Mary Kay started this post quite awhile ago, but she was never able to finish it. So I have decided to go ahead and post what she wrote with a few of my own comments and catch everyone up with where we are and our plan. If you remember one of the last things we talked about was putting the clipless pedals on and some minor mishaps that we had on our first trip. I worked on them a little, but each evening Mary Kay seemed to be more and more worried about them.
Here is her post -
The clip in petals are coming off of my bike. Jack has mastered them, but I have not. I really did give it a try, but every time I clicked in I broke out in a cold sweat. I kept repeating to myself, click out then stop and that was all I could think about. I could have passed the Eiffel Tower and not even noticed because I was only thinking about clicking out. I thought about all the things I would miss seeing on our trip. Jack's comments - When Mary Kay told me she was having dreams (nightmares) about riding with the clips, I knew it was time to suggest that she not worry about them and take them off. They are off and now we are focused on our trip.
We got our new seats and they seem to be just what we have been looking for, but we don't really know. For the last couple of weeks we have been having extremely high winds or rain, nearly everyday. That plus time commitments have really limited our riding. I guess we are ready to ride in the rain or into wind on our ride home, but when the comforts of home are so close it is a little hard to get out and ride. I guess if we aren't in shape when we start we will be after about ten days. Really we feel pretty good about the ride and are getting extremely excited. Yes, Ted it is going to be fun!!
We have been talking about some what ifs - we have always thought that rain may be a problem. Hopefully, we won't see much of it, but we are preparing to ride through light rains if needed. We realize that if we don't, we may never get home. A two or three days of rain and no riding would really hurt our plans to be home by the end of June.
We are using a bike route that we got through Adventure Cycling for most of the trip. We will be following the Trans AmericaTrail - catching it in Pueblo, Colorado and taking it probably south of St. Louis, Mo. Then we will head up near St. Louis and angle through Illinois, probably on Route 66. It looks like the route takes us through some pretty small towns. I am getting a little concerned that we may not find many places to camp with a shower or even a motel close on the nights we want one. A few of the items on the maps say that there are city parks that will allow us to camp, but there are no restroom facilities in the park. It usually does say that there is a restaurant across the street that will allow you to use their restroom (when they are open). I am not sure how this will work with my nightly flomax routine. This will probably give us all some interesting posts in the future.
We leave Plymouth to head to Denver on Thursday, June 27th. I am at the point in my life where I need to make lists of my To Do's. Right now my list has over 20 items on it. This post is one of them, so I am almost ready to mark it off. Anyway there are lots of things to do, between now and then. Hopefully, one more item will be to get our scholarship for Noel set up through the Marshall County Community Foundation so that people can make donations to that cause if they choose. If we get it finalized I will talk more about it in a future post.
One of the things we want to do on the trip is to meet people and perhaps interview at least one person on the road each day. I have been trying to think of things we might want to ask people to really find out something about their life in a short interview. If anyone has some ideas of thought provoking or interesting questions that we could use, let us know. I asked my colleague, Carol Myers, that question this week and she suggested a question about "hope", What do they hope for? What hope do they have for the future? Sounds like a couple of good ones. Any others out there?
Remember find something to do for others today!
PEACE - Jack and Mary Kay
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