Day 28 TABR 2017

LAST DAY??? Maybe

Started stirring in the Cookie house before 0500. The four hours or so of sleep went by fast and I was itching to get the day going. Found some eggs and bread in the fridge and quickly cooked up some eggs. First self cooked meal of the trip. Made some extra eggs for Clay who was also up. There was nothing to wash the pan or plates with so I did the best I can with some hotel shampoo. Lochie was not waking up and would stay behind. Actually, Lochie would be taking a two day break and stay with our angels from the night before, Gretchen and Christopher.

Let's see how far I can go today. I had about 224 miles to Yorktown left. Getting started before 0530 hrs should help get some extra miles in. It was very exciting knowing that I was going to finish this race. I had never done anything close to this type of endurance racing and was never sure when something bad could happen. And certainly bad thing had happened so far to many racers. One death and several car taps and the scratches outnumbered the racers still in the mix. I certainly didn't think that I could be functioning so well on consecutive nights of only 4-5 hours of sleep. I had done military training and exercises that required this, but this was different.

The Cookie house Lady house.

The road were nice in these parts -- No more aggressive hills, dangerous animals or angry white guys in pick-up trucks. Breakfast number two, supplies and meet up with John at the famous Wyant's Store. I would ride with these guys for several hours all the way to Charlottesville. That was not a nice town to bike through. There was heavy construction on most routes through town which gave us riders no room to maneuver with the vast amounts of traffic. I think we picked up another rider about then, but I cant really recall. By the end of our battle through Charlottesville, I pulled into a free air station to inflate my rear tire and let the group move on. That turned out to be a mistake and I lost over 10 minutes trying unsuccessfully to get one of those city air pumps to work.

Behind the group I charged onwards down the route. The day was hot, dry, with lite wind and fairly warm. About an hour unto my chase, I decided to pull over to a shady spot and lie on a bed of pine needles. Drank the last of my water and caught a 20 minute nap. Feeling somewhat refreshed, and recharged, I resumed my way. A few more hours of riding and I could see that I was catching up to the dots of Clay and John in the town of Ashland. Met up with the guys and we decided to reward our day with a full sit down meal at a nice restaurant near the busy train tracks that went straight through this fair-size town. I ordered the linguini alfredo that was delicious and was bewildered by John ordering a rather simple salad. How does that man survive on leafy lettuce, I wondered. We took our sweet time chatting about the last few weeks and rather enjoying the company and sophistication of our meal event. We probably had an hour stop in Ashland.

Finally back on the road the three of us started our path around Mechanicsville. Once again plenty of traffic on busy roads. We quickly got separated with all the stop lights and with me in the lead I could see that the fellas were slowing down. Or was I speeding up? Two hours later in the dark, I could see that both Clay and John had stopped for the night at different locations while I pushed on. That linguini was good and I kept on going until about midnight. Not much out in that section of road except for battlefield after battlefield plaques as I crossed through Richmond National Battlefield Park. I wish I could have read some of them. Not even sure what this one says.

TIME TO CROSS THE FINISH LINE

Decided to camp it out so that I would not arrive around 0300-0400 hrs. My wife and step-son had driven down from Pennsylvania that afternoon and she told me that they were checking into a hotel around 2300hrs. I though that is wasn't fair to the family waiting for me to be making them come out to the monument that early in the day. I knew that Jacquelynn would see that I stopped and hopefully would get some rest in Yorktown. She had been following my DOT for 27 days now. I know she would not sleeping until I stopped.

LAST NIGHT

Tonight was going to be a camp out. The second outdoor night camping night. And as short as the first one in the mountains of Colorado. I spread my $2.95 Walmart tarp on the grass and wrapped it over me with my bedroll. There were some bugs and it was hot under the tarp. I did get some sleep but something called Chiggers attacked me that night. Boy are they itchy and it took weeks to get rid of them out of my skin. Night night, don't let the bed bugs bite.

That was a surprizingly good ride day. My wife recorded that I was at mile 4246.6 that night. Which means I am about 54 miles from Yorktown. 172 miles were crossed that day maybe more. The math doesn't add up now as I look at the map and data. Anyway... I am close. The finish is only hours away.