvnW7s/T_Dz4ZlM3uI/AAAAAAAAHlw/XYfLRy4JtXM/s320/DSCF0167s.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How weird is this fence these people are building?</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I bet his neighbors are upset. There were 6 of these strange posts.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hincapie Sportswear</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at all of those jerseys</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Got me some swag!</td></tr>
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<br /></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2Greenville, SC, USA34.852617599999988 -82.39401040000001334.795099599999986 -82.465858900000015 34.91013559999999 -82.322161900000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-76091014768789385482012-06-26T23:05:00.004-05:002012-07-26T17:00:03.326-05:00Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory......GeorgiaAgain, I can't reiterate enough the importance of planning and being prepared. As I drove through Chattanooga to Georgia, I used the my 'earlier than expected' arrival to preview the morning's route. After driving only fifteen of the fifty miles, the numerous blind curves, blind hills and fast traffic convinced me I needed to find a different route; I decided to seek local help. I pulled into a gas station at a four way stop and made my way to the entrance, atlas under my arm.<br />
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As seems to be a common occurrence in these more country environs, a small group of men were sitting around door, Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, whiling the day away with friendly ribbing and laughter. Now, I suppose one could look at this as running a gauntlet of sorts, but I figured if anyone knew the lay of the land around here, it would be found here. Before I could even say 'hello', one gentleman, upon seeing the map tucked under my arm, said,<br />
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<i>"Doesn't matter which way you go, you'll still be lost".</i> <br />
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... my reputation must proceed me! And so I meet my road hero, Charlie; he was a god-send.<br />
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I explained that I had planned to ride the road in front of the store, but felt it was too dangerous. He said,<br />
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<i>"There's always lots of them bicyclers out there riding. There's a lot of traffic, but none of them have ever been kilt, that I ever heard of."</i><br />
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Then he looked at me and gave me the once over. While taking a draw on his cigarette, he came to some conclusion because he looked up at me, slightly squinting one eye, and said,<br />
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<i>"Now, if you want a really safe and beautiful bike ride, you need to go to the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/chch/index.htm" target="_blank">Chickamouga National Military Park</a>. It is closed to commercial traffic and there are miles and miles of roads to ride there going in and out of the woods and battlefields."</i><br />
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</i><br />
Giving me directions in a language that I understand, (drive until you get to the Walmart, then turn left.....), he sent me on my way, and I found it with ease, arriving about 6:15. Spying some men geared up to ride, I approached them and asked them if they could suggest a route. Instead, Larry said, "Come ride with us!" My initial reaction was to say 'no'...I had saddle sores, was tired and needed to write my blog. But then I thought, "What the heck--that's what this trip is about!" and accepted his offer.<br />
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While I scurried and changed, I have a suspicion that they were wondering just what they had gotten themselves into.....could this woman even ride a bike? I say this because when I opened the back of the KIA, they looked in, saw my bike and gears, started laughing and said <br />
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</i><br />
<i>"As soon as I saw all that stuff, I knew you knew what you were doing". </i>There was obvious relief in that laughter.<br />
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</i><br />
We set off on a brisk pace, sailing down wonderfully smooth roads, past monuments on manicured fields and through thick stands of hardwood trees, where the second largest battle of the Civil War had been fought. Leaving the park, we began to climb, entering the surrounding farm land. It was beautiful, but we were going at a pace the afforded little time to admire the surroundings. Twenty miles into the ride, I began to feel the effects of riding fifty miles earlier in the day and not having eaten anything in the past 6 hours; I started to bonk. The gents did slow the pace for me, which caused us to re-entered the park after sunset; it was dark, but enough daylight remained that we could make our way. <br />
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As we rode down through the park, lightening bugs played hide and seek, signaling to one another amongst the trees and on the battlefield. Deer bounded across our paths in the dimming light, while the crickets and frogs sang a serenade. As the mist rose from the ground, I could not help but to feel the presence of of those men who had lost their lives on the very ground through which I was riding. A heavy blanket of sadness hung in the air, cloaking the surroundings like the rising mist as the last of the daylight slipped away. 14,000 casualties........all here, on this land, under this moon. There is no glory in that.<br />
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We pulled into the parking lot just as the final bit of daylight faded, and a ranger promptly appeared, asking us to leave. I thanked Larry and Gary for sharing their ride with me. Both in their 60's, they are relatively new to cycling, but very strong riders. Gary told me his best time on the circuit we took tonight was a 19mph pace; we rode at 15.5.... They slowed their pace quite a bit for me, and I was grateful. <br />
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Tired and hungry, I found a hotel, ate and went to sleep after soaking and treating my saddle sores. It was a good, but long day. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monuments on one of the battle fields</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of many roads through the Chickamauga Chattanooga National Military Park</td></tr>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Du5wEA9pT8E/T-0ul4e9KcI/AAAAAAAAHjQ/qzfZ8My7cHg/s1600/GA+6+26+2012+023.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Du5wEA9pT8E/T-0ul4e9KcI/AAAAAAAAHjQ/qzfZ8My7cHg/s320/GA+6+26+2012+023.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More battlefield</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXwymMU52lI/T-0uytMwxsI/AAAAAAAAHjo/FAAHavPSr7c/s1600/GA+6+26+2012+029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXwymMU52lI/T-0uytMwxsI/AAAAAAAAHjo/FAAHavPSr7c/s320/GA+6+26+2012+029.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This looks very similar to the wooded conditions in which the men fought.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flag at half mast</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry and Gary lead the way</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Check out that wonderful pavement. (Gary)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Losing the sun as we re-enter the park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Rossville, GA 30741, USA34.9136642 -85.26189869999996134.7972617 -85.413728699999965 35.0300667 -85.110068699999957tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-48135643319916956552012-06-25T20:52:00.020-05:002012-07-26T17:00:22.755-05:00Fate....Kenucky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With my first ride under my belt, I packed up and headed to Kentucky, land of the blue grass, tobacco and horses. Being a Girl Scout in my younger years, I was taught the importance of planning ahead and being prepared, (these days that gets labeled as being 'controlling') As such, I decided to go find the start point for tomorrow's ride....be prepared! I learned from the Natchez ride that just finding the start point can be a real challenge. To my surprise and irritation, none of the routes I got from <a href="http://ridewithgps.com/" target="_blank">http://ridewithgps.com/ </a> give the start addresses! The authors assume that those using these maps, with labels like the 'Chaney 44' or the 'DMST Moonville', know from where the ride begins! Ha! They don't know me, evidently!<br />
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After driving around the country roads, somewhere in the outback of Kentucky, I finally found the start of tomorrow's ride. I guess I should confess now, that I stalked some cyclists that were riding the area and I didn't actually find it 'on my own', How lucky I was that they showed up just when I needed directions! .....Fate<br />
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I thought I'd put on my cycling clothes and get a few miles in since there were 3 or 4 hours of daylight left. Tomorrow promised to be another sweltering day, and I wanted to lessen the miles I would ride in that heat. I gathered my gear, and headed to the nearby dairy store to change, walking over to the riders first, introducing myself. It didn't take much to get the conversation going, and as the remaining riders rolled in one by one, Joe, the owner of a local Tri-store, introduced them to me. Lively dialogue ensued as the sun dropped lower and lower. An attractive, fit woman rode in and approached the car I was leaning against; when she took her helmet off and turned around, out of my mouth came, <br />
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"Kim?"<br />
"Yes?"<br />
"Kim K******t?"<br />
"Yes, who are you?"<br />
"I'm Sue Hersman....used to be Coughlin. You coached Diana and Jenny in swimming at <a href="http://www.culver.org/" target="_blank">Culver</a>!" (Diana and Jenny are two of my daughters)<br />
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Blankness remained on her face, but watching it as the connection dawned on her was like watching the sun rise. She beamed, was flabbergasted and teary. The world is a small place, indeed....there are no coincidences.....<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny#Fate" target="_blank">Fate</a>.<br />
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After spending the night at the Red Rood, where you 'sleep cheap', I was on the road by 6:30 am pedaling my way through the corn. The good thing about being up that early, temperature aside, is that there is absolutely no traffic on the road. I think I even beat the farmers up. It was a joy to watch the sunrise and the countryside awaken.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long shadows of an early morning ride</td></tr>
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Corn on the right, corn on the left, corn everywhere I looked. With it towering above me, I felt a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. The only thing lacking was the Strawman and the Flying Monkeys. I did wonder what was leaving the strange marks on the pavement; perhaps I was in the land of Oz. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZkBIdDYm3s/T-p7s8SKzzI/AAAAAAAAHiM/uHp-dZzaKeA/s1600/KY+%252834%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZkBIdDYm3s/T-p7s8SKzzI/AAAAAAAAHiM/uHp-dZzaKeA/s320/KY+%252834%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strange markings on the street pavement. Hmmmm...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That mystery was soon solved when the tranquility of the morning was broken by a rhythmic clompity-clomp, clompity-clomp.<br />
<br />
