10:30 AM
Drinking iced tea in Martha and Mary’s in Reisterstown, MD.
Our hotel for the past 2 nights had a Jacuzzi, which we did not use because it was filled with 17 year old lacrosse players. It had an exercise room, which we did not use for obvious reasons. It also had a bar, with free drinks and appetizers from 5:30 – 7:30, which we used, for obvious reasons.
Our plan last night was to have a drink, then walk to Wegman’s for dinner. But after a drink we decided that walking all the way down the road and across a parking lot was way too ambitious, so we just ate more appetizers. Judd was sitting next to us and said, “You do realize that’s like right across the street, don’t you?” So we explained our laziness, and had a few drinks with Judd – he and Dana totally clicked talking about sports cars. He invited us to his beach house in Rehobeth on our drive home.
This morning began with the ceremonial turning on of the helmets. We had to turn them off and back on again, which goes right along with watching The IT Crowd every night on Netflix. It’s a quirky British sitcom about the misadventures of 2 IT geeks. One of them always answers his phone with “Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” Which is exactly what we will say about the headsets from now on. Special thanks to our our friends Anne and Joe for turning us onto that show.
Our ride today began on a busy road, uphill with no shoulder, trucks whizzing by, but I rode it bravely – I’m trying to raise my grade to an A+ in effort. I am making a new rule for Dana, however. When we are trying to change lanes, and I ask him “are we clear back?”, he often replies “We’re clear… Enough”. From now on, the only acceptable answers are Yes and No. That Enough thing freaks me out.
7 PM
We took a few pictures today that I will share. I am not yet ready to discuss the day, but I can do pictures.
9 PM
When people ask why we are doing this, Dana says it’s our second honeymoon, which he defines as the time to forget all the old arguments, and start some new ones. So far, so good.
As you may recall, before we started this adventure, Dana said “Don’t worry, it’s only 600 hilly miles.”, and I said that “only” and “600 hilly miles” should never be used together in a sentence. Well, I’ve thought of an appropriate sentence: The only reason I am divorcing my husband is that he made me ride 600 hilly miles.
Has a nice ring to it, right?
So today we hit mile 600, and there are still more hills. And for some reason they felt even worse today, at least to me. Dana was flying up them, saying “What’s your problem. This isn’t even a hill.” We had planned a 50+ mile day, going off route for the last mile to get a hotel. A few problems with that plan:
- It wasn’t one mile off route, it was 5.
- For the entire 5 miles, every half mile, Dana said “It’s only a mile further”
- Google maps navigated us in circles through a neighborhood and a school parking lot
- We had to walk 2 miles on a highway
- When we got the hotel they had no rooms available
- We had to call 6 hotels before we got a room
And another problem… That 600 thing? Complete bullshit. I’m slugging up the hills today saying “I thought we’d be done with hills by now”, and Dana says “No, silly female. The hills don’t just disappear. They disappear gradually after the first 600.”
If anyone wants to defend him on this one, go for it. I know some of you appreciate a challenge.
Dana and Carolyn's 57 Ride 