Better Safe Than Sorry

We left Saturday morning (5/1/10) around 8:00 for our 3-day trial training ride. It was a beautiful day . . . not too hot. Ward had a hard time keeping the bike on track with our load . . . made the bike very wobbly, and I wondered how he would deal with this 4,000 miles! We did okay with hills, taking them slowly. We stopped a few times to rest and had lunch in Goshen, Va. and ate at a picnic table. Our ride on Rt. 629 to Douthat State Park was beautiful . . . nice and shady and a very pretty ride. We were tired when we got to our destination and had to ride another mile and a half to check into our campsite and then back - ugh . . . a total of 62 miles total. We got our tent set up and fixed our dinner (Hamburger Helper) which was not the most gourmet meal I've ever had and so I didn't eat much. All went well until 12:00 midnight when we felt drip, drip, drip on our faces . . . it had started to rain and we hadn't put the rain fly on the tent!! Ward rushed and got it on, and fortunately it did not rain hard. We both slept pretty well. The air matresses we got worked very nicely except they emitted an eerie sound when the air moved through them . . . I thought I was hearing something in the woods! ha I felt very tired and a bit weak the next morning and we decided not to go on to Cave Mountain Lake, but head for home. I did okay for about the first 40 miles but then was totally exhausted and didn't think I would be able to make it home. We stopped and I drank and ate and felt a little better and was able to make it home without an ounce of energy left!! I realized at that point that I could not do that every day for three months, so we had to make the grueling decision to abort our trip. Ward is absolutely the best . . . he said "I love you more than I would have loved to ride across the country." Not all is lost . . . we will continue to ride our bike, but probably without the load behind and not as far.