This month, I fulfilled the last of a 3 part dream that began a long time ago when I envisioned getting Beverly out riding a bike. The first of them was to have her ride at the Florida Safari. The second was to ride the New River Trail and the Virgina Creeper trails in Virginia. And last and possibly the most far fetched was to ride the Katy Trail, camping our way across Missouri. Now all of these are done! Bev actually camped in a tent, on the ground, as we made our way. Surprising. I made camp every evening, giving her an easy chair almost as soon as we arrived in camp. She would take her towel and head for the shower truck. Meanwhile I got the tent up and the mattress inflated. Like all our tour events, the people were great. I can't say really great things about the scenery because Missouri is a lot like Alabama. It just looked like home. Our ride took us along a rail trail that was very, very flat but the surrounding area was hilly. The trail was so flat and straight at times it resembled the world's longest dirt road. It covered about 225 miles across the state from East to West. Most folks who had ridden both ways consider the west to east route easier. We'd like to do it again, only west to east this time. But 2009 it falls on my week to work. Of course who knows where we'll be then.
I always try to help Rachael with Hubbard/Rockford if asked. They had me down for 3 days but at last minute asked for the other day. Work at Rockford is slow so working isn't hard, but not following my usual routine tired me out a bit. I still had some work I could take care of up in Cullman. Some bushhog work and other little items but the high temps held me back a bit. I did ride my bike a little and got in some of my walking in addition to some chores. Max needed to be delivered to Charlotte, SC for his drum major camp. I volunteered to take him. I was glad to be able to perform this chore for him but the long trip up and back combined with extra heavy traffic in the Atlanta are, which extended to within 30 miles of Alabama, combined to really tire me out. There had been a problem with my left rear wisdom tooth for over a year, so I decided I should get it taken care of before I wound up isolated somewhere in PEI. The extraction didn't appear to be problematic until just be...