I was sitting in the shade of a tree at that moment, enjoying the peacefulness and a snack when that sound filtered through the countryside. Clompity-clomp, clompity-clomp. Looking down the road, in the far distance, was a horse and wagon; I was in Amish country!! I pulled out my camera and waited. The wagon drew closer, and it's occupants became visible. Starring out were four little white faces and a very sour face of a woman/child. They stared at me and I at them. I must have been a sight for them in my tight spandex..... They clompity-clomped past me, five faces turning to watch me like sunflowers following the sun. Not wanting to be intrusive, I waited until they were down the road a bit before I took a picture. They were hauling freshly picked corn. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ew4el-_LoZs/T-p57yjzQRI/AAAAAAAAHhk/GwCe5SyT804/s1600/KY+(33)+amish+2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ew4el-_LoZs/T-p57yjzQRI/AAAAAAAAHhk/GwCe5SyT804/s320/KY+(33)+amish+2a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amish woman and children hauling corn.</td></tr>
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As I watched them fade down the road amidst the fields of shorn wheat, it occurred to me that those strange marks in the road were from the horseshoes and as my tires rolled over theses tracks, I wondered about the life of that young mother, thinking her grandmother was probably my age. It occurred to me that just the fate of DNA landed me in my current life...<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bDN8-fBox9k/T-p7mYwMyeI/AAAAAAAAHh8/j77v1QPipzs/s1600/KY+%252827%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bDN8-fBox9k/T-p7mYwMyeI/AAAAAAAAHh8/j77v1QPipzs/s320/KY+%252827%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corn, corn, corn</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HrlBIFbNbWM/T-p7wW1myWI/AAAAAAAAHiY/bpUb0j-FCZc/s1600/KY+%252835%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HrlBIFbNbWM/T-p7wW1myWI/AAAAAAAAHiY/bpUb0j-FCZc/s320/KY+%252835%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A drought is causing poor crop output</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b5eUUmwUrzk/T-p7zm1wObI/AAAAAAAAHig/8D-dNfRxJdc/s1600/KY+%252836%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b5eUUmwUrzk/T-p7zm1wObI/AAAAAAAAHig/8D-dNfRxJdc/s320/KY+%252836%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Concerns for brushfires due to dry fields</td></tr>
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Bowling Green, KY, USA36.9903199 -86.4436018000000136.9164174 -86.5568458 37.064222400000006 -86.330357800000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-34069593680080575412012-06-24T22:28:00.002-05:002012-07-26T17:00:52.320-05:00Just a Trace....TennesseeAfter driving ten hours, I finally arrived in Collinwood, TN and to the address where my B & B was located. I called the number listed on the door, then peered in the windows while waiting for the innkeeper to arrive. <br />
<br />
"What the heck kind of place am I staying in?" I wondered out loud.<br />
<br />
The front 'parlor' was filled with hair salon chairs and equipment! Did this double as a beauty salon during the slow season? Was a cut and a perm included in the price of my stay? <br />
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Things that made me go 'hmmmm', but I shrugged my shoulders in surrender. What else could I do? It was late, and I was in the boonies. So what if I had a few extra sinks and chairs in the room with me. <br />
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The innkeeper arrived. standing at the corner of the building. <br />
<br />
"Back here," she said.<br />
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As it turns out, my cottage was behind the salon, and had been converted from a skin tanning salon. It was lovely, clean and comfortable and my hosts, Larry and Dianne, were warm and welcoming.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eyH9cWKc9CU/T-fUj3b76lI/AAAAAAAAHhE/DGE8D12icHA/s1600/TN+2012+(49).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eyH9cWKc9CU/T-fUj3b76lI/AAAAAAAAHhE/DGE8D12icHA/s320/TN+2012+(49).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Packed and ready to go</td></tr>
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With the prediction of steamy, hot weather, I started riding the next morning at 6:30 am. Anyone that knows me understands that I do not function well at that hour. I pulled my bike out of the car, put the front wheel on and began to ride. It was only when I finished my ride that I noticed I had put the wheel on backwards. Oh well.... no one noticed.... <br />
<br />
Oh, how I wish I had paid attention to how I had come into town last night. True to form, I was lost before I even began, having to stop at the gas station to ask for directions from a group having coffee. Sigh....this was supposed to be an easy ride--straight out and back on the Natchez Trace....I didn't consider having to navigate there first and now, being directionally challenged, I was lost. After getting directions and a hail of 'good lucks', I pedaled away from the table of older local gents, wondering if they were putting down wagers of whether I would get there or not.<br />
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Once on the Natchez Trace, it was a bicycler's paradise. The weather was a cool, misty 60 degrees, there was no wind, no traffic and a pavement as smooth as glass. After only a few feet, I found myself descending, descending, descending ........on and on. Unlike Texas, no vibrations rumbled through the carbon frame as I sailed down the hill, scattering deer and turkeys in my wake. A redtailed hawk played cat and mouse with me, flying across my path, only to land in a tree, watch me spin by, then do it again. Smiling like a banshee, a distant voice in my head tried to remind me that I would be climbing this hill upon my return....as the final leg of my ride. But like the the rabbit in Aesop's fable, who didn't save for the future, I ignored the little voice and rode like the wind. <br />
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Up and down, up and down.............it was glorious and I was in awe of my surroundings. None of the sounds filtering through the trees were made by man; the silence of that noise was almost deafening in its foreignness. Gradually, growing accustomed to the lack of 'normal' noise, I became aware of all the natural sounds surrounding me.... the rustle of the dry leaves as some small creatures scurries through them, the many songs and tones of the birds greeting the day and each other, the tinkling trickle of water somewhere. And the smells......green, alive and fragrant. I stopped and gave thanks, full of appreciation and gratitude.<br />
<br />
The day was beginning to warm, and within an hour it was in the 80's. Still my legs churned as I crested and descended the long rollers, strong and full of energy. Wisely, I had prepared for the heat and the exertion; following the advice of fellow cyclist "Rondog", I set my computer to remind me to drink every ten minutes. That was genius..........dehydration is a real issue for me, and this assures that I drink enough. <br />
<br />
All too soon, it was time to return to the B & B. The temperature was hovering in the high 80's and road traffic had picked up as people made their way to church. I still felt fresh, though I was quite damp from the humidity and sweat. As one might say, I was glistening. I turned and began to retrace my steps. Still pedaling strongly, I was mentally congratulating myself on a ride well executed when the first cramp hit. <br />
<br />
No, this was not a muscle cramp due to electrolyte imbalance....this was a cramp reminiscent of the cramps I had experienced the last two weeks from food poisoning. Sharp pains shot through my gut, encircling my back and squeezing like a vise. I broke out in a cold sweat and felt nauseous. I knew what was coming, but there was no where to stop; I was literally in the middle of nowhere...no houses, no gas stations, not even an outhouse. The surrounding woods were out of the question; they were full of poison ivy and I did not bring any 'provisions' for the green room. <br />
<br />
Arrgghhh--another cramp hit, then another, squeezing me with more urgency. I pedaled faster, reasoning that if all the blood was going to my legs, my intestines would settle a bit. Arrgghh......well, that didn't work, and as the cramp went into full spasm, I saw up ahead the long, long hill that I had come down at the very beginning. <br />
<br />
The good news was, I was close to home; the bad news....I had at least 2 miles of climbing grades ranging from between 2 and 7%.... This is where riding becomes mind over matter...ignoring my middle half, I focused on my legs, my technique and my breathing, (I knew all those birthing classes would come in handy again....). Tamed under my wheels, the undulating grey snake wound its way up the mountain, with me riding its back as if we were old friends. The intestinal cramping had not ceased, but my attention to it had, rendering it powerless. I rode the remainder of the miles without incident. (I will at this point take a moment and warn everyone to never, ever eat fish tacos at the airport)<br />
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It was a wonderful ride, a wonderful way to start the day and a lesson well learned.....to quote a friend..."where the mind flows, the body goes..." <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rQ2HEqPnJ0M/T-fTVGt2mJI/AAAAAAAAHgI/Ch7fMkTshco/s1600/TN+2012+%252822%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rQ2HEqPnJ0M/T-fTVGt2mJI/AAAAAAAAHgI/Ch7fMkTshco/s320/TN+2012+%252822%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise on the Natchez Trace</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-67aOVBTvExE/T-fTa4MlPDI/AAAAAAAAHgQ/zZfaAFi8DzA/s1600/TN+2012+%252823%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-67aOVBTvExE/T-fTa4MlPDI/AAAAAAAAHgQ/zZfaAFi8DzA/s320/TN+2012+%252823%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long, gradual ascent</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNIBXOpeqck/T-fT_BQY_KI/AAAAAAAAHgs/vWCNQbfOhks/s1600/TN+2012+%252830%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNIBXOpeqck/T-fT_BQY_KI/AAAAAAAAHgs/vWCNQbfOhks/s320/TN+2012+%252830%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fields of corn and tobacco</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LE0ELFahr-Y/T-fUUchwNaI/AAAAAAAAHg8/x8Npac2T4aE/s1600/TN+2012+%252843%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LE0ELFahr-Y/T-fUUchwNaI/AAAAAAAAHg8/x8Npac2T4aE/s320/TN+2012+%252843%2529.JPG" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As the sun climbed, so did the temperatures.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SKIyJ2kAUPA/T-fUyge_CfI/AAAAAAAAHhM/_m0yCYZY0og/s1600/TN+2012+%25288%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SKIyJ2kAUPA/T-fUyge_CfI/AAAAAAAAHhM/_m0yCYZY0og/s320/TN+2012+%25288%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light at the end of the tunnel</td></tr>
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1Collinwood, TN, USA35.1742474 -87.7378029000000235.1511849 -87.754696400000014 35.1973099 -87.720909400000025tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-62017310878990082632012-06-22T18:04:00.000-05:002012-06-22T19:13:17.239-05:00The Beginning of the End......I started my cycling journey in 2010 by riding coast to coast across the southern United States; I can't explain why I wanted to do it, but it was a growing experience and one I vowed never to do again. By early 2011, however, I had the itch to go again, this time riding from North Dakota to Maine. It was a glorious trip, with plenty of greenery, hills and......lobster! MMM-MMM!<br />
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Upon completion of that ride in June, I arrived home in Texas, only to be greeted with triple digit heat; there was little greenery left here. As wild fires raged in central Texas, Dallas had stringent watering bans, leaving the area's vegetation bleached and dry.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-we9ZawxbWTo/T-T6r2av56I/AAAAAAAAHSk/7vK05hT3O94/s1600/texas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-we9ZawxbWTo/T-T6r2av56I/AAAAAAAAHSk/7vK05hT3O94/s1600/texas.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3S2TM7C02Fk/T-T1wc0RcoI/AAAAAAAAHSQ/-UmckWwX8ao/s1600/hill+country%252C+3-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3S2TM7C02Fk/T-T1wc0RcoI/AAAAAAAAHSQ/-UmckWwX8ao/s320/hill+country%252C+3-12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
It was during this time of sweltering temperatures that I hatched the idea to ride in all 50 states. I already had 24 done, and the remaining 26 states were separated into two relatively contingent areas--the Pacific Northwest and the MidAtlantic/East Coast regions. Going north was pretty much a no-brainer, so I set off to explore the cool dampness of Oregon and the states beyond, as the temperatures in Dallas continued to hover around 105 degrees. Those states were glorious in their coolness and beauty, and upon their completion, I had 16 states left in which to pedal.<br />
