Next week at this time....

Just keep it calm and quiet from now on....

    The trouble with the tour winding down is that I don't really want anything too dramatic to happen because I want to make sure I get to the end safely as do all the other riders. So I'm looking for a Really Boring Week to make sure all goes well, which won't make for a really interesting blog.
     Today we are in Mariana FL, a nice little town in the middle of nowhere, and tomorrow we ride 54 miles on to Quince, another place on the way across the middle of Central Florida. Today was a long 94 miles ride along Route 90 east which I decided was way too much for me after two 65 mile riding days. I felt really tired in the morning so I opted for a Day of Rest, and sat in the van with three of the other riders, speeding along the road. We stopped at Winn Dixie, where Carol and Linda shopped for the last week so we had lunch at the Subway opposite. Then we drove on to the Days Inn in Mariana which has a pool, but no hot tub, and I found my room and decided to go for a swim and read in the sun - it's about 80 degrees though the pool water is still cool.
      Before that, Judy and Pat and  I had icecream at the closest place, the PoFolks Café next door where I had a peach cobbler with vanilla icecream and pink lemonade. Then  we checked out the Super WalMart which is amazingly full of stuff that is so cheap it's almost sinful not to buy it. I got some Bandaids, and a chocolate bar, and that was about it.
      When I came back, I put on the Dauphin Island swimsuit and went for a swim - cool and refreshing but so nice to be in the water. The pool chairs invited me to sit in the sun reading the autobiography of Rosanne, Johnny Cash's daughter, which is a great story of a complicated life of singing and song-writing as the daughter of someone famous. About 3 the others started coming in after their long ride. The only excitement was a baby goat getting caught in a fence so one rider went and rescued it and the mother goat and baby goat bleated in excitement. And two riders who stopped for lunch along the way had their meal paid for by an older couple who admired them. Such are the joys of cross-country biking.
       I felt as if I'd been on vacation for a day, which was delightful, and was quite ready for dinner with everyone else. Tomorrow's ride is only 54 miles  - as I can now say quite calmly- so I plan to ride out with everyone at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning..