A Big Ride Day -- 130 miles!

Yesterday I had the longest ride of my life. I left St. Francisville early in the morning with Sue (an emergency room doc in real life). When we got to the 25 mile point we encountered a sign that said "Bridge Out Ahead". Knowing that often roads that are closed to cars are passable by bike so we continued ahead. We saw what "bridge out" looked like when the last 10 yards of cross ties were missing. It could be walked across if one could balance on the beams that were there, but getting bikes across might be tricky. I decided I could try it by carrying my bike in my left hand and holding onto the railing with my right. (I rationalized that if I fell the ER doc was right there and could take care of me!) I got my bike across fine and then went back to get Sue's bike. She then crossed, and we proceeded on. When we got to a spot where there was cell phone reception, we called back to our guide to report that the bridge was out, and that we had already crossed. She didn't want anyone else to try to cross, but after we got up another 5 miles and stopped at a store to get water, we began to see other riders. All had harrowing stories of their bridge crossing, but we were all exhilarated that we made it and were able to continue on to our destination.

Lunch was waiting for us at the 60 mile SAG location, and we were glad to see it, since the SAG vehicle had to find another way around the bridge out location. With 60 miles down, we were game to continue on the next 65. We missed one turn, which added an extra 4 miles to our day. When we got in to Bogalusa, we had ridden 130 miles! I was fatigued, but excited that I had accomplished that goal. We had dinner and cleaned up as quickly as possible to get to bed, and the much needed sleep. Tomorrow would be another day of riding.

Today (Friday) we rode to Wiggins, Mississippi--a 53 mile journey from Bogalusa. My legs were extremely tired. I was so exhausted from yesterday's ride that I was very slow. We passed more dogs, which seemed to be a little mean, but stayed back when we told them to. We found out later that 2 of our riders had gotten bitten by those dogs, one lady rather badly. Add to that, one spill by another rider, and the day was not a good day for our group. We chalked a lot of it up to the fact that we were all so tired. The evening's State line crossing party seemed to lift spirits. Tonight it is storming very hard outside, but the day tomorrow is supposed to be nice. I hope so.

We are now in our sixth state, and I keep reminding myself that I have ridden my bicycle from San Diego to Mississippi! That's really amazing when you think about it. In less than 2 weeks I will be at the Atlantic ocean--realizing the completion of a dream of a lifetime!