As the saying goes, "what a difference a day makes". Loyal followers know (and several commented- Keith, Jack, Danny and Susie know who they are) that yesterday was my crybaby day. I whined like a little boy with a hurt finger. Oh this is too hard and that bothers me and gosh this hurts, etc..
Well, today ole cheerful Bob is back. I woke once last night at about 3:00AM and to my delight I could tell that my body was getting rested and the legs felt good. With a bit of a grin, I rolled over and slept in until, get this, 5:15AM. Holy crap- it's practically a day off. We didn't load luggage 'til 6:20, ate breakfast at 6:30 and hit the road about 7:00ish. The route today was only 70 miles and other than a 300' climb at the git-go, it trended downward all the way to Mitchell.
The ride was a two lane country road that started out OK, and then turned on us for a while with those cracks that I wrote about yesterday.
I rode with a group that included the Millers and assorted others for a while and then hopped on with Ralph, Gerard and a woman who's name escapes me. We hung together until about mile 25 when she dropped off. Ralph, Gerard and I cruised at 18-22MPH for a while and then Gerard dropped off to ride with someone else. Ralph and I finished the ride together and had a nice chat about life and careers and flying
airplanes (he's a private pilot) and life adventures, etc. The ride today was more brisk than I would have done on my own (big Ralph is a macho man who rides with the big dogs)- but still was an easy day. We were about the third or fourth riders into town, arriving at little after 11:00AM and the day was kind to me. I am back to feeling myself and have confidence in the legs for tomorrow. Life is good.
The weather today was another gem- high by our ride's end was about 80, humidity was low and the winds, for the most part, were a non factor. I continue to be amazed with the weather we've had. Probably shouldn't discuss it, but we've had it soooooo nice.
Mitchell is home to the world famous "Corn Palace"- a tourist trap on the same scale as Wall Drug. I do not plan to go see it. Instead, I'll sit in my comfortable, air conditioned motel room and prepare for tomorrow's ride- our final ride in our third leg.
Today I had lunch with Rich (an attorney from Columbus), Ralph and a guy named Topper. We were having a nice chat as we waited for lunch and somehow the subject of sailing came up. Topper told us that he had sailed around the world- twice. The first time he did it on a 27' wooden sailboat, with no electronics and it took him eight years!!. He then told us about some of his adventures and explained that he spent a grand total of $10,000 during the eight years. Unreal. He then came back to the U.S. and decided to start building sailboats and did that for a number of years, figuring that he had learned a lot about what worked and what didn't work on a long distance cruising boat. What an interesting bunch of people.
