What a great day!!! You may say, “Bruce your title says 100 miles in the rain?” And that is correct, so how does one have a great day in 100 miles of rain?, you may ask? Well it is really quite a simple answer, and one that my friend Jerry F. Helped me see last night when I was texting back and forth with him. I knew this, but he helped bring it to light, and that is, “Life is what you make of it”. If you chose to dwell on the negative, such as 100% chance of rain all day than you are going to have a bad day. Instead I decided it was going to be a great day. I am at the end of a fantastic journey, and I want it to end on a high note!
So if I were at home and I looked at the weather and saw 100% chance of rain with periods of HEAVY rain, there would be 0% chance that I would have ridden today at home, but I am not at home. With those weather conditions, I decided to ride, and to make it a great ride, and a big ride of 93 miles wasn’t big enough for me and my friend Mark P. From Wales. We decided to add 7 more miles to make it a complete century (100 miles). Let me ask you bikers out there, have you ever done a century in the rain? Me either, so I decided to make my last “real” riding day a great century in the rain. Now my 1 and only century in the rain is the 2nd to last day on my amazing journey across the US!! Thanks Jerry for helping me see the positive, and I made it mine!
This is what I saw when we were having the morning route rap at the front door of the hotel under cover. Yup, a wet one for sure.
After a couple of miles we were into New Hampshire, I didn’t realize that we were that close to another state our second to last one last night. Below is Cathy and me.
And then about 40 miles later we were in Massachusetts. Because of the rain we were focused on the road, and traffic, and we almost missed the sign, actually we did by a few feet and had to turn around. In the picture below are Pete from Scotland in the yellow, behind him hidden is Mark from Wales, and me. We also had Peyton the New Kid with us, and Barry took the picture.
Because of the rain, the pictures were only on a “necessary to take our phones out of our zip lock baggies basis”, so no more pics from the ride today, which is unfortunate because there was a lot of beautiful stuff to see from lakes, rivers, ponds, big beautiful homes, parks, and golf courses. All was very green, when you see ferns growing on the side of the road wild, you know they get a lot of rain up here. Hence the reason they call Vermont, The Green Mountain State. Or is it because of Bruce Green?
After a couple of miles we were into New Hampshire, I didn’t realize that we were that close to another state our second to last one last night. Below is Cathy and me.
And then about 40 miles later we were in Massachusetts. Because of the rain we were focused on the road, and traffic, and we almost missed the sign, actually we did by a few feet and had to turn around. In the picture below are Pete from Scotland in the yellow, behind him hidden is Mark from Wales, and me. We also had Peyton the New Kid with us, and Barry took the picture.
Because of the rain, the pictures were only on a “necessary to take our phones out of our zip lock baggies basis”, so no more pics from the ride today, which is unfortunate because there was a lot of beautiful stuff to see from lakes, rivers, ponds, big beautiful homes, parks, and golf courses. All was very green, when you see ferns growing on the side of the road wild, you know they get a lot of rain up here. Hence the reason they call Vermont, The Green Mountain State. Or is it because of Bruce Green?
The other thing of note is the roads in Massachusetts are terrible, on a scale of bad they are just a little worse than New York roads, and New York roads were the worst until we got here. And believe it or not the Massachusetts drivers are the absolute worst and intolerant drivers of all the states that we went through. New York was the second worst, but still not even close to Massachusetts. They were not happy about us riding in the rain today and slowing them down.
Here is a picture of my new friend Mark. What a great guy, and this is at the end of the 100 mile in the rain ride today.
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And my friend, Peyton, the “New Kid”, and bike mechanic, and just a great guy.
TAnd my friend, Peyton, the “New Kid”, and bike mechanic, and just a great guy.
We have a banquet tomorrow night and a dinner tonight with our spouses, so I imagine there wil be a lot of stories told over the next hours, and tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Here is the map from today.
And the stats, a lot of climbing today, more than I thought.
Thank you for following along with me on this journey, and if you can please make a donation to the Children's Hospital below. 100% of your funds go to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital.
https://vanderbilt.ejoinme.org/bikeacrosstheusa
As a non-profit institution, the Children's Hospital provides care to the children who come through its' doors regardless of the family's ability to pay. Caring support from the community allows this level of service to continue.
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