<br />
As the temperatures again climb here in Texas, I leave tomorrow to finish the conquest that began in 2010. I will not be greeted by the temperate weather of the Pacific Northwest, but by the warm, cloying humidity of the MidAtlantic states and the Eastern seaboard.<br />
<br />
As I begin this last phase of my journey, I find myself in the best physical, mental and emotional condition in which I have ever been. This two year journey has been more than just pounding out the miles; it has been a trip of discovery ....discovery of what a truly amazing and wondrous this country is, of the generosity and kindness of the people who live here and a discovery of what is possible when the word 'can't' is erased from one's vocabulary. Yes, 100% is possible 100% of the time; one only has to decide it is to be.<br />
<br />
Those of you that have followed my blog from its inception have been witness to the growth that has taken place in me. You've read of my tears, fears and triumphs, of the many times I got lost and of the adventures I have experienced along the way. I invite you to follow me again in this final sequel as I take this solo trip eastward.<br />
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First stop..... Tennessee.Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-24954749176222540452012-01-10T17:37:00.000-06:002012-01-10T17:39:07.057-06:00My Motivating Factor--Living A Life Without RegretsI often get feedback and comments about what I am doing that run along the line of, "Wow, your life is amazing!"....to which I say, 'no....not really'. I have just had the good fortune of being taught important lessons early in my life. I lost of my father when I was still in my twenties, then cared for my mother as she declined into the haze of Alzheimer's Disease. While both were painful losses, they were also gifts; they taught me the value of living a full life, that life can change on a dime, and to live without regrets. I also learned about gratitude. <br />
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It was not until my divorce, however, that I took over the reins and began to control how I wanted to live....prior to that I was just doing what I was 'expected' to do. Now, I am living the life I want...one without regrets; one without apology. It has taken courage to venture beyond my safety zone and fortitude to swat away the criticism and naysayers. There have been obstacles, but I have learned to turn these into opportunities, and use my fear as an ally.<br />
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I read an interesting article today about the top five regrets of the dying. I understand precisely what the author shared. I am passing this wisdom on to you so that perhaps you will reflect and find value in their experience. Life is a choice....<br />
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Top Five Regrets of The Dying</h1>
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<span class="date published time" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://exposingthetruth.info/wp-content/themes/news/images/icon-time.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 18px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="2011-12-01T10:38:55+0000">December 1, 2011</span> By <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://exposingthetruth.info/author/t/" rel="author" style="color: #227ed8;" title="Posts by T Kelly">T Kelly</a></span></span> <span class="post-comments" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://exposingthetruth.info/wp-content/themes/news/images/icon-comments.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 18px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://exposingthetruth.info/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying/#comments" style="color: #227ed8;">101 Comments</a></span></div>
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By Bronnie Ware on November 30, 2011</div>
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For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. <a href="http://exposingthetruth.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/OLD-Happy_Old_Man.jpg" style="color: #227ed8;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5314" height="193" src="http://exposingthetruth.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/OLD-Happy_Old_Man-300x193.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" title="OLD Happy_Old_Man" width="300" /></a></div>
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People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.</div>
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<em>When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:</em></div>
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<strong>1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.</strong></div>
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<em>This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.</em></div>
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It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.</div>
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<strong>2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. </strong></div>
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<em>This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.</em></div>
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By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.</div>
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<strong>3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.</strong></div>
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<em>Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.</em></div>
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We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.</div>
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<strong>4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. </strong></div>
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<em>Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.</em></div>
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It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.</div>
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<strong>5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. </strong></div>
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<em>This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.</em></div>
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When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.</div>
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<strong>Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.</strong></div>
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Sources:</div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/top-5-regrets-of-dying.html" style="color: #227ed8;">http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/top-5-regrets-of-dying.html</a></div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html" style="color: #227ed8;">http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html</a></div>
</div>
</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-36284380612962032412011-12-18T15:22:00.003-06:002011-12-18T15:39:52.577-06:00Groovin' on the Groover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Having returned from my first experience sea kayaking, one might ask what I found to be the most challenging event. I could say it was rolling upside down in the water and escaping from the overturned kayak during a wet escape, or paddling through winds and rough waves without previous experience, or even being very ill for a couple of days. None of those, however, compares to what stretched me to the point of thinking...."I can't do this!"......<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>I took this sea kayaking trip to the Exuma Islands as an alumni of an educational organization called <a href="http://www.nols.edu/">NOLS</a>, (National Outdoor Leadership School.) This school teaches all sorts of outdoor skills, using the wilderness as the classroom. They teach and adhere to the <a href="http://www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php">leave no trace</a> (LNT) principles; what you bring into an area, you take out, leaving minimal impact on the environment.....that means everything. Yes....EVERYTHING!! So, as we paddled from one deserted island to the next, we camped in accordance to the LNT directives, which included the bathroom....and what we 'packed' in, we packed out.</div><div><br />
<span style="text-align: center;">When backpacking in the Wyoming, we dug individual 'cat holes' in which to relieve our bodies of their 'waste', (but any non-natural, man-made substances...like TP... had to be packed out). In the Exumas, we could not use cat holes; the mineral make up of the islands did not allow for the breakdown of the waste....if it got planted, there it would remain in its original state. As a result, we had to use a container called a 'groover' as a toilet, but only for solid waste. It resembled a large tupperware container with a screw off lid and is so named because it leaves grooves on your rear-end when used.</span> </div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">The groover, measuring approximately 6x10 in. Cubic volume unknown...but it wasn't much!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">For the sake of modesty, the groover was housed under a tent fly.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Only used for solid waste, we carried ziplock bags in which to deposit our soiled paper products</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fRwwclMQKYQ/Tu5BGPg5KSI/AAAAAAAAFqw/fFwU4TCozqk/s1600/grover+onboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fRwwclMQKYQ/Tu5BGPg5KSI/AAAAAAAAFqw/fFwU4TCozqk/s320/grover+onboard.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">The groovers, (we had four), were transported on the back of the double kayaks, as seen on the back of this one. The used groovers were well bundled in garbage bags.</td></tr>
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When the groover tent was occupied, a kayak paddle was put upright in the sand to warn anyone else away. It's not a sight one would want to witness,and the embarrassment of such an accidental intrusion would have surely created some performance issues for the user and interloper, alike!<br />
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The first time I went to use it, I thought "How bad can this be?" Let me put it this way.....it was all I could do to keep from vomiting. I am sure my gagging could be heard all the way down the beach. I knew after that first experience that I just wouldn't be able to do this.... but what was the alternative? There was none--at least, none that supported the 'Leave No Trace' principles. How I wished for another way....<br />
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Well, be careful what you wish for; I spent the next two days sicker than a dog, with a raging headache and unable to keep down any food. Grateful that the high winds and rough ocean kept us grounded and unable to paddle to our next destination, I laid in my tent for those days, only drinking water, nibbling an occasional cracker and watching the others hone their kayaking skills and frolic in the water. I was truly miserable, but without food entering my system, I did not have to use the groover!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sick, I found a patch of shade in the tent. It was very hot; the islands offered very little shade.</td></tr>
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I have little doubt that not everyone used the groover. Like the character from Alfred Hitchcock's <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/">Rear Window</a>, </i>as I laid immobilized in my tent,<i> </i>I watched people come and 'go'. Most trudged to the groover like good soldiers, emerging in the appropriate amount of time. One gentleman, however, entered and vacated within seconds, only to make a second attempt after contemplating the matter for a few minutes. Failing at this in an equally short amount of time, he walked hurriedly to the ocean, and began swimming long, easy strokes to a point far beyond my range of vision. Returning 10 minutes later, I had no problem in assuming he had 'dropped the kids' off somewhere else. I know with certainty of one person who preferred to build a 'shrine'..... So much for leaving no trace. In fairness to those who just could not bring themselves to use the tupperware toilet, I just have to ask this....'Did our food really have to have so much spice, onions and fiber?'<br />
