On Sunday the weather did not cooperate. We had intended to go out in the morning again for another, probably not as long, ride. But when we woke up the skies were overcast and it looked like rain. All day it would go back and forth - sunny - ominous. And basically we totally could have ridden. But chickened out for fear of the crazy little storms that have been going around and terrorizing my plants.
So anyways, it was determined that we absolutely must get out today. The goal was 30 miles. And a secondary goal was to keep the pace at 12 mph or above. And Jo decided just to torture me even more by riding out ahead at faster rates thereby forcing me to be all somewhat speedy like.
When we reached just over 15 miles we stopped, had a snack, and then turned back around (thereby avoiding the nasty hills - yay).
One of the awesome part of our rides (except for all of the other people one must not hit) is riding along riverfront park. For those of you not familiar with Riverfront park it's just a thin strip of land that runs for quite a few miles along the Susquehanna and downtown Harrisburg. It is quite pretty.
Today we went both down and then back up riverfront park. At first it was just a normal trip back up. I was tired but still going. Then probably a third of the way up there was a bright flash of lighting off over somewhere a few miles on the other side of the river. And along with the singular lighting were giant grey clouds. Uh-oh.
It is also notable that riverfront park is still a good 10 miles or 45 minutes to an hour from home.
Jo made some comment about how we were going to get wet, we started contemplating various places to seek shelter (underpasses, gazebos, public buildings with overhangs...), and began to pick up the pace. Jo says we were doing about 15 mph back up the trail. I just know that it felt like I was going as fast as I possibly could (which was true).
We kept going and going up riverfront, to the east/north through a suburb, up over an evil bridge which is going through construction work. All as it got gloomier and gloomier.
On the other side of the bridge was the first really ideal safe-haven (a large gazebo in a nice park) but I opted to keep going as it was right after a downhill into a long straight stretch which I figured was the last I'd be able to crank out. On we went.
I promptly regretted continuing. And after a bit more it started truly raining on us, lightly as of yet. But we could see the rain off just a bit to our right (our west at that point).
Then the gusts of wind started hitting us. The rain I could deal with. I don't like being wet, and it was cold, but I could still peddle. The wind however...that stuff nearly stopped me in my tracks.
The rain was picking up and so we rode in to shelter under an overhang on the local community college campus. We contemplated who we could call to come rescue us as it began to serious pour. And by luck of the draw it seemed like there was no one around to rescue us.
After just a bit the rain seemed to be slacking off. From our shelter, looking south, it had never seemed like we were really in the storm. The sky was overcast but not stormy. It seemed like the storm was passing to our North!
Sure enough just about then my valiant prince charming returned my call. But given that his noble steed of a tiny black two door wouldn't be able to transport our bikes anyway I voted for continuing the ride and we'd call him if it got bad again.
Off we went again. There were some drops but the closer we got to home the more dry it seemed. We rolled into our garage at approximately 8:45 having left sometime around 5:40. Slightly drowned-rat-esque, but really no worse for the wear (at least so far).
Once I managed to move off of the couch we got ice cream from Friendlies being as they sent us a coupon and their marketing ploy worked and has had me craving ice cream the past few days.
It is way late now being as I had a project I needed to complete so I want to sleep. But first something needs to be mentioned of the fact that I've met goal #1!!!!!!!
Millions of thanks to everyone who donated. I really need to spend a better entry devoted to how much all of your support really means to me!
Thank you so much!
:-)
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