4-04-08 Don’t Get Blown Away!

So this morning I was trying to figure out if we had an event in Tuscaloosa and instead of telling Thomsen that we didn’t have an event I told Jeff. Big mistake. We totally took a way longer route than we should have, and when I told Thomsen the news he gave me “the look”. Now let me try and explain "the look." Thomsen has this way of raising one eyebrow and kinda looking right through you. He doesn't really say anything but he just sorta looks at you and chews his lip. We've all learned that when the eyebrow goes up and the lip chewing begins that we've really screwed up. Today I got the 20 second look. Lesson learned. Remember how I was complaining about the rain yesterday? Well today I’m going to gripe about the wind. Holy crap, it's hard riding against a wind that is practically blowing you off your bike! I’m perfectly serious too. At first it wasn’t so bad because Tyrone was in front of me, so he was blocking the wind, along with most of the view. But when we were riding along flats and hills, there would be these huge gusts of wind! It was really frustrating because at one point Tyrone started speeding up in front of me and I couldn’t catch him and that really makes me mad. At any rate, the wind began to slow me down and at one point I wanted to start crying. It was so hard trying to keep up 20 miles an hour. But finally I caught up with Tyrone and then I was in higher spirits. As the ride went on it got really scary and fun at the same time. A dog started chasing us. I know Thomsen gave us contingency plans for this type of thing, but, who ever reads that stuff, and so now Im freaking out thinking this damn dog is going to jump up and cause me to crash. Jennifer was following me in the car and said she was about ready to "pick one off", because she said she didn’t want me to get hurt. Haha! But everything turned out fine, I think the dog had other things on its mind and stopped well short of the road. Overall, between the wind and hills it was a tiring ride, however I can honestly say that without Tyrone and Jennifer there to help me I probably would have given up. After Tyrone and I got done riding we had to wait for the rest of the riders. While we were waiting It started pouring rain and I was glad that my shift was done, then, just minutes later it got sunny again. There's some weird weather back here, and I thought Seattle was bad. On my second shift we were like kicking major butt. It was really cool because when I was riding I went into a sort of “zone” and instead of concentrating on the road; I just paid attention to the person’s wheel in front of me. The wheel distracted me from thinking too much about the exertion, but at the same time I was aware of everything else. It’s really hard to explain, but it was a really neat trick. We also hit a rainstorm on our second ride. It was really cool at first, seeing all of the flashes of lightning, but when the thunder came we started freakin’ out! We don’t get that much thunder and lightening in Seattle and to me this looked pretty serious. I started really freaking out as we got closer but as we rounded the corner there was Thomsen and the truck to pull us off the road. I threw my stuff in the back of the truck and ran for the car. By the way when you’re riding, hunger claws at your stomach mercilessly. I eat so much after I ride. Its like you’re about to eat your last meal. Anyway we are heading to our hotel right now so I’m so end this journal with a quote from me. “Weather can’t be controlled by anyone, so deal with it!”