Campers arose to cold rainy weather on day 3 in Boone. During the night bad storms moved through central Tennessee which spurred several deadly tornadoes. Fortunately for us, the only damage that was done in our area was a loss of around 15 degrees in temperature and some wet roads. We decided to hold off a little while to let things dry out which gave some people the opportunity to go into town to do some shopping. I think everyone seemed to enjoy the extra recovery after the previous day's hard effort, I know I sure did. I also enjoyed the fact that there would be no direct sun shine and with the cool temperatures, I could comfortably wear arm warmers, knee warmers and gloves which would help protect my skin from anymore damaging UV.
Rolling out around noon, the dry roads we were waiting for quickly disappeared as the drizzle began falling again. Being all suited up with nowhere to go, we decided to keep rolling. Because some of the roads in the area weren't exactly as shown on the map, a new route for the day's shortened ride was found which included a long climb right at the start with grades that probably reached 20% in the switchbacks. Ouch, I'm so glad I sprung for that massage the day before as I would need to do everything I could to give me a positive edge. The ride was fairly uneventful with most of the excitement coming from taking wrong turns. About 16 miles down the road, Samantha, Tim, Stuart and MEB decided to turn around and head back to the cabin. I was tempted but for the first time I wasn't feeling any flu symptoms anymore so I wanted to push on a little further.
I was beginning to think there was no flat roads in this part of the country, but we found a nice little stretch on our way into the town of Todd. Here miles slipped away effortlessly while everyone was having a great time enjoying the relative flatness of this area. In Todd, we got to enjoy the days only rest stop at the local store. The architecture here has to be century old building and some of the items being sold in there might be original with the building. Neverless, the locals are all very friendly to cyclists and always eager to hear stories and find out where we've come from and how far we're going. Funny thing, on yesterday's ride, we had to leave our cabin road, go out onto Rt. 221 South to the Parkway. Rt. 221 is a 4 lane road and while we're waiting to make the left hand turn and cross over 3 lanes of traffic, all the traffic literally stops and lets us cross. I've never seen that anywhere before and I doubt I'll see that back home.
Once we left the rest stop, the rain began to fall again, but it was never hard enough to get us completely drenched so we kept rolling in lieu of finding shelter. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, but that's a good thing because that means I was feeling much better so I was no longer suffering from being sick. The ride for me finished up at a little over 40 miles. I split off from the remaining group when the route took us right by the cabin and the temptation was just too much so I decided to call it a day.
brian
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