Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Tallahassee, Fla.

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Our next to last day riding, and it was a memorable one. To start the day, we had a very special guest rider -- Margot, the Business Development director for HealthSouth in Dothan. Margot is a burgeoning triathelete and her presence caused the deeply proud boys to kick their normal rate up to respectable 15-17 MPH. Shortly after Margot left, after a fast 18 miles, the boys collapsed into a whining mass. Male ego is alive and well on our journey.

At about the 30 mile mark today it began to rain lightly. Within a few hundred feet, it was a raging downpour -- Mother Nature dropped about three quarters of an inch of rain on us over the next hour. And of course the boys didn't stop riding. By the time they considered it, they were already completely soaked. Mark commented that it was the first time they'd been cold since entering Alabama.

No trouble with cars at all during the first part of the rain. These photos were taken by Joe from INSIDE the truck because he decided it was just a bit too wet.

We mean it rained HARD. Eventually we put in 46 miles today, about 15 of it in the rain. The crosswinds reached over 40 MPH, tossing the boys around pretty good. The only surprising thing today was how much fun we had.

The storm started to get very bad here. At the worst point, Deputy Walton from the Decatur County Sheriff's Department escorted us the final mile and a half. You should have seen Joe's face when we walked up with the Deputy and told Joe that the State of Georgia had serious issues with him because he "forced" the boys to ride in  the dangerous weather.

Thanks for the help, Deputy Walton!

Of course, by the time the boys decided to quit riding, they were so wet that no one would let them inside a vehicle, so they portaged the last 50 miles into Tallahassee in the bed of Joe's truck, where it was a bit chilly. But the boys recovered nicely after hot showers and eventually shared a great dinner with one of Joe's sons -- named Joe, coincidentally -- and his wife Tina. We understand that both Joes will be skydiving Thursday, which should prove to be interesting.

So, here we are in Tallahassee, with only one more stop in Florida. Tomorrow we have a visitation. Thursday, skydive. Friday, Jacksonville, and then the rest of our lives.

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