4-06-08 15 Miles

We woke up at 0700 at Aunt Katy’s house because my Dad said so.  I woke everyone up but then I couldn’t find Tyrone, he was not on the floor where he was when I went to bed.  When we started to eat breakfast I asked everyone where Tyrone was and they told me to look on the couch.  Yep, he was there all right and then he was up too.  We had cereal, fruit and doughnuts for breakfast.  The cereal was the healthy wheat kind and even though the doughnuts weren’t real healthy it didn’t matter too much since we will be riding bikes all day and we’ll need the energy.  We talked some more with Aunt Katy about our ride and she packed a bunch food and other supplies for us to take with us.  Jen came back so we could get everyone back into town and we said our goodbyes and took a few more pictures by the lake. When we got back to town we had a team meeting and talked about different options for the website and which route we should take today.  We decided to skip Little Rock since it was Sunday and just start riding outside of Hot Springs. While we were waiting to get the van packed we ate some food at a taco stand near the hotel and we talked with a man eating there about the ride.  He was teasing me a little and asked if I was married.   The lady at the stand was real nice and she made my tacos just the way I wanted them.  My Dad and I started our ride just north of town in the Ouachita National Forest on route 7.  We were the second riders of the day.  Ally had the first section, which turned out to be too easy for her, and she finished it in about 30 minutes, because it was mostly down hill.  My part had lots of hills and was 15 miles.  I climbed over 1500 feet in the 1:25 it took me too ride.  Finally I was so tired I couldn’t go anymore so I told my Dad I needed to stop.  We pulled over so I could rest with Jen and the boys and he rode the 6 miles into town to find the truck since our cell phones wouldn’t work in the woods.  He called when he got to town and said the van wasn’t there, but Drew came with the van a few minutes later after he picked up Ally.  My dad told me that I was about ½ mile from finishing my climbing when I quit and then it was mostly downhill for the last 5 miles into town.  I guess I could have made that but I was really tired.  I ate some lunch and replaced fluids for the next hour or so while we drove to catch the next riders.  Our last job of the day was to follow Tyrone on his ride.  He did great.  His bike ran good and he only had to tighten the crank once.  At on point he rode by a bunch of cows.  At first they were kind of afraid of him, but then they started running with him along side the fence.  It looked really funny and we took a bunch of pictures.  He rode 20 miles in 1:25 and was still feeling good at the end when we told him it was time to stop. It was dark when we got to the hotel and good thing because the place was kinda nasty.   I didn’t want to take a shower because the bathroom was gross.  My dad said I had to so I went to Ally and Arielle’s room.  While I was waiting we found a mouse in their room and we had to go get the boys to get it out.  That kind of freaked me out so I never did take a shower but we did do laundry.