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Despite my lack of sustenance, the groover beckoned..... I observed the LNT mandate and made friends with the contraption, but this was, without a doubt, the most challenging part of the trip! <br />
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The Exuma Islands were absolutely beautiful and it was a wonderful trip. If you ever get the chance to experience them like this, jump at the opportunity. The beauty and serenity is phenomenal!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Concierge service by Steve....his makeshift raft, serving almonds and sun warmed chocolate to the water worshipers.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2011 NOLS Alumni trip; Sea Kayaking in the Bahamas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fU32HhHgNNg/Tu5Vk2GeVrI/AAAAAAAAFrw/jNNmWIEB-SE/s1600/P1000804.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fU32HhHgNNg/Tu5Vk2GeVrI/AAAAAAAAFrw/jNNmWIEB-SE/s320/P1000804.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The end of another day in paradise. All the islands on which we camped were deserted.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q3wT17G4vW4/Tu5VniHluXI/AAAAAAAAFr4/bt2qpSUZUag/s1600/PB214738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q3wT17G4vW4/Tu5VniHluXI/AAAAAAAAFr4/bt2qpSUZUag/s320/PB214738.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A double rainbow greets another perfect morning</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nknPxoG4hnE/Tu5VrI_OiiI/AAAAAAAAFsA/1wg0zPF8uAA/s1600/IMG_0238+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nknPxoG4hnE/Tu5VrI_OiiI/AAAAAAAAFsA/1wg0zPF8uAA/s320/IMG_0238+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beaching the boats for lunch</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lavOabGz6gw/Tu5VtlDplBI/AAAAAAAAFsI/tJFMI_PCCoY/s1600/IMG_0301+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lavOabGz6gw/Tu5VtlDplBI/AAAAAAAAFsI/tJFMI_PCCoY/s320/IMG_0301+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tranquility of sunset</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zaCjGnNaPho/Tu5VucE9vrI/AAAAAAAAFsQ/4shfWRtFejs/s1600/pizza+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zaCjGnNaPho/Tu5VucE9vrI/AAAAAAAAFsQ/4shfWRtFejs/s320/pizza+crop.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinner on the beach--camp-made pizza</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9VxccG16UaE/Tu5Vuzo7WrI/AAAAAAAAFsY/f__PXQorxoU/s1600/IMG_0473.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9VxccG16UaE/Tu5Vuzo7WrI/AAAAAAAAFsY/f__PXQorxoU/s320/IMG_0473.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perfection.....</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-17yVkVCnnBI/Tu5Vw92Oj6I/AAAAAAAAFsg/5wDKWJfEDHs/s1600/DSC06477.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-17yVkVCnnBI/Tu5Vw92Oj6I/AAAAAAAAFsg/5wDKWJfEDHs/s320/DSC06477.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reminiscent of Gilligan's Island. One did not venture into the jungle; it was full of <a href="http://tropicat.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/black-poisonwood-tree/">poisonwood trees</a>, which causes a rash worse than poison ivy.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pzg59BskZd0/Tu5VxymU5aI/AAAAAAAAFso/4NVUJ9jihg0/s1600/IMG_0439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pzg59BskZd0/Tu5VxymU5aI/AAAAAAAAFso/4NVUJ9jihg0/s320/IMG_0439.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cutting vegetables for dinner</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZXWU-glugKk/Tu5V1vI66nI/AAAAAAAAFsw/aSM71sdsswg/s1600/PB184556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZXWU-glugKk/Tu5V1vI66nI/AAAAAAAAFsw/aSM71sdsswg/s320/PB184556.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our kitchen was under the green and white tarp. We traveled self-contained, carrying all our food, water and gear in our kayaks.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KP35F9TAtDk/Tu5V41T_4UI/AAAAAAAAFs4/tROeb690E94/s1600/PB174533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KP35F9TAtDk/Tu5V41T_4UI/AAAAAAAAFs4/tROeb690E94/s320/PB174533.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doug, one of the instructors, teaching me to roll.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AZk0x-1qKA8/Tu5V727sIHI/AAAAAAAAFtA/knyqNTUSOZQ/s1600/PB174534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AZk0x-1qKA8/Tu5V727sIHI/AAAAAAAAFtA/knyqNTUSOZQ/s320/PB174534.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Practicing the different maneuvering strokes.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jRq2W3bNiBo/Tu5WAynGi5I/AAAAAAAAFtI/CKVnbytqeWU/s1600/IMG_0164.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jRq2W3bNiBo/Tu5WAynGi5I/AAAAAAAAFtI/CKVnbytqeWU/s320/IMG_0164.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waiting for dinner.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Thank you, <a href="http://www.nols.edu/">NOLS</a>, for another wonderful adventure!Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-87392583042068811292011-11-15T13:46:00.001-06:002011-11-15T15:12:39.036-06:00The Thin Branches........I am sitting in an almost mid-level motel in the Exuma Islands. A few months ago, I had never heard of them; they are part of the Bahama Islands. Who knew? I thought the Bahama Islands consisted only of the island that Nassau was on. I guess the first clue to my error should have been the "s" on the end of Bahama Islands. But here I am, sufficiently educated and waiting to meet a handful of strangers, with whom I will be spending the next week. <br />
<br />
I am here to learn how to kayak, specifically sea kayak. I have never kayaked before, let alone in the ocean. The trip is self-contained, meaning we will be carrying all our gear and camping on the various islands, to which we will be paddling. <br />
<br />
I should mention at this point that I don't swim well and have a fear of drowning. Last time I swam in the ocean was for a triatholn, and I was so frightened of the waves, (in my defense, they were BIG), that I begged the life guard to paddled on his surf board beside me. I am not afraid of being eaten by predators from below, but I have removed my toe nail polish so my tootsies don't get mistaken for yummy morsels...just in case, mind you. So to say I am 'crawling out onto the thin branches', stretching myself, is not too much of an exaggeration. <br />
<br />
I have had a number of people ask me why I keep doing things that 'push' me so much...or as one friend puts it, "Why do you keep punishing yourself?' I don't see it that way; The reason I push is simple; I firmly believe that once one stops challenging himself, he quits growing. <br />
<br />
Yesterday in the airport, I caught an interview of <a href="http://www.chopra.com/aboutus">Deepak Chopra</a>. He was talking about aging and feels that once one stops growing, he begins to age--that mental age affects biological age. He urged the listeners, regardless of age or physical condition, to challenge themselves daily with something new, with something that would stretch them mentally and physically. In doing so, new cells and synapses develop as does a healthy self-esteem that comes with achievement, which in turn, stimulates one to continue to reach beyond his boundaries and grow.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow I shove off in my kayak, but prior to actually being able to leave, I must learn and demonstrate that I am able to do a 'wet escape'....that means flipping the kayak upside-down in the water (with me in it), getting out successfully and reaching the surface. I have no doubt that as I am hanging upside down under the water, I will feel panic, but I am prepared to walk past that fear, and in doing, empower myself, learn a new skill, and grow.<br />
<br />
So, I challenge you...as I am hangin upside-down, fully submerged....to do one thing tomorrow that will stretch you...that will grow you. It doesn't have to be big, but just one thing that makes your heart beat a little faster, that makes your palms moist and causes you to dig into your courage just a bit....just one thing. Climb out onto those thin branches...because <strong>'life begins at the end of your comfort zone</strong>.' Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-9892856274662636922011-10-31T11:06:00.001-05:002011-10-31T11:06:59.505-05:00Why?Many of you have asked why I enjoy riding across the country so much: what is the allure: what motivates me, and why do I keep doing it. The following article clearly puts into words that which I cannot. It was written by a 57 year old journalist, who recently completed the trip. Enjoy...I did, because I understand exactly what he says and how he feels.....(<a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?scp=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse">http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?scp=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse</a> )<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px;">IF you can be said to be hurrying on a cross-country bicycle trip, for about two weeks I hurried to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;"> </span><a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="background-color: white; color: #004276; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;" title="Go to the Pittsburgh Travel Guide.">Pittsburgh</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;">. I pushed through some dreary weather in</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;"> </span><a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/michigan/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="background-color: white; color: #004276; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;" title="Go to the Michigan Travel Guide.">Michigan</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;">and</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;"> </span><a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/ohio/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="background-color: white; color: #004276; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;" title="Go to the Ohio Travel Guide.">Ohio</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 23px; line-height: 33px; text-align: left;">, climbed the roller-coaster foothills of the Appalachians and battled traffic and chewed up roads as I entered the city. From there, though, with the end of a ride that began almost three months ago looming, I slowed down and started on an oblique route home.</span></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><h6 class="kicker" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">IN TRANSIT BLOG</h6><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/22/travel/lifeisawheel-bike/lifeisawheel-bike-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 5px;">Bruce Weber cycled across America — from Oregon to New York. Read about his journey on <a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">In Transit</a>.</div><ul class="refer" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/bullet4x4.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.45em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/29/travel/biketour.html" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Map" border="0" height="12" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/multimedia/icons/map_icon.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: 1em;" width="12" /> A Map Charting Bruce Weber's Route</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: -11px; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><h6 class="sectionHeader flushBottom" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Multimedia</h6></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft firstArticleInline" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="126" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/23/travel/23BIKECOVER-slide-04G6/23BIKECOVER-slide-04G6-thumbWide.