Ride Stats: 2,452 miles ridden (77% completed), 76,592' climbed, 9 days/730 miles remaining.
The days are melting away and in a very short period of time I'll be sitting on my couch wondering what happened to June and July. In the meantime, when the alarm went off this morning at 5:00AM, I nearly jumped the fence and went AWOL. Did not want to ride. I felt OK, but the routine is starting to get a bit tedious. I'm sure you've all seen "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray- well I keep expecting to hear Sonny and Cher signing "I Got You Babe" every morning. This week has been a real grind for us as we've ridden 472 miles since Monday and thats an average of nearly 95 miles per day for five days in a row. While we didn't get our fourth consecutive century in today, you get the picture.
Today's ride was 92 miles long and the weather was beautiful
(temps around 80, low humidity, blue skies) until about 2:00PM when the wind kicked up and about half the time it was running straight at us. We started the ride in very cool temps-low 50's- and clear skies and rolled over the farm country hills until about mile 30 when we dropped onto a very nice "Rails to Trails". For you non-riders this is a bike and running path that is a converted rail line. The surface was crushed limestone and it was in good condition. This surface is very ridable- not as nice as smooth asphalt- but it beats the hell out of some of the highways we've been on. The other benefits are that the grade rarely exceeds 3% and the path is usually shaded. So its a nice, albeit slow, way to cover some ground- about 30 miles in our case today. 
Since trains don't do hills so well, they often are the beneficiaries of tunnels. We rode through three significant tunnels from .25 mile to .75 miles in length. We'd have to dismount and use flashlights to find our way thru the tunnels- thought my claustrophobia would turn me into a quivering mess, but I cowboyed up and walked on through. These tunnels were big enough for a single train- fairly wide, but really tall. The ceilings were dripping water continually and there were trenches on both sides of the path to channel the water out. They also had huge doors on the ends- for what reason I cannot say for sure, but I heard a local talking about how those doors used to be manned and opened when a train approached.
The local folks put on a sag for us at one of the depots still standing along the path. There was a guy named "Ben Bikin"
dressed in period costume, riding a big wheeled bike than several riders got on and wheeled around. Theyy had a US map and invited us to stick a push pin in our hometowns. Got one dead centered on Toccoa, GA.
Our friend Gary's wife drove from their home in Madison to La Crosse last night. This morning she appeared at a road crossing on the trail at about mile 40 and we all stopped and had ice cream in various forms at a local sandwich shop. Gary had planned to ride a good bit further before heading home for a party. He got that far away look in his face as we were eating and I asked him if was planning to do what I would do in his place (bail out immediately) and he said, "Yeah, I think so". So Gary went AWOL and headed for civilization. I am very jealous. I don't think we'll ever see Gary again- man I miss him.
