Thursday, July 15, 2010

exhaustion


I've made it down. Today was a long ride but a great one. I left Allegra's house at 6 am and rode the 130 miles to Mona's without incident. Was lovely. The weather was still cool and the traffic was minimal.

Mona and Billy's farm is absolutely breathtaking and it was really great to see them both. They are both doing so well and happy. Mona and Billy are both big shots at civil war re enactments with their horses. I mean serious serious stuff. Listening to Billy talk about this while flipping through the pages of their ride pictures and media shots was fascinating. You could truly see how happy they were.

Their "driveway" is close to a mile long and all gravel LOL. I ended up riding my bike along the hay fields instead as some of the spots were really deep tire sucking gravel.

After leaving there I headed down 81 where everyone was going to head to the roadrunner rally. I had lunch at Cracker Barrel and I met a couple who was traveling down and had been paced with me since Maryland. They said they recognized me by my jacket markings (good to know that the jacket is working for visibility!). I then continued on 81 for what seemed like FOR FREAKIN EVER. I stopped in at all the rest areas to see if I could meet up with some of the riders. At one rest area I looked down and noticed that my back seat bag had pushed my saddle bag down onto my exhaust. My saddle bag melted and ended up smoldering on my exhaust. UGHHHHH. so gross. the stuff just DOES NOT come off and I wrecked my bag in the process. I'll modify my saddle bags in the am. I'm too tired to deal right now.

So after two rest stops I pulled into the third and parked. Tim and Gwen, road runners, came up to me and asked me if that was where I was headed. After some chit chat in the shade we all suited up again and did the last 80 miles together and met 2 other riders along the last leg. Today was a 500 mile day... I'm turning in.

we had our welcome dinner and our safety seminar tonight. I thought Fred was going to have to kick me under the table to keep me awake. I even turned down people watching in the bar tonight for dear dear sleep. I also found out that my chrome helmet doesn't deflect the high heat from the sun but actually intensifies it.... My poor face is slightly crispy even with 30 sunblock.

I can't wait for tomorrow. Our ride is through North Carolina and Tennessee. Our tour leader is a Road Runner (for those who don't know what road runner is.. it's a magazine dedicated to motorcycle touring riders) journalist.

Night night.

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