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block;" width="190" /><span class="mediaOverlay slideshow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/photo_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Slide Show</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Coast-to-Coast</a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft lastArticleInline" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?scp=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="126" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/23/travel/23bike-map/23bike-map-thumbWide.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block;" width="190" /><span class="mediaOverlay map" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/map_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Map</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?scp=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"></a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/07/travel/onwheels-topic/onwheels-topic-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">Bruce Weber</h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em;">In 1993, Bruce Weber cycled across America. The series, “On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.,” appeared in The New York Times.</div></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/travel/reporter-to-cross-the-nation-on-2-wheels-again.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Crossing the Nation on 2 Wheels — Again</a> (July 10, 2011)</h6></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-and-hitting-a-well.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: After 500 Miles, Hitting a Wall</a> (August 14, 2011)</h6></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/travel/a-cyclist-in-north-dakota-tougher-and-smarter-about-limits.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Lessons of a Daybreak Rider</a> (September 4, 2011)</h6></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: left;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">For three days, instead of plunging ahead eastward toward Manhattan, I veered to the south along the Great Allegheny Passage, a lovely rails-to-trails thoroughfare through the woods that accompanies a couple of splendid wild rivers I’d never heard of, the Youghiogheny and the Casselman, and crosses the Mason-Dixon Line, connecting Pittsburgh with Cumberland, Md., where, if you choose, you can pick up another off-road trail to <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/washington/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Washington Travel Guide.">Washington</a>.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">I’m in Cumberland as I write this. It’s 10 days or so before publication, so by the time you read this I might well be home with my feet up and my knees swaddled in ice. The temptation, of course, is to race to the finish, and to imagine it even before I get there. That’s certainly how my previous continental crossing ended 18 years ago; I was 39, a young man eager to feel a conqueror of the country and to accept the plaudits of friends and colleagues. This time, while I won’t say that I won’t be ready for the trip to end when it does, I’m feeling the different pleasures of delayed gratification.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">I’m feeling the pleasures of contrariness, too. Why is everyone trying to rush me?</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">People have been telling me that the tough part of my cross-country bicycle journey was behind me, or that I was almost finished, or that the rest would be easy — or some related sentiment — ever since I crossed the Continental Divide, and several friends and readers wrote to express the absurdly wrong idea that it was going to be all downhill from there. When I reached the Mississippi River at its source in northern <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/minnesota/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Minnesota Travel Guide.">Minnesota</a>, a grocery clerk made sure to inform me that I was closer to the finish than the start. In <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/minnesota/minneapolis-and-st-paul/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Minneapolis and St. Paul Travel Guide.">Minneapolis</a>, in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/wisconsin/madison/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Madison Travel Guide.">Madison</a>, Wis., and again in<a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/illinois/chicago/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Chicago Travel Guide.">Chicago</a>, the friends I met up with offered congratulations as if I were already taking a victory lap.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">When I began my ride on July 20 in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/oregon/astoria/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Astoria Travel Guide.">Astoria</a>, Ore., the continent was sprawled enormously in front of me, but from the outset what people (noncyclists, generally) always seemed to be interested in was when it would be over. I understand the impulse; it’s a way of encapsulating an enterprise that doesn’t exactly fit in a capsule. After all, an endless journey is a little intimidating, a little scary —<a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/ohio/columbus/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Columbus Travel Guide.">Columbus</a> sailing off over the flat edge of the world — but a journey that ends you can put in your pocket.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Still, the actual day-by-day doing of the trip — the hours-at-a-time riding, the countless pedal strokes and huffing and puffing up hills, not to mention the daily deciding on a route, the finding of places to stay, the maintaining of the bike and the consuming of sufficient calories — has been so fraught with effort that I’ve never been able to project and see myself any farther east than, say, the Holiday Inn Express across the county.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">This isn’t to say I don’t dream about crossing the George Washington Bridge with my arms raised in triumph (and then putting away my bicycle for a winter’s hibernation.) I do. But my visions aren’t terribly convincing; they generally engender despair, causing me to sigh out loud and give off a lament that begins with the words “I’ll never. ... ” It makes me more than a little nervous to write this article now, about 300 miles from Manhattan. It may be easy to expect that someone who has already pedaled 3,600 miles can do 300 with his eyes closed, but I don’t think so. In order to own those miles, I have to expend my energy on them; in order to live those days, I have to work through all their hours. I’m as daunted by the next 300 miles as I was in Astoria by the first 3,600.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">I’VE often told people that traveling by bicycle isn’t the contemplative, mind-meandering activity that it is generally presumed to be. Rather, it’s concentration-enhancing. When I’m cycling I tend to be focused on cycling, keeping a close eye on the road, keeping tabs on the messages my bicycle and my body are sending me. But one thing that has diverted me all across the country is the relationship between time and distance. I’ve measured my progress with both of them: Closing in on 4,000 miles and 13 weeks.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">It interests me that both time and distance are concepts in the abstract but that both are more often used in specific terms — a particular span of one or the other — and can be described similarly, as long or short. On a tiring afternoon I’ll habitually monitor my odometer and do the math — 23 miles to go, two hours if the wind doesn’t turn; I’ll be in my motel by 5:15. It suggests that time and distance are inextricably related, but that isn’t so. If I stood still on the shoulder of the road, 5:15 would come and go on the shoulder of the road. You’ve noticed, haven’t you, that 23 miles in two hours is 11.5 miles an hour? That’s pretty slow, unless you’re climbing or facing a tough wind. Thirteen weeks might describe a lot more than 4,000 miles for a stronger or more zealous cyclist. On the other hand, I’m dancing as fast as I can.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div><div class="articleBody" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><nyt_text></nyt_text><br />
<div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em;">In sum, for time to be meaningful, it needs to be filled by distance; for distance to be meaningful, it needs to fill an appropriate measure of time. A long trip like mine — timewise, I mean — requires a lot of distance to make the whole experience rise above standing on the roadside. You have to pedal and keep pedaling.</div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><h6 class="kicker" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">IN TRANSIT BLOG</h6><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/22/travel/lifeisawheel-bike/lifeisawheel-bike-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 5px;">Bruce Weber cycled across America — from Oregon to New York. Read about his journey on <a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">In Transit</a>.</div><ul class="refer" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/bullet4x4.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.45em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/29/travel/biketour.html" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Map" border="0" height="12" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/multimedia/icons/map_icon.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: 1em;" width="12" /> A Map Charting Bruce Weber's Route</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: -11px; width: 190px;"><h6 class="sectionHeader flushBottom" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Multimedia</h6></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft firstArticleInline" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="126" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/23/travel/23BIKECOVER-slide-04G6/23BIKECOVER-slide-04G6-thumbWide.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block;" width="190" /><span class="mediaOverlay slideshow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/photo_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Slide Show</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Coast-to-Coast</a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft lastArticleInline" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?pagewanted=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse&scp=2" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="126" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/23/travel/23bike-map/23bike-map-thumbWide.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block;" width="190" /><span class="mediaOverlay map" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/map_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Map</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?pagewanted=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse&scp=2" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"></a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/07/travel/onwheels-topic/onwheels-topic-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">Bruce Weber</h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em;">In 1993, Bruce Weber cycled across America. The series, “On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.,” appeared in The New York Times.</div></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/travel/reporter-to-cross-the-nation-on-2-wheels-again.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Crossing the Nation on 2 Wheels — Again</a> (July 10, 2011)</h6></li>
