Back to Where I Started

Okay, so the title is just a teaser to get you to read the blog. As it happens, I was born in the Palo Alto Hospital, which happens to be on Stanford University. And this afternoon, we rolled into Stanford, Montana. So, in a sense, I'm back to where I started. Stanford is a lively small town with a deliciously air conditioned public library, and to the delight of the boys, a public swimming pool! So while the kids are playing, the adults are in the library!

I just posted another blog post because we had Internet problems last night, so if you want to catch up, you'll have to read two posts today.

Only three of us rode today ... Bryce, Jonathan, and I. Ryan is taking a couple of days off on doctor's orders to rest his hand, which he broke playing basketball last winter. If a squeezer for exercise and a brace for sleeping help end the numbness in his hand, then he can rejoin us. In the meantime, Pat is enjoying having an assistant in the support wagon. Ryan takes pictures, adds his opinion on the grocery shopping, carries the heavy stuff, and even had our tents all set up by the time we rolled into the fairgrounds in Stanford for our one night stand.

The bike riding had its moments. It could have been an easy, quick day, since we were scheduled for "just" 59 miles. It was 59 miles, but that included about 5 miles of bone-rattling highway construction, where it was everything we could do to avoid destroying our bikes, much less our wrists, knees, teeth ....  And once we got on the regular highway, we had to contend with rumble strips in the bike lane (seems that every county decides how to implement rumble strips, and most of them involve placing them in such a way that they cause maximum inconvenience to bicyclists). Then we came to a traffic advisory near the top of a long hill warning about a crash on the other side of the hill. A pickup truck or a wagoneer of some sort had been hauling a house trailer behind, and either jackknifed or caught a gust of wind, and ended upside down in the ditch beside the road. It looked like everyone got out okay, but it's certainly going to ruin someone's vacation.

In spite of delays, we made it to our destination in time for lunch. And tomorrow is also a reasonably short day, followed by a day off -- at last.