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<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/travel/a-cyclist-in-north-dakota-tougher-and-smarter-about-limits.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Lessons of a Daybreak Rider</a> (September 4, 2011)</h6></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Perhaps you sense a larger metaphor looming ahead. Good for you, because here it comes. I decided to make this trip in the first place because I felt my résumé for adventure wasn’t keeping pace with my advancing age. Unlike my last trip, which I viewed, somewhat contradictorily, as both a young man’s errand and a farewell to youth, this one, at age 57, has been about my encroaching mortality, no doubt about it, and when I compare the two journeys I recognize in the current one the frailty of age. I’m slower. I’m less eager to ride long days and long hours and ride with the sun going down. I’m much more concerned about finding a place to stay and knowing early in the day where I’ll be spending the night. Never an especially intrepid downhiller, I now ride the brakes on a steep incline like a grandfather. And though I’ve been thinking all across the country that there is simply more auto traffic than there used to be, and that roads that felt safe 18 years ago are now riddled with hazard, it occurred to me recently that I’m simply more attuned to cars on the road and no longer blithely unconcerned about them. To put it bluntly: I’m more of a chicken.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">All that acknowledged, my decision to ride cross-country again was a great one. Not because I’ve staved off anything grim, but because I’ve found a new way to think about my life — as a self-powered trip across the country. What is distance, after all, but experience?</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Maybe you will scoff. O.K., it’s a little facile. But what I’m trying to do here is spin the cliché, not fall back on it. I don’t declare that life is a journey. I do think what I’ve discovered is that a journey can add depth and dimension to a life and even, in retrospect, represent it.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Among other things, my path through the nation has made me far more conscious and appreciative of the nation. I’m not just speaking of the scenic highlights, though the Columbia River Gorge in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/oregon/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Oregon Travel Guide.">Oregon</a>, <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/montana/glacier-national-park/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Glacier National Park Travel Guide.">Glacier National Park</a> in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/montana/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Montana Travel Guide.">Montana</a>, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/north-dakota/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the North Dakota Travel Guide.">North Dakota</a>, the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Itasca State Park in Minnesota, and the Great Allegheny Passage, where the fall colors were on vivid, spectacular display, are enough to make a patriot out of a cynic.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">This was an American journey by a New Yorker who became more American as he went along. By virtue of absorbing almost 4,000 miles of thrilling landscape, inch by inch, I learned more about topography and how it figures in the identities of thousands of localities and millions of Americans than I had ever understood.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Is there any way for a cyclist, especially one from a vertical metropolis, not to be awestruck by northern Montana? It took me two weeks to cross its vast expanse, from the dauntingly magisterial Rockies in the west to the endless, wind-whipped flatland of the east, where the towns are dots on the highway dozens of miles apart, pulsing on the prairie like blips on a colossal oscilloscope.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Easterners, city dwellers and certainly Manhattanites tend to view the West with a kind of dismissive interest in its vastness and little interest at all in its variations. But it was striking to me how equally remote regions are hewn by different forces. In the Palouse of eastern Washington, where the golden wheat fields were so blanched by the summer sun that they seemed to reflect the light, life revolves around the heat and the harvest. A month after I left there, I passed through the flood-riddled plains of eastern North Dakota, where crops have been compromised, grazing land for sheep and cattle has been submerged (so have a number of roads, which seriously complicates getting from one small town to another), and everyone I spoke to, ranchers, hotel clerks, waitresses and pharmacists, joked unhappily about scanning the sky for the next cloudburst on the horizon.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div><div class="articleBody" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><nyt_text></nyt_text><br />
<div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em;">In the heartland — Minnesota, <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/wisconsin/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Wisconsin Travel Guide.">Wisconsin</a>, Michigan, Ohio — day after day I traversed enormous farms, and the sheer acreage of corn and soybeans, not to mention the huge grain silos and mammoth tractors and hay trucks, testified to the unending labor of farmers. They were always out working in the rain, and as I rode by, sodden myself, they always waved.</div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><h6 class="kicker" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">IN TRANSIT BLOG</h6><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/22/travel/lifeisawheel-bike/lifeisawheel-bike-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 5px;">Bruce Weber cycled across America — from Oregon to New York. Read about his journey on <a href="http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-is-a-wheel/" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">In Transit</a>.</div><ul class="refer" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/bullet4x4.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.45em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/29/travel/biketour.html" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Map" border="0" height="12" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/multimedia/icons/map_icon.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: 1em;" width="12" /> A Map Charting Bruce Weber's Route</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft firstArticleInline" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><span class="mediaOverlay slideshow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/photo_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Slide Show</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/23/travel/20111023-bike.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Coast-to-Coast</a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft lastArticleInline" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="wideThumb" style="margin-bottom: 4px; width: 190px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?pagewanted=3&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse&scp=2" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><span class="mediaOverlay map" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/map_icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 4px 4px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-top: -20px; opacity: 0.8; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 3px;">Map</span></a></div><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?pagewanted=3&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse&scp=2" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"></a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"></h6></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/07/travel/onwheels-topic/onwheels-topic-thumbStandard.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><h3 style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/series/on_wheels_america_at_10_mph/index.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.</a></h3><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">Bruce Weber</h6><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em;">In 1993, Bruce Weber cycled across America. The series, “On Wheels: America at 10 M.P.H.,” appeared in The New York Times.</div></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/travel/reporter-to-cross-the-nation-on-2-wheels-again.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Crossing the Nation on 2 Wheels — Again</a> (July 10, 2011)</h6></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-and-hitting-a-well.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: After 500 Miles, Hitting a Wall</a> (August 14, 2011)</h6></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/travel/a-cyclist-in-north-dakota-tougher-and-smarter-about-limits.html?ref=travel" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Life Is a Wheel: Lessons of a Daybreak Rider</a> (September 4, 2011)</h6></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">In addition to America, there were, of course, Americans. We New Yorkers can be hideously provincial, so enamored of our high-cultural advantages that we lord our sophistication over the rest of the population. An island off the coast of America — so goes the smug definition of Manhattan. Here is what I have to say about that after not being home for three months. <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/new-york/new-york-city/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the New York City Travel Guide.">New York City</a>remains the national center of conversation; one thing I’ve missed on the road is the kind of verbal dexterity that you can find in any Manhattan bar. But one thing we could use more of in the city is the inclination toward benevolence.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">By the lights of my experience over the past three months, in most of America, the default temperament is decency. O.K., there were a few beer cans tossed at me out the windows of pickup trucks. But strangers have gone out of their way for me regularly, to give me a lift over construction sites or unridable gravel, to help me find a place to stay when none were evident, to do me simple favors when there was no actual reason to do so except the inclination to be kind. To give one example, I was on the road late one afternoon in the middle of Montana, and with 25 miles to Chester, the next town, and my strength flagging, I called the sheriff’s department to ask where I might stay that night. The woman who answered — I wish I could remember her name — not only called the two motels in town to find me a room (and called me back to say I had a reservation) but also asked if I needed her to send someone out on the highway to pick me up.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">“We do that all the time,” she said. “A lot of cyclists through here, and it’s a long way between towns.”</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">It’s hard not to be grateful for that attitude.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">MANY moments on the trip have revealed me to myself. I knew, before I started, how rigorous the trip was going to be — I’d done it before, after all — but I was unprepared physically. I can confess it now: the first two weeks I nearly gave up and flew home half a dozen times, thinking I could feign an injury. But I didn’t. The stick-to-it-iveness I needed to build up the stamina in my legs and my lungs was something I didn’t know I still had. As I approached the Rocky Mountains, I was sad, disappointed, weary, self-doubting. I was living with the kind of perpetual lump in my throat that I have associated for 40 years with the aftermath of a broken teenaged heart.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The turning point was Aug. 13, the day I crossed the Continental Divide on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. The ride to the top of the divide features an 11-mile climb that rises about 3,500 feet to Logan Pass, 6,646 feet above sea level. Intimidated, I’d intended to go around it, get through the mountains over a lower, less challenging and interesting pass, until a stranger at a lunch counter in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/montana/whitefish/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276;" title="Go to the Whitefish Travel Guide.">Whitefish</a>, Mont., shrugged and said it seemed awfully silly to be so close to one of the justly celebrated rides in America and not take advantage of it.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">He was, of course, correct, and two days later I set off from<a class="meta-classifier" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/montana/glacier-national-park/46943/lake-mcdonald-lodge/hotel-detail.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: #004276;" title="">Lake McDonald Lodge</a> in the waning dark of early morning, pedaled for nearly an hour as the sunrise glowed pink and orange behind the mountains and began the ascent with trepidation. My thighs and glutes strained and started to burn, but for three miles, my enthusiasm grew. Eight miles from the top the road makes a hairpin turn, ceases being a forest road and begins a series of switchbacks along a mountain precipice. The views are progressively gasp-inducing, but so was my muscle-weariness. I crept uphill, but, importantly, I kept creeping. At the top, the relief, the wonder, the thrill were previously unimaginable. The 17-year-old girl I longed for as a 17-year-old boy had just kissed me. It was exactly like that.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">One of the things that makes me feel as though this bike ride is like my life is that it has been long enough in both time and distance that I can’t remember everything about it. Details, for example, from my several days’ ride through the Montana Hi-Line, the plains near the Canadian border, are hazy, the towns I stopped in mixed up in my head. Was that meal in Chester or Malta? The picture I took of the silos and the passing freight train — was that before or after I took a rest day in Havre? It’s hard for me to believe that the bike ride I’m on now is the same bike ride I was on then.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">But of course it is. The other day in eastern Ohio I turned a corner from a lonely country lane onto a better-used thoroughfare, a two-lane highway with a yellow center stripe and a very slender shoulder with a raggedy edge that dropped off dangerously into a cornfield. There wasn’t much traffic, and it was the sort of road I’ve been on a lot, though it always makes me a little nervous to share a lane with drivers who don’t expect a lot of company and hurtle by at high speed.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The moment I made the turn I had a vision, the kind of flash before your eyes that people call déjà vu. Maybe it was the time of day, late afternoon with its pretty, angled sunlight. Maybe it was the fact that there was sunlight at all; I’d been riding in wet weather for several days. Maybe it was the precise height of the corn or the precise width of the shoulder. Maybe it was the sense of anxiety at having to trust the drivers coming up behind me after happy hour had begun. Maybe it was my level of exhaustion. Whatever the stimulus, I saw in my mind’s eye a road outside McMinnville, Ore., that I’d ridden at the end of the second day of my journey. I suddenly recalled that whole day’s ride with utter clarity, from the Oregon coast on a rainy morning, along the twisty, forested bank of the Nestucca River, and out into a sunny valley with the foothills of the Cascades in the distance. It was as though I’d encountered a college friend I hadn’t seen in years and together we reconstructed the memory of a wild party in 1972. I love the idea that the bike trip, in and of itself, has its own vanished but recoverable memories. Perhaps there will be more of them before I’m done.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">I hope it’s true that when you read this I’ll be home. I’m ready for the ride to come to its natural end, but I don’t want to anticipate it or celebrate it before it happens or even to talk about it. Eighteen years ago, from the time I crossed into Manhattan on my bike, I became the guy who had ridden across the country. But I’m no longer as eager to put the past behind me as I was in the past. If there’s one thing the ride this time has impressed on me, it’s that the present is where I want to live. Never wish away distance. Never wish away time.</div><div id="pageLinks" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 2.1em; text-align: right;"><a class="previous" href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/travel/bicycling-across-the-country-bruce-weber-reflects.html?pagewanted=2&sq=bruce%20weber&st=cse&scp=2" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 66, 118); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(0, 66, 118); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(0, 66, 118); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 66, 118); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #004276; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 2px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;" title="Previous Page">« PREVIOUS PAGE</a><br />
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<div class="authorIdentification" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">BRUCE WEBER is a reporter for The New York Times.</div><div><br />
</div></div></div></div></div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-80906497453525522592011-10-11T12:01:00.001-05:002011-10-11T12:02:48.034-05:00Random Acts of KindnessI got a new wheel set yesterday and was extremely excited to go out and ride today. As I rolled out of my driveway, it was like riding on air; the resistance was so minimal. It may have been the placebo effect or perhaps due to the upgrade in gear, but I flew today with what seemed little effort; so little, in fact, that I looked for a flag to see if I had a tailwind pushing me! (It was, in fact, a slight headwind). So I rode with glee, smiling like a fool, until....<b><u>BOOM</u>! </b>The rear wheel blew out.... (and, of course, it had to be the rear since that is the more difficult one to change)<br />
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I pulled off the road, and began making the preparations to change the tire. I was anticipating a struggle since, not only was the wheel set new, but also the tire. This meant it would be tight on the wheel, and hard to remove. As I pulled my tire changing gear out of my seatbag, the CO2 cartridge went rolling out. It was empty. I had lent it to someone in need, and forgot to replace it. Great.<br />
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Just about then, a Toyota Avalon pulled up, and a man got out, asking me if I needed help or a ride. Not shy to turn down the offer, I immediately accepted the ride. His name was Tim, and he and his wife drove me all the way back to my house. I am so grateful for that random act of kindness, and now, I get to pay it forward.<br />
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Tim, if you read this.....a big thank you to you and your wife! I hope to see you out on the road someday!Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-33270818279822601982011-09-01T22:02:00.001-05:002012-07-26T17:01:21.689-05:00Scorching Sun, Blazing Saddles....UtahUtah........land of the Mormans, Moab and Misery. Even though I had headed out to ride there at 8:30 am, I miscalculated how long it would actually take to get to the jump off site, and didn't begin pedaling until almost 10:30. The temperature was still in the 80's, so with a full camelbak and two water bottles, I parked my car at a convenience store and began pedaling towards <a href="http://www.utah.com/nationalsites/hovenweep.htm">Hovensweep National Monument</a>. <br />
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In this remote area, these are ancient Pueblo Indian ruins, dating back to 900 AD. The village is estimated to have been home to 2500 people. Now, however, as I rode through desolate landscape, I could see that it is home to only a handful of hardy souls. It's a hard life here, as evidenced in the many beer and alcohol bottles that litter the roadside. The route into the park goes through a Navajo reservation, and, as I have witnessed in other reservations, proof of rampant alcohol use is obvious.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-37fL74GHJ3k/TmAZBB50iBI/AAAAAAAAEXk/D6xRuBr8VHU/s1600/Utah+%252834%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-37fL74GHJ3k/TmAZBB50iBI/AAAAAAAAEXk/D6xRuBr8VHU/s320/Utah+%252834%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Piles of beer and booze bottles....they are everywhere along the road</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-501_vyTZB0I/TmAY7AWCpXI/AAAAAAAAEXc/VKFGCeLK_Ok/s1600/Utah+%252830%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-501_vyTZB0I/TmAY7AWCpXI/AAAAAAAAEXc/VKFGCeLK_Ok/s320/Utah+%252830%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Under the morning sun, the bottles glisten like lights on a Christmas tree.</td></tr>
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The land here is desolute...it is a desert. Nothing breaks the montonous brown except for the gun metal grey of the asphalt road. Even that has faded, though the Federal government has spent a considerable amount of money paving that which was once dirt and repaving the deteriorated areas. So a new black line now snakes through the territory instead of a faded gray one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thank you, Mr Obama for the new roads and the work</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LTj9QSYks1w/TmAt90TKdaI/AAAAAAAAEX0/II0dxMiWSbY/s1600/Utah+%252824%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LTj9QSYks1w/TmAt90TKdaI/AAAAAAAAEX0/II0dxMiWSbY/s320/Utah+%252824%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old road....cattle guard....new road</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AvbWycF4GEw/TmAt9D9-V4I/AAAAAAAAEXw/jN_Ye-T9Y64/s1600/Utah+%252822%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AvbWycF4GEw/TmAt9D9-V4I/AAAAAAAAEXw/jN_Ye-T9Y64/s320/Utah+%252822%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New road...thank you very much Mr Obama, but did it have to be chipseal?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f3cGMQEUung/TmAt5itACPI/AAAAAAAAEXs/aCDSsuRw-Es/s1600/Utah+%252822%2529+chip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f3cGMQEUung/TmAt5itACPI/AAAAAAAAEXs/aCDSsuRw-Es/s320/Utah+%252822%2529+chip.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chipseal.....brand new chipseal....</td></tr>
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For those of you that don't know, chipseal is an extremely durable surface, but it is also very, very rough. It is almost like cobblestone, but the stones aren't as large and they are impregnated into asphalt. So what this meant to me as a bicyclist was, that not only was the surface very bumpy, but also sticky with new ashalt....that equals a lot of resistance. It means that one has to pedal even when going down hill. The asphalt was so new that there wasn't a mark in it. It was beautiful to look at, but there weren't even the smoother wear marks in which to ride.<br />
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Additionally, the temperture was rising quickly, creating big head and crosswinds. Once the temperature climbed above 102 degrees, the wind picked up considerably and ceased to be cooling; it created more resistance against which to ride. It was like opening a hot oven while sticking to melted chewing gum!<br />
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This was my ride--43 miles in the desert. I think I must have been half baked to have attempted this in the summer.....(half baked.....nah, try fully fried!) I was fortunate, though, that traffic was extremely light, and I only had to share the road a few times.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Open Range.....</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HBCOQeD33rk/TmAubh0V7wI/AAAAAAAAEYg/qaa2DjDamEI/s1600/Utah+%252848%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HBCOQeD33rk/TmAubh0V7wI/AAAAAAAAEYg/qaa2DjDamEI/s320/Utah+%252848%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With the paint</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlP338n6m_c/TmAuXzlhxSI/AAAAAAAAEYc/WLtC_NdosfQ/s1600/Utah+%252847%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlP338n6m_c/TmAuXzlhxSI/AAAAAAAAEYc/WLtC_NdosfQ/s320/Utah+%252847%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With the sorrel</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9HlhSpEFXHs/TmAuUr3rrNI/AAAAAAAAEYY/mOuu5omT4tU/s1600/Utah+%252845%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9HlhSpEFXHs/TmAuUr3rrNI/AAAAAAAAEYY/mOuu5omT4tU/s320/Utah+%252845%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">and his brother horse</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTs3szKFdgk/TmA4uLjy_mI/AAAAAAAAEY8/Xs_BUMgh4Fc/s1600/Utah+%252818%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTs3szKFdgk/TmA4uLjy_mI/AAAAAAAAEY8/Xs_BUMgh4Fc/s320/Utah+%252818%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With the sheep</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGYlOUTVpJQ/TmA4swrcRUI/AAAAAAAAEY0/3VV4e8CZpHY/s1600/Utah+%252813%2529cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGYlOUTVpJQ/TmA4swrcRUI/AAAAAAAAEY0/3VV4e8CZpHY/s320/Utah+%252813%2529cows.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And those pesky cows</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_CbJlpIYlHE/TmA6ubYvRZI/AAAAAAAAEZE/l1q9jv7uxIE/s1600/Colorado+%252811bulfulo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_CbJlpIYlHE/TmA6ubYvRZI/AAAAAAAAEZE/l1q9jv7uxIE/s320/Colorado+%252811bulfulo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And the buffalo....but they were pretty far away.<br />
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Interesting enough, there was also a baseball diamond....America's favorite pass time. I cannot imagine playing in this heat, but obviously, someone has watch "Field of Dreams".....</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6cx6x2I0-Ag/TmA7fVbQflI/AAAAAAAAEZI/F12-UI66NqI/s1600/Utah+%252811%2529build+it....jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6cx6x2I0-Ag/TmA7fVbQflI/AAAAAAAAEZI/F12-UI66NqI/s320/Utah+%252811%2529build+it....jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Build it, and they will come"</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m6QxJL07odM/TmA7gJmZiPI/AAAAAAAAEZM/vVYhi6ViwF0/s1600/Utah+%252812%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="189" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m6QxJL07odM/TmA7gJmZiPI/AAAAAAAAEZM/vVYhi6ViwF0/s320/Utah+%252812%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dugouts.<br />
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I reached Hovenweep with an empty camelbak and two empty water bottles; that is 80 ounces of water in 20 miles. It was hot! My face was so crusted with salt that it looked like it was part of the Great Salt Flats; all I had to do was rub it and I could give myself a microdermabrasion! No wondered people were staring! At least, for once, I knew it wasn't because of my spandex shorts! </div>
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I rested and cooled down before heading back; I just did not have the energy or enthusiasm to tour the park and see the wonderful ruins. I will save this for another time when I am in an air-conditioned car. Right now, though, I still had to cycle back in this heat. <br />
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As I departed the ranger station with full water bottles, a full camelbak, and freshly applied sunscreen, I happened to notice that my bike thermometer registered 107*. Despite the reading, I felt good and was grateful that it was a dry 107 instead of the humid triple digits in Dallas. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Relentless, blazing sun</td></tr>
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I truly do not know how our ancestors lived here and traversed the area in their heavy, long dresses and stiff shoes. I guess I am a weinie....I was struggling in my light clothing. It was scorching hot....<br />
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There are two kinds of quitting; mental and physical. I've had plenty of experience of the mental quitting--allowing myself to make excuses and succumb to the mental conversation of "I can't". Physical quitting is when the body just can't go on any further. On this ride, I experienced the latter. <br />
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As I reached my start point, I was short on my mileage to make 50 miles, so I turned right and continued to pedal. To that point,, I had been ignoring the growing and pounding headache; I also decided to disregard the cold chills. I've experienced both these symptoms before, and knew my body was beginning to go into heat exhaustion. However, on this ride, I only had 7 more miles and I could just push through it....it's only seven miles. I wasn't far into picking up this mileage when I began to get nauseous. This is when I knew I was being foolish; my body was quitting, and I had better heed the warning. I turned around and returned to the car.<br />
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I must say, the drive home was challenging; I was very light headed and sick to my stomach. I don't regret not finishing the qualifying mileage; I did the right thing. It did take me several days before I felt normal again.....<br />
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Desert everywhere...........<br />
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com0Hovenweep National Monument, 81321, USA37.3711985 -108.9544824000000237.2983845 -109.18645790000002 37.4440125 -108.72250690000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8399441333478219006.post-12499171428871465412011-08-30T18:10:00.001-05:002012-07-26T17:01:47.740-05:00Hills.....Hell ....ColoradoNow that Wyoming was under my belt, I headed to Colorado. With an appointment to keep in Montrose the following day, I drove straight from Jackson to a little place called, Fruita. Now, I ask you, who would name a town <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruita,_Colorado">Fruita</a>? Well, obviously, at one time there was a lot of fruit grown there...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In 1886, for the cost of $500, a farmer could buy five acres, 200 fruit trees and water</span>. In 2011, it boast fabulous mountain biking, Jurassic age dinosaur fossils, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_National_Monument">Colorado National Monument</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Cliffs">Book Cliffs</a>. <br />
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The following morning, disappointed at missing Dinosaur National Park, I decided I would bicycle Monument park instead; unfortunately, I overslept, and I didn't have time to ride and make it to Montrose for my appointment. I would have to be satisfied with driving through the park instead. I would ride in Colorado later in the day, anyway. <br />
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I headed out to the park; I was told the vistas and scenery were not to be missed, and it was on the way to Montrose. As I entered the park, I unsuccessfully convinced the ranger that I was a Senior citizen, and had to pay full price...not even telling her that Kroger considered me a Senior worked. She didn't believe I was under 15 either.... </div>
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Once in the park, I passed a lot of cyclists heading up the pass, which was long and steep; my four cylinder KIA seemed to be straining more than they were. Up we climbed and as the valley floor became smaller and smaller, the drop offs more severe, I began to sweat and clench the steering wheel. The views were certainly breath-taking, but who was able to look. We were so high, and I am very afraid of heights!! It was indeed fortunate that I woke up late, as I don't know if I could have cycled these roads, with no guard rail and a plunge of many thousands of feet if I were to go over the edge. </div>
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Stopping to take pictures at the marked turn-outs, I clutched the fence in one hand, while snapping to photo with the other. This proved to be quite amusing to some young Danish tourists, who thought it hilarious that the edge made me so nervous. As the boys then began to 'plank' on overhanging rocks, I left; I could't bear to watch. Walking down the trail, I could hear their peals of laughter at my cowardice.....</div>
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I made it to Montrose on time, then drove on to Durango, which took me on the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_550">Million Dollar Highway</a>". Again, the plan had been to cycle here, but fortune was shining on me again as it was raining....and I don't cycle in the rain if I can help it--too dangerous, too unpleasant, (usually) and too much clean up after the ride. So, once again, the 4 banger KIA and I struggled up the steep, winding incline. It was obvious to me at this point that Monument Park was just a precursor for this adventure....it was to get me ready. I was so scared that I actually had tears running down my cheeks....and I was going to cycle this?? I guess riding in Colorado will have to wait......</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Million_Dollar_Highway_10_2006_09_13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Million_Dollar_Highway_10_2006_09_13.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Million Dollar Highway....and you wondered why I was scared.....</td></tr>
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Enjoy the following pictures; I risked life and limb taking some of them....</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kXJC7oPCO78/Tl1gLZE2b9I/AAAAAAAAEW0/gXn5I_IljEI/s1600/CO+%25289%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kXJC7oPCO78/Tl1gLZE2b9I/AAAAAAAAEW0/gXn5I_IljEI/s320/CO+%25289%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinosaurs everywhere in Frutia, CO</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jdCJakbmLQY/Tl1gIdJvTQI/AAAAAAAAEWw/ZdBvDn-0KrQ/s1600/CO+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jdCJakbmLQY/Tl1gIdJvTQI/AAAAAAAAEWw/ZdBvDn-0KrQ/s320/CO+%25283%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colorado Monument Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mV1gVAucMWw/Tl1gPP515EI/AAAAAAAAEW4/fgFffFrevkU/s1600/CO+%252812%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mV1gVAucMWw/Tl1gPP515EI/AAAAAAAAEW4/fgFffFrevkU/s320/CO+%252812%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful red cliffs in Colorado Monument Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1P8Qqu8njJ8/Tl1gSZr6LdI/AAAAAAAAEW8/PmfVC3OWb9Y/s1600/CO+%252813%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1P8Qqu8njJ8/Tl1gSZr6LdI/AAAAAAAAEW8/PmfVC3OWb9Y/s320/CO+%252813%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tunnels in the limestone</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cgRa0_PXsuw/Tl1gWGiwo4I/AAAAAAAAEXA/N1LWYBPLLb4/s1600/CO+%252821%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cgRa0_PXsuw/Tl1gWGiwo4I/AAAAAAAAEXA/N1LWYBPLLb4/s320/CO+%252821%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You've seen this in car commercials with the car on top</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8W7-O0ccLWw/Tl1gZns7BVI/AAAAAAAAEXE/Kg0xeMwscPc/s1600/CO+%252826%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8W7-O0ccLWw/Tl1gZns7BVI/AAAAAAAAEXE/Kg0xeMwscPc/s320/CO+%252826%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">People are pigs; cig butts in the limestone</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Evzd2gRNy4E/Tl1gatNJHCI/AAAAAAAAEXI/hJluF4_7qcs/s1600/CO+%252831%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Evzd2gRNy4E/Tl1gatNJHCI/AAAAAAAAEXI/hJluF4_7qcs/s320/CO+%252831%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colorado Monument Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zpTtsxtJiAw/Tl1gbkMgFNI/AAAAAAAAEXM/BvyyKBPZkpY/s1600/CO+%252835%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="96" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zpTtsxtJiAw/Tl1gbkMgFNI/AAAAAAAAEXM/BvyyKBPZkpY/s320/CO+%252835%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colorado Monument Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eqAxcifDMOA/Tl1ge4fo_1I/AAAAAAAAEXQ/wVR9gShHGh8/s1600/CO+%252838%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eqAxcifDMOA/Tl1ge4fo_1I/AAAAAAAAEXQ/wVR9gShHGh8/s320/CO+%252838%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a long way down.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SUWKt6ws284/Tl1gf2NOwmI/AAAAAAAAEXU/OdiOHWJs5GY/s1600/CO+%252847%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SUWKt6ws284/Tl1gf2NOwmI/AAAAAAAAEXU/OdiOHWJs5GY/s320/CO+%252847%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clouds moving in on the Million Dollar Highway</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L4UyCgMifoo/Tl1gguzcc3I/AAAAAAAAEXY/Lw-lQ_11KCE/s1600/CO+%252850%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L4UyCgMifoo/Tl1gguzcc3I/AAAAAAAAEXY/Lw-lQ_11KCE/s320/CO+%252850%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the Million Dollar Highway</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RmsCygM3nq8/Tl1fiLR3w2I/AAAAAAAAEWs/MoXHokGd1-M/s1600/CO+%252849%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RmsCygM3nq8/Tl1fiLR3w2I/AAAAAAAAEWs/MoXHokGd1-M/s320/CO+%252849%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old cabin on the highway</td></tr>
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</div>Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497905553555190798noreply@blogger.com1